Foreign property investment falls in south africa

The number of foreign investors active in the South African property market has fallen compared to last year, according to the fourth-quarter 2010 FNB Estate Agent Survey.

It follows the release of the January 2011 FNB House Price Index report which revealed that there has been an average decline in home values of 1.3 per cent over the course of the month.

Overseas investors made up just 3.5 per cent of the overall Cape Town real estate market during the final quarter of 2010 and 4.75 per cent of the market over the year as a whole. This is significantly down on the estimated 10.75 per cent average share of buyers for 2008 and 7.75 per cent in 2009.

"The absolute amount of foreign buyers may not have declined as much as the percentages suggest, because the market was thinner in 2008 than in 2010," the survey said. "But that magnitude of decline in percentage would suggest some sort of absolute decline in foreign buying in our region."

Source: Property Showrooms