The Rawson Property Group’s Brackenfell Arauna franchise, which is also partnered by the Kraaifontein Ascot franchise has recently been achieving sales at a rate of 90% up on the same period last year.
“However you measure it,” said Lucas van Vuuren, franchisee for both the Rawson Brackenfell Arauna and Kraaifontein Ascot franchises, “Brackenfell has to be recognised as the most popular and successful residential area in the Western Cape today.”
“Demand continues to outstrip supply and the final sales figures and the rentals are appreciating by 7 to 10% per annum at the moment, a situation that is certainly not encountered in most of the rest of South Africa today. This area is indeed one of the few very successful property precincts in the country — the rentals in our Brackenfell Arauna franchise are up by 350% and those in the Kraaifontein franchise by 128% ”
Like Theuns Rossouw, van Vuuren’s plot and plan specialist for new developments, van Vuuren lists four main reasons for the area’s popularity. These are its central position in relation to other key Western Cape and Cape Peninsula towns, its semi-rural countryside ambience, its established community feel and it’s very affordable prices.
“This area,” said van Vuuren, “is one of the last remaining precincts close to a metropolis where you can still get a quality new home in the R850,000 to R1,350,000 price bracket or in Kraaifontein within the even lower price range of R700,000 to R1,1 million. What is more, the vast majority of homes that we sell here are freehold units standing on their own plots.”
In the circumstances, said van Vuuren, with rents on new developments running from R4,500 to R10,000 per month, one would expect a fair portion of the buyers to be investors, but almost all of those buying through the Rawson Property Group and other agencies are owner-occupiers. The very high demand for housing (stimulated by the banks’ more lenient attitude to mortgage lending once it has been established that the buyer has an unblemished credit record), means that any correctly priced home here now sells within 7 to 10 days and stock shortages will increasingly be a challenge in the coming year, requiring more effort and more marketing, to be kept at a satisfactory level.
As has also been well publicised elsewhere, said van Vuuren, this franchise always has one or two major new developments to sell, most of which have been handled on behalf of the developers Buildevco. Right now we are marketing “Rossini”, a 27 unit all freehold project which has three bedroom freestanding homes all selling from around R1 million to R1,4 million. The buyers are given the choice of having all their costs included in the final price or of handling these matters on their own.
Van Vuuren said that land is still available and he anticipates his team being involved with 80 to 150 further opportunities once the current projects are completed.
“I think,” he said, “that we are now performing as well as we have ever done and can look forward with great confidence to the future. In the last year we not only won 16 major awards, but also have recently achieved the third spot in the Rawson Property Group’s national ranking, something of which we can very proud of, as there are over 200 franchises in the group altogether.”
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