Lightstone delivers insight on the age of residential properties

Lightstone, the leading provider of property analysis and insights, has released the results of how properties perform in the Sectional Title, Freehold and Estate property sales market.*

Of the Freehold and Sectional Title property sales, we see the ‘Generation Z’ – registered between the years 1991 and 2000 of property sales leading the charge with a steady price performance increase, year on year.

Sectional Title sales of properties aged 30 to 39 years have outperformed other age bands of properties in average property growth per year at 4.7%. This is followed by units aged 20-29 years with an average growth of 4.2% per year over the last 10 years. In the last 5 years alone, the 30-39 age band of Sectional Title properties that sold realised an average of 29% compared to 22% for the 20-29-year-old sectional units. Midrand and Modderfontein dominated as the most popular areas in terms of volume of 5-year-old properties that have sold in the last 5 years which would make sense considering the level of commercial, industrial and residential growth within these geographic parameters. Interestingly, single females are buying more sectional title properties older than 10 years compared to single males or couples (married or not).

In the Freehold market, we see Generation Z of the property market cannibalise market share from the 10-19-year-old properties with an average growth of 5.4% over the last 10 years. Kwa-Zulu Natal specifically shows that 50% of all Freehold properties sold in 2019 were 20-29 years old. Surprisingly, in this segment of property sales, even aged properties of between 30 to 40 years plus have shown steady growth in the last 10 years which could possibly be associated with the idea that property refurbishment and renovations increase property value. Again, single females dominated in Freehold property sales for new properties.

Looking at Estate property sales, its no surprise to see that the sales fall mostly within the 1-19-year age gap with retirement developments and mature lifestyle estates dominating the list as far as sales volumes of properties under 5 years old; with three of the Midstream branded estates appearing in the top ten performers in estate sales. Interestingly, estate sales for the five to nine-year-old properties were at the highest from 2012 – 2015 but have subsequently been overtaken by sales in the 10 to 19-year age band with married couples dominating the sales in this segment of the market. This is also due to estates being a fairly recent  phenomenon in the property market back in 2009 – hence why new props dominated, and now older props are dominating sales.

“It’s been really interesting to see how the variation in property ages affect sales and how these ages don’t necessarily meet the associated perceptions,” says Esteani Marx from Lightstone. “Properties bought and registered in the last 19 years most definitely take the top spot in estate sales, however the surprising contender was how properties that are 20-30 years old  continue to show promising growth year on year – a comforting thought in an economic climate that has had such a volatile effect on the property industry.”

*Note that property age is an estimation based the date of a property’s first registration.

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