Now is the time for serious buyers to enter the Ballito property market

Last month I wrote about sellers and landlords needing to be agile regarding current market conditions if they want to stand out from the crowd.

A month on, and that advice still stands.

However, equally importantly, is that buyers and tenants should not miss out on the more favourable market conditions because they think it will be remain so for many months to come.

With buyers – and we are all prone to this – it is one of the great ironies that we complain when it is a seller’s market and prices are inflating rapidly, but as soon as prices appear to be softening and lean more towards a buyers’ market, we then hold back and try and wait until that cycle bottoms out.

Invariably we get it wrong, try to be too clever, and pass up on what may have been the perfect home. We really can be our own worst enemy.

Let’s take this year so far.

The beginning of 2023 was quite active, but then a slight slowdown crept in through February and March as things became a little quieter than usual for these months.

There are still offers being made and agreed upon, but just not at the rate we have been used to over the last two years.

Timing as always is everything. A combination of factors collided at the same time: a big increase in supply (normal for the start of a year); further interest rates hitting a recent high (back to where we were pre-Covid); the cost-of-living escalating, and then coming into the first school holiday of the year.

The result is a combination of some fence sitting, a slight drop in sentiment, and a quieter period as people are not around.

But, if you are a serious buyer, this is the time to get into the market.

It is not that you will now necessarily get a bargain.

But with the growing number of sellers, and more importantly more motivated and realistic sellers, this is your opportunity to get a property at today’s price and not tomorrow’s inflated price, which has been the norm we have seen over the last few years.

My advice is not to delay.

As I write, there has already been a definite pick-up in activity over the last seven days. Buyers have latched on to the fact that asking prices have reached what they should be.

Let me just note, asking prices are being adjusted, but selling prices are still inflating from last year, albeit at a slower rate than recent years.

I know of a property that has been on the market for years and has out of the blue just received two acceptable offers.

Granted, the price is a lot lower than what it was originally listed for, but the price is now right in the middle of what it was originally valued at.

Those offers would not have been accepted last year, but this year the seller was keen to take both.

So, if you are a buyer right now, the value is out there, and there are sellers who know it too.

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