Property prices going down

[meakin]

You pay on the value at the date of valuation which is not necessarily what you paid for it. Peter Meakin. In Durban the date of valuation was July 2007, I believe.

[Dave A]

I remember talking to a bank property valuer years ago and he mentioned that bank data tends to lag behind what is actually going on in the market.

An index tracking median house prices in South Africa fell 1,8% in August from a year earlier as tough financial conditions continued to weigh on the sector, a survey showed on Monday.

Standard Bank's monthly residential property gauge has been in negative territory since March because higher interest rates and stricter credit laws introduced on June 1 2007, have weighed on the sector.

Property affordability has fallen since the central bank has raised rates by five percentage points in the past two years, stretching consumers to the limit at a time when they already face high inflation.

The median house price was R550 000 while the five-month moving average growth was recorded at 7,7% year-on-year.

Standard Bank said the August data might be a signal that the sector was stabilising, although it would remain under pressure.

"Over the short term, economic conditions are expected to deteriorate further," said Standard Bank in a statement.
full story from M&G here

Well, it's the mean average, I guess. But still not pretty.

I expect the fact that investing in property overseas is pretty attractive right now isn't going to help local markets much either.

A change in thinking among the investor community towards offshore diversification is becoming increasingly evident, driven in part by attractive yield value in several overseas property sectors.

Historically, South African property companies have been precluded from investing offshore.

Exchange-control issues aside, forward yields on foreign property investments in highly developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and other European centres have been far too low to be attractive to South African listed companies. This was because the acquisition of such foreign assets would be income dilutionary to local funds, which in turn would have had a negative effect on the acquirers' share price.

But according to Brian Azizollahoff, chief executive of Redefine Income Fund, the advantages of limited offshore diversification have made even dilutionary acquisitions somewhat palatable as there is a mitigation of risk from the perspective of geographic concentration, as well as a natural rand hedge when the local currency weakens. "What is very attractive in the current world economic climate is that there is value in the property sectors in the US, Europe and Australia never before offered. Yields on both direct property as well as listed property companies are at highs even above yields in South Africa."

So what is the significance of all this for South African offshore investors? It is, Azizollahoff says, that the significant drop in property value is by no means confined to the listed property sector. Anecdotal evidence is of prime real estate in the UK trading at yields of 8% and 9% and in the rest of Europe (for example Germany) between 10% and 12%.
full story from M&G here