South African banks are granting more home loans with sweeteners
Finance minister Tito Mboweni is expected to have to make some tough calls to raise revenue and cut public sector expenditure when he delivers his Budget Speech on 26 February.
However, prospects for the real estate sector in 2020 are currently positive, said Tony Clarke, managing director of the Rawson Property Group. “Housing demand has definitely increased over the past year, especially at the lower end of the market, and we expect that trend to continue this year for several reasons.
“The first is that inflation has declined significantly and reduced some of the financial stress on consumers. Very slow house price growth over the past four years and low rental increases have contributed to this situation,” said Clarke.
“The rand has also proved to be quite resilient in recent months as investors once again favoured emerging markets, and if international oil prices now decline as expected, we expect to see inflation hold at below the midpoint of the Reserve Bank’s target range for most of 2020.”