High-rolling in the deep

As millions of South Africans penny-pinch their way through the month, there are those who can afford R30-million in cold hard cash for a two-bedroom house in Clifton, Cape Town.

In fact, in the past year, 28 people in Western Cape whipped out more than R712-million in cash for luxury pads in the city.

This is according to PropStats, an initiative of the Western Cape branch of the Institute of Estate Agents of South Africa.

Between August 1 last year and July 31 this year 38 properties sold for more than R20-million each on the Atlantic seaboard and in the Cape Town City Bowl and parts of the southern suburbs.

Only two local buyers got a bond.

Seven of the properties were sold to British citizens and one was bought by a Nigerian.

Seeff Properties closed the sale with the highest value - R70-million for vacant land in Clifton. The 2500m² site was on the market for just one day before the cash sale was concluded with a UK buyer.

But Seeff's Atlantic Seaboard managing director, Ian Slot, said it was not true that foreigners bought the most expensive properties or that they were driving prices up.

About 90% of Seeff's top-end sales (of R20-million and more) had been to South Africans, including expats investing in homes on the Atlantic seaboard with a view to returning to the country, he said.

Seeff concluded 11 of the 38 sales, Pam Golding Property Group sold 10 and Dogon Group Properties six.

CEO of Dogon Group Properties Denise Dogon said most sales above R20-million were cash sales.

Andrew Golding, CEO of the Pam Golding Property Group, said private wealth analysts WealthX reported that internationally the number of people with more than $30-million to invest had grown by 43% since 2009. This had fuelled demand for luxury homes.

And on the other side of the fence

A Cape Town woman yesterday failed in her bid to convince the Constitutional Court that the Consumer Price Index is an inappropriate measure of the value of a family home lost in the 1970s as a result of the Group Areas Act.

Isabel Florence had headed to court to try to get more than the almost R1.5-million the Land Claims Court awarded her in 2012 as compensation for the forced removal of her family from their home in Rondebosch.

But some of the court's judges found that "claimants who can only be compensated financially, should - as far as possible - be put in the same position as if the land had been restored to them".

Nomahlubi Jordaan