#PropertyReport: Property sales volumes at a high

When assessing the state of the property markets, we are all guilty of zoning in on property prices, at what rate they are currently inflating and if it’s a sellers or buyers’ market.

But do we ever talk about property volumes?

This aspect includes how many people are buying and how many transactions have taken place in a specified time period.

Interestingly, during 2021 and 2022 volumes were at the highest levels since 2007.

In truth, we are a long way off those heady days when there were almost 400 000 transactions in a year.

The last two years have seen an increase to around 250 000 transactions, which has continued the consistent and steady rise since 2009 which saw a low of approximately 125 000 transactions.

The only dip came in 2020 when the country went into Covid lockdown.

However, for those interested, the total purchase price is at the highest it has ever been in the last two years and quite significantly so, with 2021 and 2022 seeing values close to R350-billion compared to 2007 which was only at R250-billion even though the volumes were much higher.

This shows how well property has increased in value over the last decade and a half.

There are many reasons why volumes are not yet reaching the numbers seen in 2007 but one might be the fact that the average age of first-time buyers has gone up.

In 2007 most first times buyers came from the 20–30-year-old bracket, but that is now superseded by the 30-40 age bracket.

Statistics also indicate that first time buyers are staying put for longer, which obviously would have an impact on sales volumes.

Much closer to home, and staying with total purchase prices, 2022 showed some encouraging numbers.

Before and including the lockdown year, the Dolphin Coast area generally traded around R3-R3.5-billion a year until 2021 saw a massive jump to R5-billion.

Many of us put this down to the delayed effect of registrations and the loss of 3-4 months trade in 2020.

However, last year R5-billion worth of trade was again racked up in the area.

We live in an exciting, growing area so I believe these sort of numbers will be the new norm and will continue to grow.

Hopefully, so will the transaction volumes as it has done nationally to the recent high.

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