I had the privilege this past week-end of attending a
wedding on the picturesque Lourensford Estate in Somerset West, Cape Town. The
weather can be hit and miss in November, but it delivered clear blue skies and
no wind, which then makes the Cape look incredible. We stayed at the Erinvale
hotel, which was of particular interest to me, as the Erinvale Golf Estate is
one of South Africa’s most established residential golf estates. As I also had
the opportunity to visit the suburb of Tokai, home to the flagship Steenberg
Golf Estate, I could not help myself but do a deeds office analysis of these
two golf estates and then compare them to Simbithi and Zimbali. Erinvale is
situated in Somerset West, on the edge of the suburb and Helderberg Nature
Reserve. The well known Vergelen Wine Estate is located next to it, and the
Lourensford Wine Estate borders Erinvale and is particularly impressive.
My
research on the recent property transfer history for Erinvale revealed that the
estate is relatively small measuring 155ha in extent and with 437 tradable
properties – split between 45 sectional title units and 392 freehold
properties. I immediately noticed that they had not imposed an architectural
theme or language with the resulting mismatch of different designs and styles
actually detracting from the overall beauty of the destination. Once you see an
estate that does not have the strict architectural guidelines we are so used to
along the Dolphin Coast, you realize the wisdom of having and applying
architectural controls. I am thankful that Simbith and Zimbali have been
developed along design codes implemented from the outset as this adds
significant value overall. The Erinvale sales registered over the past 12
months indicate an overall average selling price of R5,154,545, with 18 sales
registered this year to date. Many of the freehold transactions I picked up on
were around the R4m level and typically on a site size of around 800 sqm. The
sectional title units seem to trade in the R12,000 to R17,000 / sqm range, which
is not dissimilar from Simbithi or Zimbali.
Where I was a little more envious
was the transfer data I picked up on for Steenberg Golf Estate. Not
particularly impressive in terms of location, estate size (it is only 96ha with
245 freehold properties) or architectural language, and with homes built
relatively close together on sites of around 800 sqm, which we would regard as
smaller than our average site size, the pricing achieved on Steenberg homes is
very impressive. The average price for those registered sales over the past 12
month period in Steenberg is R11,537,674. I noticed that the volume of trade
was significantly less than I would expect, with only 12 registered sales to
date this year and this is an increase on the only 7 sales registered in 2012,
the 7 in 2011 and the 8 in 2010. It does therefore seem that Steenberg is
characterized by low trade volumes. This indicates either that people love
their properties and tend not to sell them or that pricing is actually too
high, thereby restricting sales volumes. By comparison the average price in
Zimbali is R6,803,357 and there have been 80 transactions registered this year
to date. The average Simbithi price is currently R3,212,321 and 138 sales have
been registered this year. I believe that our Dolphin Coast golfing and
lifestyle estates offer incredible value and are aesthetically a superior
product.
(Author: Andreas Wassenaar, published in The Bugle, 6 Nov 2013)
No comments:
Post a Comment