With its idyllic scenery and access to Klein Karoo, a major eco-tourism center in South Africa, Barrydale couldn’t stay hidden for long, and property buyers are beginning to flock to the this new hotspot of investment.
A few years ago, few would have given a second thought to Barrydale. It was a place where well off people from Cape Town purchased a second home that they would visit to get away from it all. With a population of just over 3000 people, Barrydale is not a particularly large place, but there are a number of pull factors developing that seem to have increased the market pressure in the area.
One of the biggest factors in the property market here is the younger generation. As younger people discovered the idyllic nature of the township, it appears as if they have gotten very interested in bringing their skill sets to the area. An agent working in Barrydale, Sandra Thom, said, “Two years ago young people tired of the rat race in big cities started relocating to Barrydale to raise their families.”
The one problem with that idea, according to Thom, is that there are very few jobs available in Barrydale and this means that people have had to start businesses of their own in order to make ends meet. They are fast becoming an asset to the small village, though.
What does this mean for property values in the area? Well, the average person that heads to Barrydale is going to have to invest in at least one new property for their residence, and a fair number of people are going to be investing in a second for their business. Home values in the area right now range from SAR 600,000 for a small two-bedroom dwelling all the way up to over SAR 1 million for an average size home.
With the influx of young and talented people into the city, and what is expected to be a dramatic increase of free enterprise in the area in the near future, one can quite easily expect those prices to go up over the next few years.
