House Prices are Going Down - Absa

The information in this article is courtesy of Realestateweb (It’s official: House prices are going backwards – 8 December 2008)

Absa – who has been monitoring house prices since the 1960’s – has spilled the beans by saying that the average house in now worth less than a month ago. They released the shocking figures on Friday, which states that the average house in South Africa cost about R963 500 in November. This is about 0.1% less than in October.

Another figure shows that real house prices, which take into account the effect inflation has on purchasing power, have dropped by more than 10% year-on-year.

More figures released by Absa indicates that small houses (below 141m²) declined by 0.3%; middle segment houses (141-220 m²) edged up slightly to R670 300 and large house prices ground to a halt and now stand at an average of R 1 381 100.

According to Absa’s senior property analyst, John Loos, the outlook for the property market remains depressed for the first half of 2009. He added that this year houses are expected to have increased in value by 4% overall, but the forecast for next year is for houses to drop on average by at least 3%.

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