By Scott Picken on Thursday, April 21, 2011
“Three years after the global financial crisis, the global economy remains a confusing place – and for good reasons. Should we draw comfort from gradual healing in advanced countries and solid growth in emerging economies? Or should we seek refuge against high oil prices, geopolitical shocks in the Middle East, and continued nuclear uncertainties in [...]
By bauerm on Saturday, April 9, 2011
“Time and again,” says Bauer, “we come across the attitude, “Why should I buy when I can rent at a monthly payment that can be a much as 30% below the monthly bond payment – and which leaves me free of repair and maintenance costs and able to move on as and when I feel like it?”
By bauerm on Saturday, April 9, 2011
“What we are now witnessing,” he said, “is a scenario in which the value of sectional title and other property in the CBD continues to rise steadily because people can no longer accept the lengthy commuter times of up to two hours a day, nor are they prepared to pay the continually rising car maintenance and petrol costs which commuting generates.”
By bauerm on Saturday, April 9, 2011
“These complaints,” says Michael Bauer, general manager of the property management company, IHFM, “are usually valid. We had one scheme of 22 units in which after the installation of separate meters it was found that the occupants of two units were responsible for 70% of the total municipal cost.”
This type of situation, he says, is not uncommon and is typically found in bodies corporate with a high investor ratio, where the landlords have allowed the units to be overcrowded, often well beyond the capacity for which it was designed.
By bauerm on Saturday, April 9, 2011
This, he said, results in IHFM then drawing up two budgets, one for current operational expenses and one for the capital expenditure likely to be required over the coming years. Such budgeting, said Bauer, is essential if the scheme is to be well managed and see its units increase in value.
By Justin Clarke on Monday, March 28, 2011
The trick to investing in property is efficient gearing, put simply, using a large proportion of other people’s money, most likely borrowed from a bank. If you have a large proportion of your real estate portfolio financed, and the total value of the Real Estate goes up by a few percentage points, your return on [...]
By Scott Picken on Sunday, March 27, 2011
The most important component of investing successfully overseas is Information and Partners. The best case scenario is where you are dealing with a partner who regularly travels to the relevant overseas markets to make sure that they are up to date with the trends, opportunities, risks and general state of the investment market.
Over 80% of [...]
By Justin Clarke on Wednesday, February 23, 2011
As safe as houses is a term we were brought up with, and one that I have always believed in, but is the relative stability in the property market just a thin veneer hiding a much more sinister quagmire ?
This year has brought about a series of shocks that have rocked the residential [...]
By Kura Chihota on Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Here come the tolls on Gautengs major highways. They are the latest invention by the government to extract money from taxpayers, this time on the spurious argument that the user must pay. Well we have been paying…R 25 billion a year in fuel levy charges alone. How does this new tax affect the property world..lets [...]
By Scott Picken on Monday, February 21, 2011
Where will property be in 10 years and how is IT going to effect it? How has IT effected auctions?
