On 1st August Rawson Property Group’s Paarl franchise opened a satellite branch in Paarl East.
Lizette and Arno Joubert in front of the new Paarl East offices, located in the SAP shopping centre on the corners of van der Stel and Broadway roads.
The franchise has been owned and run by Lizette Joubert since 2005 and was ranked third in the Rawson Property Group’s Western Cape performance placings and fifth nationally earlier this year.
The new offices are in the Paarl East SAP shopping centre on the corners of van der Stel and Broadway roads.
Joubert’s husband, Arno, also has a retail background and has taken on the management of the new office. He will have three new agents, one of whom is among the most experienced property marketers in Paarl, says Joubert. A rental agent will also be recruited before the end of this year.
The Rawson Property Group is the first estate agency to establish itself and to sell in Paarl East. Joubert says after investigating the current position of the home market, she realised that the community lacked contact with experienced and trained agents equipped to advise them all along the line. As a result, she says ‘unfortunate’ incidents such as inadequately prepared legal documentation have regularly complicated property deals in the district.
She says they are now convinced that there is a real need for a trustworthy property team in the area. "Residents in Paarl East, for example, have not yet been exposed to a good bond origination service of the kind that we can provide, e.g. through Rawson Finance.”
Her research has shown that the property market is alive, with a high percentage of residents being long-term – some in fact have not lived anywhere else. She says elderly people frequently only sell to their children and often then stay on in a section of the house.
Other signs of the area’s stability and improved status are that 70 percent of the residents are married and 70 percent of today’s buyers tend to be between the ages of 22 and 40.
Joubert adds that her research also revealed that there are approximately 5 500 houses in Paarl East, of which roughly 68 percent are freehold homes, 22 percent are sectional title and just under 10 percent are in estates.
“The area is solidly in the middle to lower middle price bracket." Home prices range from R300 000 to R1.2 million, with the bulk of the demand in the R500 000 to R800 000 price category. In Denneburg and Klein Parys prices are higher, i.e. from R800 000 to R1.2 million.
Joubert says she came across one figure that particularly impressed her, which is the monthly expenditure on food in Paarl East has been estimated at around R16 million. This means that, on average, households are spending around R3 500 each month on food.
Paarl East in the coming years, will almost certainly have more first-time home buyers than the average Western Cape precinct – and the Rawson Property Group team have taken efforts to become au fait with this type of bond application process, she says. Now that South Africa’s major banks are offering credit clean applicants 100 percent bonds if the family’s combined income is between R18 000 to R23 000 (each bank has different criteria) this market is likely to grow fast, says Joubert.
The area served by the new franchise includes Charleston Hill, Elriche Estate, Klein Nederburg, Langvlei, Amstelhof, Denneburg and Klein Parys. The Chicago precinct is also being served and already one sale has been notched up there.
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