Arabella (WC) vs Zimbali & Simbithi (KZN) (The Bugle)

Arabella Golf Estate in the Western Cape is situated in the Overberg area just before Hermanus, flanked by the Kogelberg Mountain range and overlooks the spectacular Bot river lagoon. The golf course was designed in 1999 by Simbithi resident and legendary South African golf course architect, Peter Matkovich. It is consistently rated as a top 10 golf course within South Africa and the Golf Digest South Africa 2012 rankings placed Arabella at no. 4. This is impressive. I am currently here for the annual national Seeff convention where the licensees who own the 200 plus offices get together and actively discuss and analyze the best practices within the real estate industry and the opportunities and challenges that may lie ahead. It is an exceptional opportunity for team Seeff KZN to interact with the rest of the country’s leading Seeff license owners.  

Having had the opportunity to play the Arabella golf course in perfect Cape weather I cannot help myself but to make the comparisons to Zimbali and Simbithi and to dig a little deeper to get an understanding of the property values and the level of trade. To this end I looked at detailed deeds office reports on these estates and it is interesting to analyze these figures to provide some perspective. Arabella is not a huge estate. It measures approximately 115 ha and has around 266 properties. Compared to Zimbali at 430 ha and 1,300 properties and Simbithi at 410 ha and 1,800 properties, you soon begin to understand the difference in scale between the Cape based golf estates such as Arabella and our flagship estates. My research into recently registered transfers within Arabella revealed that the highest was recorded at R5m for a beautiful home overlooking the 18^th fairway offering spectacular views over the lagoon, on a site measuring 1,026 sqm. The next highest sales were at R3,850,000 for a home on a 582 sqm site and R2,500,000 for a home on a 750 sqm site. The 13 sales recorded as registered during 2012 within Arabella averaged R2,3m in price. 

So how does this compare to Zimbali and Simbithi? The first point is that average land sizes of approximately 1,400 sqm for Zimbali and Simbithi are significantly larger. For 2012 year, Zimbali had 71 transfers at a value of R365m split between 47 freehold sales with an average price of R5,6m and 24 sectional title sales with an average value of R4,2m. Simbithi had 180 transfers at a value of R264m, split between 121 freehold sales (includes the vacant land sales) with an average value of R1,2m and 59 sectional title sales with an average value of just over R2m. In terms of real estate sales activity and average realized prices, there simply is no comparison – Zimbali is way ahead on value and volume and Simbithi is way ahead on number of transactions.

(Author: Andreas Wassenaar, published in The Bugle, 8th May 2013)