Property News and Trends: Property prices have reached the turning point

Local News channels have been consistent in their reports on the current condition of the South African property market recently. And, while their figures may differ, the banks’ various house price indexes are showing that we have reached a turning point.

Of all the house prices stats Lightstone has the most positive data, showing that prices have increased for four consecutive months since January 09.

“Although Lightstone’s National Repeat Sales house price inflation is still slightly negative year on year, it appears that the House Price Index bottomed out at the beginning of 2009 and that house prices are actually now on a modest upward trend.” read more…

On Wednesday 02 September, bond originator ooba stated that mortgage approvals had increase by 36% from April 09 to August 09.

According to a statement made by ooba on Wednesday, there were definite signs that the property market slump was coming to an end with data pointing to early signs of a market recovery. read more…

And the latest FNB House Price stats confirm that we have reached the bottom of the trend and can begin to see a clear rise if prices by early 2010

“The FNB House Price Index’s year-on-year decline continued in August, but for the second successive month we saw a diminishing price deflation rate, with the index starting to show clearer signs that the market is starting to stabilise,” said John Loos, property strategist at FNB. read more…