Renowned as the gourmet food and wine capital of South Africa and a major tourist destination, the captivating village of Franschhoek in the beautiful Cape Winelands has also steadily been gaining favour over the past few years among luxury home buyers around the world and in SA.
This is according to Renée Lister-James, Franschhoek area specialist for Chas Everitt International, who says that its profile is being given a further international boost currently on Listing Cape Town, the latest luxury property series being presented on BBC Lifestyle (DStv174, Wednesdays at 20:00).
The six-episode season features multi-million rand homes in areas such as Bantry Bay, Clifton and Camps Bay along the Atlantic Seaboard, Bishopscourt in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town, the Val de Vie Winelands Lifestyle Estate near Paarl, and Franschhoek.
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Lister-James is one of only five top Cape property professionals featured in the series, and as a long-time resident of the village, she notes that it is already home to a large number of high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) who revel in its picturesque setting, lifestyle and cosmopolitan ambience.
“The centre of Franschhoek, founded more than 300 years ago, is like a little slice of Paris, celebrating its Huguenot history in its boutiques, bistros, patisseries, chocolatiers, pavement cafés and fine dining restaurants run by some of SA’s top chefs,” she says.
“But it also has the definite flavour of Africa, with its sunny summers offering plenty of opportunities to enjoy hiking, mountain biking and paragliding, browsing your way through outdoor craft and artisanal food markets, listening to live local music or enjoying a gourmet picnic on a centuries-old wine estate. Franschhoek is also the gateway to several wine tasting routes incorporating many of the Cape’s oldest and most distinguished wineries.”
Nestled in the valley between the Simonsberg and Groot Drakenstein mountain ranges, Franschhoek has a Mediterranean climate with warm, dry summers and cold winters when there is often snow on the surrounding mountains.
However, Lister-James notes that the area hosts two international festivals in the winter months -the Franschhoek Literary Festival in May and the Bastille Day Festival in July - and for those indoor days, boasts several galleries featuring exceptional local artworks as well as a handful of world-class wellness retreats and spas.
“Add in spectacular sunsets and a short drive to Cape Town International, and it’s hardly surprising that the village has long been the darling of wealthy European ‘snowbirds’ seeking to escape the northern hemisphere winters by living here for half the year, or that it has for the past two years been attracting an increasing number of affluent permanent residents seeking a tranquil and secure retreat.”
“Currently, most buyers are HNWIs from Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and even Cape Town who have retired or, thanks to the rise in remote working, are no longer bound to a specific business location.”
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She says a major attraction for the latter is the chance to educate their children at top private schools such as Bridge House, Simond and the new Green School. Other sought-after schools in the area include La Rochelle Girls’ High and Paarl Boys’ High in Paarl. The village is also just 20 minutes’ drive from Stellenbosch University.
Franschhoek has currently *20 new property listings, according to Property24 Trends Data, with the average asking price for the area being R6.7 million. The average sale price per erf for 2021 was about R3.675 million, while Section Scheme Units average sale price for the same period is around R2.65 million.
The latest residential listings on Property24 show that three-bedroom homes are most widely available, at an average list price of R6.85 million. There are 41% of sellers in the area aged 50-64 years, and 51% of buyers within the same bracket.
Click here to see all the latest trend data for Franschhoek
“In addition, there is huge architectural diversity here, from traditional Cape Dutch through Victorian and Georgian to neo-Classical, modern farmhouse and ultra-modern sustainable builds,” says Lister-James.
According to the latest report from New World Wealth, Franschhoek/Paarl/ Stellenbosch area is now home to 3 200 South African dollar millionaires or the fourth-largest concentration of ultra-wealthy individuals in the country.
However, she says foreign interest has been rising again since economies and travel started to open up post-Covid and, as the local affiliate of the global Luxury Portfolio International® network, Chas Everitt is now fielding frequent international enquiries for luxury homes in this area and specifically in Franschhoek.
“Affluent foreign investors are increasingly exposed to our listings through this network, and they are interested in all types of local luxury property, including historical freehold homes, small and large wine farms, five-star guest houses, and homes in the boutique wine and olive estate developments that are a feature of the Franschhoek market.”
“The prices of such properties generally range from around R15 million up to around R30 million, and Listing Cape Town will reveal that this represents really exceptional value compared to similar real estate investments in other parts of the world, especially when one takes the rand exchange rate with dollars, pounds or euros into account,” says Lister-James.
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*Property24 Listings Data Disclaimer: The trends detailed in this article are based on Property24 listings, current at the time of publishing, and property transfer data supplied by Deeds offices, which typically take 3-4 months to reflect. Suburbs are listed according to Property24's geographical database. In some areas this will include both commercial and residential properties. The age demographic data of buyers, sellers and stable owners is determined over a six-month period. These Property Values should not be used as a substitute for independent professional advice and is subject to Property24.com Terms and Conditions.
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