Property News:

200 new black estate agents, trained by ABSA, graduated on Monday 19, October.

The timely introduction of these agents forms part of an initiative to tackle the service demand currently prevalent in townships and previously disadvantaged areas.

The initiative is being spearheaded by ABSA in collaboration with the National Housing Finance Corporation, the Estate Agency Affairs Board and the French Development Board.

“In line with the goals of the Property Charter, the property sector and the estate agency industry face the challenge of drawing as many trained black estate agents into a recovering property market — and especially into the affordable housing market — as possible,” Luthando Vutula, managing executive of ABSA Home Loans, said.

While ABSA Home Loans are reporting that overall negative house price movements were slowing markedly , other market indicators are showing that property prices have already started to increase.

Vutula said that notably, the affordable segment of the housing market (houses of between 40 and 80 square metres, with values up to R430,000) continued to clock up positive house price growth, albeit far more muted than the pace reported early last year.

In tackling the shortage of trained estate agents in townships and other previously disadvantaged areas, the training project was boosting the number of agents who could speak to prospective home buyers and sellers in their own language, Vutula said.

The training project was focused initially in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape and has been designed to cater to the educational and language needs of the participants.