News Research Residential

SA’s estate agents anticipate reaching volume and value targets in 2025

86% of SA’s estate agents anticipate reaching volume targets in 2024 with 85% confident they will reach value targets, says Lightstone.

The agents believe that younger buyers will play an increasingly important role in the residential property market in 2025, as will unemployment and political certainty.

Lightstone’s recent annual sentiment survey among estate agents found that while economic uncertainty remained a priority issue, it was viewed as marginally less important than twelve months previously which may be indicative of increased confidence in the GNU.

The agents have also placed a greater emphasis on the role of foreign investors.

However, the past twelve months have been challenging for the sector with nearly two thirds (61%) of agents not having met their sales targets in terms of volume in 2024, significantly higher on 2023’s 45%. Similarly, the numbers were almost the same when measuring the value of sales.

Lifestyle and amenities, and security, top the wish list of home buyers, coupled with ‘working from home’ and ‘buy-to-rent’. Downscaling property size because of lifestyle changes was the main reason for sellers wanting to move on during 2024, followed by downscaling due to financial difficulties and relocating with the percentage of sellers emigrating having dropped.