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Suburbs in the Western Cape and Gauteng came out tops in the first quarter of 2019 as the most searched for nationally on the website of estate agency RE/MAX.
According to the RE/MAX National Housing Report Q1 2019 the most searched suburb was the Cape Town suburb of Parklands, followed by Glen Marais in Gauteng and Sunningdale (adjacent to Parklands in Cape Town).
The 4th and 5th most searched for suburbs on the website in the first quarter were Morningside and Bryanston in Gauteng.
The report refers to statistics by Private Property, which indicates that the Western Cape still has the highest national median asking price.
Slight shifts
However, the Western Cape saw a 0.4% drop in median asking price compared to the fourth quarter of 2018, whereas Gauteng saw a 0.4% increase on last quarter's figures.
Overall, KwaZulu-Natal reflected the highest quarter-on-quarter growth, with the median asking price increasing by 3.2% on the last quarter.
Conversely, the North West reflected the largest drop in median asking price with a 2.6% decrease on last quarter's figures.
Transactions within the affordable housing price brackets have seen far less activity than in previous quarters, according to the RE/MAX report.
According to Adrian Goslett, regional director and CEO of RE/MAX of Southern Africa, the high-end market was the least affected by the overall decrease in number of registered transactions which normally occur in the first quarter of the year.
While there was an 8.5% decrease in the number of transactions priced below R400 000 compared to the fourth quarter of 2018, properties over R3m only saw a 0.8% decrease.
This same segment has grown to 5.4% of all transactions in the first quarter, which is the largest this segment has been since the third quarter of 2017 at 5.62%, according to Goslett.
In the first quarter of 2019:
- 29.2% of transfers fell within the R0 – R400 000 price range;
- 24.4% were priced between R400 000 and R800,000;
- 25.2% were between R800 000 and R1.5m;
- 15.8% were between R1.5m to R3m;
- Transactions over R3m accounted for 5.4% of all bond registrations for the fourth quarter.
