With September holding the promise of warmer spring weather, next month may also bring a new level of opportunities for investment in the property market, Norman Raad, chief executive of Broll Auctions and Sales, has predicted.
“Understanding your property and investment requirements is important during this time as opportunities now increasingly find their way to the sales platform.
“With many of the Real Estate Investment Trusts disposing of small and non-core assets to raise capital through this down cycle, buyers can acquire properties that have for many years been kept from the open market,” Raad states.
“Right now, it is certainly a buyers’ market as we find more reasonable sellers with asking prices more aligned with reality. Sellers have historically been holding out for yields way above market but the true value in properties lies in what the buyer is prepared to pay.
“There may well be an underlying value of a property but, in reality, it is only worth what someone is prepared to pay,” Raad says.
He says despite economic challenges, living in South Africa is still far cheaper than any other African state when converting selling prices into dollars.
“South Africans have learnt to adapt quickly and have begun to reinvent themselves and revised their investment strategies.
“However, we are facing unprecedented economic challenges and need to find a solution - bricks and mortar remain a real hedge in a recession.”
An office building in Vryheid is among the lots for Broll’s next major multi-property auction in Joburg on September 12.
The corporate disposal situated at 144 President Street in the northern KwaZulu-Natal town has a gross lettable area of more than 2000m² on a plot of nearly 3400m².
The property on offer is zoned General Commercial 1.
For more details, call 0877008289 or see www.brollauctions.com.