Sentiment Drives the Current Property Market

The word sentiment is defined as an attitude toward something, a mental feeling or emotion - it is a thought influenced by or proceeding from feeling or emotion. The success of the Boks in Japan as Rugby World Cup Champions by absolutely mauling favourites England to a decisive 32-12 victory could not have come at a better time. Also, Springbok Pieter-Steph du Toit winning the World Rugby Player of Year, the Springboks winning World Rugby Team of the Year and Rassie Erasmus winning World Rugby Coach of the Year, makes this a very good year for South African Rugby. If this amazing result on the weekend does not drive sentiment into the stratosphere nothing else will. The coming together as one nation in support of the national team was off the charts and if you are like me, I cannot watch the tries by Makazole Mapimpi and Cheslin Kolbe enough - brilliance, but made possible by a dominant forward pack that crushed the English scrum. The scenes of our eloquent President celebrating with Captain Siya Kolisi and the team on the field while wearing a similar number 6 Jersey worn by Madiba in '95 was inspiring. Francois Pienaar, former Springbok captain is reported as saying that he believes that the weekend's Rugby World Cup victory was even bigger than the 1995 success - exactly what I thought as I watched the celebration unfold. This event has the power to inspire and an entire generation of the aspirant and hopefull young people to reach for the stars and never give up on their dreams.

As South Africans, we are desperate for good news and success. Our economy and businesses have been battered over the last few years. Inspiring politicians have been harder to find than a smiling English rugby player. Crime and persistent non-delivery of services have worn down the South African population with crazy high unemployment rates. In Q3 2019 the unemployment rate in South Africa edged up to 29,1%, the highest level since comparative data began in Q1 2008. We currently have 6,73 million unemployed people in South Africa and only 16,38 million employed. These are major structural problems that are hard to fix and I will concede that a Rugby World Cup victory cannot remedy overnight. However with the hope and belief that we can be world-class at whatever we do and that we do have a nation of amazing people who on the whole are good and wanting to improve themselves, the sky is the limit. Will people buy more property in the wake of the success of our national team? I like to believe that they just might, and with our higher-end properties in Zimbali Coastal Resort being very sensitive to overall sentiment, I think a shift in how people feel about themselves and the country as a whole can immediately impact on the number of transactions we see registered through our deeds office. The current buyers market is offering aggressive pricing of properties and making it the perfect time to buy.

Published in The Bugle: 4^th-8^th November 2019

Andreas Wassenaar

Principal - Seeff Zimbali

Cell: 082 837 9094

andreasw@seeff.com