Confidence still strong in South African property markets

With many things in store for South African property markets, general confidence in those markets remains strong.

While there are many good points and bad points about the South African property market, one thing that seems very likely at the current moment in time is that growth will slow in the coming year. While it is not expected to reverse and go negative like some of the other developed property markets, the rate of growth will be smaller in 2008 than it was in 2007.

This means that while property investment will not have much in the way of returns in the 2008 year, the general South African economy will remain healthy. There are no fears of recession, currency devaluation or credit squeeze such as what has been seen in North America and Europe. Indeed, South Africa appears to be unaffected in practical terms by the fears of a looming recession in the United States and that is definitely good news for property owners in the country.

While there is certainly good news and bad news to be had in the current state of the South African property market, the silver lining to the bad news is perhaps the fact that the bad news does not appear to be causing that much disturbance in the attitude of people taking a look at the country's property market.

Many buyers have already stated their intention to wait it out in rental deals until such time as they purchase a property in South Africa, but the intentions of these same buyers is still to eventually invest in the South African property market.

In fact, a recent survey done by propertygenie.co.za actually showed that if the average person had SAR 1 million to invest, they would put it into the property market rather than going with any other kind of investment. This attitude does not change with higher amounts of money and what that really does is show a staggering amount of confidence in the South African property market. That confidence will eventually manifest itself in the real estate market and create another part of the bulwark against loss.