There have never been so many upper bracket homes on the market in Hout Bay, Cape Town, as there are currently.
This home offers four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a lounge leading to a balcony, a landscaped garden, jaccuzzi, sea views and double garage. It is selling for R4.495 million – click here to view.This is according to Piet van der Merwe, the Rawson Property Group’s franchisee for Hout Bay, who says he can foresee no tailing off in the rising demand for houses in this valley at all levels.
He says houses for sale priced above R3 million now comprise almost 50% of their stock list, while those above R5 million now represent about 25%. He says the plain truth is that prices here are rising at 10% to 15% per annum, and seem set to continue in this way despite talk of a property price bubble.
Van der Merwe says recently released figures from Propstats show that in the period January to April this year, the average price of a home in Hout Bay rose to R3.2 million, in comparison to the price for a similar period last year of R 2.7 million.
In one week towards the end of April, he says his team listed six properties with price tags over R3 million. These were in Bergendal (R4 million and R6.25 million), The Meadows (R5 million), Gordon Road (R3.6 million), Bay Views (R4.6 million) and Overkloof (R7 million).
This home has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, an open-plan lounge and dining area with wood fireplace, a galley-style kitchen, gazebo and single automated garage. It is selling for R3.75 million – click here to view.According to Van der Merwe, while there is an ongoing trend among a fairly large number of people in Hout Bay to upgrade or downgrade without leaving the valley, the noticeably big increase has been in the number of upcountry buyers, especially from Gauteng, coming to Hout Bay as well as, to a lesser degree, an increase in the number of foreign buyers.
The story of the upcountry clients is much the same, he says. They tend to be successful Gauteng professionals who have become so concerned about crime, traffic congestion and the standard of schooling in the areas they live in, that they are ready to move, even if this means commuting to the north by plane three days a week and relying more and more on internet connectivity to continue to operate their businesses.
These days Skype conferencing and the efficiency of IT communications make it possible to live almost anywhere and operate efficiently, he says.
This home offers four bedrooms, three bathrooms, an open-plan lounge and dining room with cosy fireplace, an undercover patio with built-in fireplace, private garden, security features and a double garage. It is priced at R4.6 million – click here to view.“Hout Bay is now adequately served by big retail centres, incorporating all the major retailers such as Woolworths, Quick Spar, Pick n Pay and Checkers, as well as a number of smaller shops and many restaurants,” he says.
“It also has some of the Cape Peninsula’s best mountain walks and cycling roads, as well as a beach and a small boat harbour, which are both near at hand and in their own way delightful.”
Hout Bay is also still one of the few Cape Town suburbs where residents do not have to endure too much traffic congestion in their daily commute to and from work in the CBD or the Southern Suburbs.
Van der Merwe says this is a huge bonus when you consider that people in Bloubergstrand, Table View, Brackenfell and other outlying areas often have to leave before 6am in order to avoid serious traffic problems.
On the rental side, he says his team is now signing up four or five leases per month, with rental prices having risen year-on-year by 15%.
“This is exactly the sort of comment that all estate agents tend to make, but Hout Bay is an ideal place in which to invest in property right now as many people are now beginning to realise,” says Van der Merwe.
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