At Home by the Seaside: Semigration and the Widening Gap Between Coastal and Inland Property Values.
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At Home by the Seaside:
Semigration and the Widening Gap Between Coastal and Inland Property Values.
Semigration is undoubtedly one of the biggest trends influencing the property market in 2021. Although the desire to move away from dense urban centres in favour of quieter, smaller towns is not particularly new, the trend saw a marked resurgence following the lockdowns of 2020.
This was largely driven by the increase in the viability of remote working, which was widely embraced by many industries to limit the impact of the lockdowns on their ability to maintain business operations.
According to a recent report published by data analytics specialists Lightstone, approximately 15% of homeowners who bought and sold homes over the past three years moved from metros and cities to smaller towns.
The report also revealed that most semigrating homeowners chose to remain within their respective provinces, but away from the more densely populated cities, except in the case of Gauteng where the trend is to relocate beyond provincial borders, the majority of which relocated to the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, with the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and North West also being popular choices.
This growing trend, coupled with historically low interest rates, had the knock-on effect of bolstering property values along the coastal regions of South Africa, which have historically on aggregate been valued slightly above the more inland regions.
According to data published by Lightstone, an overall annual housing price inflation of 4.1% was noted at the end of March 2021. While an increase in property values was noted across the board at a national level, the data shows a growing disparity between inland and coastal property values, but the gap had been narrowing until 2020.
The post-lockdown interest rate cuts, coupled with the trend to move away from densely populated urban centres has once again fuelled a widening of the gap in these property prices. While property values along the coast have always been valued slightly higher than those more inland, they are once again enjoying a faster growth rate than inland.
Author: Home & Hectare
