Research

Agents hint at a weakening in foreign home buyer levels in recent surveys

The FNB Estate Agent Survey has started to hint at a slowdown in the prominence of foreigner buying of domestic residential property.

According to John Loos, Household And Property Sector Strategist Fnb Home Loan, the drivers of such a slowing may be threefold. Firstly, a reasonably “well-behaved” Rand in recent times did lead to a bout of house price inflation of domestic homes in certain foreign currency-denominated terms, and a lack of further South African housing affordability improvement in others. Secondly, residential property’s global popularity as an asset class may just have cooled off mildly in recent times. Thirdly, it is not inconceivable that a deterioration in domestic economic performance along with heightened social tensions could cause greater foreign residential investor caution. Read more here – FNB Property Barometer_Foreign Buying_Jun_2015