The property bubble is still leaking air

© 123vector – 123RF.com

Living space has always been a key component of the South African standard of suburban life, but urban planning before democracy failed to take the future into account.

This means that over the next decade, densification along designated routes, along with new-look public transport and decentralised business nodes, will increasingly become the new status quo for the suburbs.

John Loos, FNB's household and property sector strategist, said South African cities would start incentivising development along densification corridors and disincentivising development away from them.

The average buyer of property in urban areas will stand to make a decent, steady return on that investment, but - for now - the days of speculators entering the market and flipping properties after just a few years are over.

Marking 10 years of the bank's Property Barometer publication this week, Loos said a perfect storm of factors had come together to drive unprecedented property price growth in post-democratic South Africa, with the past 10 years showing a complete boom-bust cycle.

The bust is still in progress but the market appears to be recovering.

When the 1994 vote ended economic isolation and policymakers decided to stop protecting the rand in favour of inflation targeting, interest rates began to fall from cripplingly high levels in the late '90s.

Property ownership became much more affordable, household debt compared with disposable income sat at reasonable levels and cheap credit drove the beginnings of a boom in the early 2000s.

A speculators' paradise

By 2004, Loos said, the market was a speculators' paradise, with the real prime rate below inflation. Buyers could quickly turn properties for profit, which - counter-intuitively - prejudiced banks' takings because a high turnover of mortgages meant they were less able to recover their loan and administration costs.

The problem, as usual, was the build-up of momentum. By the time house prices were rocketing, the last of the speculators were climbing on board too late.

A multiple-property-buying boom crested into 2005 as buy-to-let became an investment craze.

Loos said "buyer panic" also came into play, with a significant number of first-time buyers worried they would never be able to get into the market if house prices rose interminably.

Then came 2008 and the global crash, along with a spike in oil, a weak rand, double-digit inflation and rising interest rates.

Indebted South Africans began to shed properties to downsize or relieve financial pressure, particularly among those who owned multiple title deeds. The market's prices and volumes crumbled-with prices falling by more than 20% - and estate agents left the business in droves.

Banks took a hit as their policy of lending beyond 100% of the property price came back to haunt them. Facing financial strain, many homeowners failed to keep up with maintenance, so the resale value of bank-repossessed properties fell.

Loan-to-purchase-price percentages dropped from an average of 97.3% to 87.5% in two years, from 2007 to 2009. It is currently just less than 90%.

All of these factors place us, at the end of 2014, with rising house prices and growth in lending, but a continued decline in real mortgage loans growth as existing bonds come to the end of their lifespan.

Loos said the Reserve Bank's stance on interest rates - it intends to keep rates marginally above inflation - is preventing speculative activity in the recovering market. The problem, if there is one, is that the global wash of liquidity has prevented the bubble from bursting - but it's leaking air.

In real terms, home values are not far off their historical peak and low interest rates have prevented more South Africans from feeling the pinch.

Interest rates are expected to keep rising in the near future, and the cost of servicing household debt will rise with it.

There is also fresh supply coming online; Loos expects house price growth to be 6.3% next year but said extra supply in 2016 would stall house price growth.