Video tour – Hartenbos Heuwels house

Thinking of getting a place in Hartenbos? Consider this beauty.

The large family home is situated on the sea side hills of Hartenbos Heuwels, the popular holiday mecca in the Garden Route region of the Western Cape, South Africa. It is a short drive to Hartenbos beach with all its attractions and entertainment facilities. The Langeberg Mall and the N2 highway are just as close by.

The current owners had built the home only a few years ago, and they have looked after it lovingly. As a result the property is in pristine condition and the face-brick finish offers a low maintenance, solidly built family structure. You will be able to move into the home as it stands immediately with no major renovation or maintenance required.

The home is situated on a large stand and boasts a beautiful indigenous garden. There are a number of contemporary rock features and rest areas to be found throughout the large garden. With the water restrictions recently lifted in Mossel Bay, this will offer a delightful weekend activity to those with green fingers who love to potter in the garden. If you are less inclined to while your hours away in the garden, the garden can be maintained easily.

Check out the full listing with photos on our website.

Selling your home through TTPS

We understand how important the decision is to sell your home. Choosing the right property consultant is equally important. Make sure you make the wise decision. To help you with this decision, we’ve uploaded a Slideshare presentation,which can be seen here: Selling your home (Slideshare presentation).

The difference between Gauteng and the Coast

Hi,

I came across a very interesting article by John Loos of FNB. He looked at the differences in the property market in Gauteng vs the coast (Western Cape, KZN etc). One needs to understand that the coast is more affected by economic cycles than Gauteng. This is due to the fact that many properties at the coast are purchased for investment or holiday purposes. As such, as with any other investment, one needs to be aware of these cycles. Some of the interesting bits in his article follows.

The FNB Residential Property Barometer points to activity levels, as viewed by estate agents in the various regions, being lower in the coastal regions compared with the Gauteng market. These findings should be expected, with the coastal regions having a far greater component of holiday and investment buying activity, which is more sensitive to interest rate and economic cycles. The coastal regions should thus tend to hit higher peaks and lower troughs during the cycle.

Although the barometer time series only started in 2003, it appears to be telling us that the Gauteng market has indeed been less cyclical than the major coastal regions in recent years. This is to be expected, given that Gauteng is dominated by primary residential buying. This can be classified as a more essential form of buying than investment and holiday property buying, and should thus be less sensitive to interest rates and economic growth cycles.

The coastal regions on the other hand, have a greater proportion of holiday and investment buying, which I believe contributes to their more cyclical nature. Therefore, one should not interpret the Barometer readings as indicating weak long prospects for coastal markets, but rather that in adverse interest rate and economic conditions the coast becomes the poor cousin to Gauteng, and vice versa in better economic and interest rate times.

When the survey was started back in 2003, at the peak of the property boom, it was the Coastal regions that were outperforming Gauteng. This situation reversed itself in 2005 as the interest rate situation deteriorated (in terms of a lack of cutting rates after 2003 and then hiking from 2006) and the residential property cycle weakened.

Breaking the Gauteng and coastal regions up into smaller regions, we see that it is the Pretoria region of Gauteng that is by far the star performer in terms of activity levels at present, while of the coastal regions the Western Cape is in the best shape, although trailing both Joburg and Pretoria, and KZN appears to be the weakest.

For as long as the adverse interest rate situation persists (which we don’t expect to be to much longer), one should expect the coastal regions to under-perform the Gauteng market due to the higher degree of non-essential investment and holiday buying in the coastal markets, which makes them more cyclical.

For a full copy of his article, go here. At Terblanche Thomas Property Solutions we understand the dynamics of the property market in the Western Cape and the rest of SA. Come chat to us for some honest advice.

Perspective

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You know, after one too many candle-lit dinners – thanks Eskom – in the past few weeks, it becomes quite tempting to buy into the general feeling of doom and gloom in our country. Add the effect of high interest rates, rising petrol prices and leadership questions and one can understand why some South Africans are considering emigrating. In times such as these it is all too easy to give in to emotion rather than reason. The question on everyone’s lips, “What next?”

However, it is exactly in times such as these that one needs to keep some perspective. The reality is that there are still a lot of things worth celebrating in this beautiful country of ours. Sometimes a number of things just converge at the same time and create a picture that looks darker than it really is (pun probably intended).

I came across a wonderful message by Allan Knott-Craig, the MD of iBurst. For some good old perspective you cannot do better than read it.

Full text of his message:

“Hi guys,

2008 has certainly started with a bang! The future was rosy on 31 December 2007, but suddenly everyone is buying candles and researching property in Perth!

A combination of recession in the USA, global equity market negativity, high interest rates, the National Credit Act and power outages have combined to create the perfect storm.

But don’t panic!

This is not the first time there’s been doom and gloom. Every few years the same thing happens. We experience massive economic growth, everyone is optimistic and buying Nescafe Gold, and holiday homes, and Merc’s. The positivity gets ahead of itself and the economy overheats, and then panic sets in because the economy seems to be collapsing when in actual fact it’s simply making an adjustment back to a reasonable level.

It happened in 1989, when SA defaulted on its international loans and the stock market and Rand crashed, it happened in 1994 when the ANC took power and everyone thought war would break out, it happened in 1998 when interest rates hit 25% and you couldn’t give away your house, and it happened in 2001 when a fairly unstable guy by the name of Osama arranged for 2 Boeings to fly into the tallest buildings in New York!

On each of those occasions everyone thought it was the end of the world and that there was no light in sight. And on each occasion, believe it or not, the world did not actually end, it recovered and in fact things continued to get better.

I think 2008 will be a tough year, but I also see it as a great opportunity to seize the day whilst everyone else is whinging and get a front-seat on the inevitable boom that we’ll experience in 2009, 2010 and beyond.

Make sure you make a mental note of everything that is happening now, because it will happen again and again, and if you don’t recognize the symptoms you’ll be suckered into the same negativity, and forget to look for the opportunities.

It’s easy to be negative. Subconsciously, you WANT to be negative! Whenever you open the papers they tell you about the goriest hi-jacking and the most corrupt politicians. Why don’t they dedicate more pages to the fact that Joburg is the world’s biggest man-made forest, or to the corruption-free achievements of the vast majority of public officials? Because bad news sells. Good news is boring.

SA still has the best weather in world! We’re lucky enough to possess a huge chunk of the world’s resources, i.e.: gold, platinum, coal, iron. The growth in India and China will continue to accelerate (India and China sign 10mil new mobile customers every month), and so will their demand for our resources. The government has already embarked on massive infrastructure projects (some of them a tad late, i.e.: electricity), and this will pump money into the economy.

We are all lucky enough to be a part of the birth of a massive and all-encompassing industry. The Internet has and will continue to change the world. The enormity of its impact is up there with the wheel, electricity, TV, telephones, and possibly man’s greatest ever invention, coffee. Not only does it open up an entirely untapped world of commerce, but it is also the ultimate disseminator of information and news. Apartheid would not have lasted 40 years if the Internet had existed! And you’re part of it!

I’m looking forward to another year of ASA complaints, IR issues, Plug & Wireless parties, BTS roll-outs, billing runs, irate customers, happy customers, orange bubbles, faulty elevators, etc, etc. The nice stuff makes me feel good, and the challenges remind me why we can beat the competition. Most importantly I’m looking forward to having fun and making memories.

So ignore the doomsayers, install a timer on your geyser, and buy Ricoffee for a couple of months.
Cheers”

*Copyright Dr Seuss