Most of the spokespeople for the Cape’s major estate agencies have in recent weeks reported that the residential property market is emerging from its slump, with increased prices, number of sales, shorter time taken to sell and improved attendances at show houses.

But in which areas can buyers expect to see healthy appreciation by the end of this year?

Sumaria van der Berg, business development manager for Rawson Properties’ southern region, provides backup and support to 60 Rawson agencies in the Western Cape and is closely in touch with the Institute of Estate Agents’ data service, PropStats.

“The information coming through to us is positive and is confirmed in almost every case by sales rises in the agencies in the areas concerned. In January a new highpoint was reached with more than R1 billion in sales in the 160 agencies that report to PropStats – this is probably 65% of the total sales for the Western Cape for that month. This is indicates considerable movement in the market bearing in mind that PropStats still does not reflect the total picture as it excludes private sales and some agencies,” says van der Berg.

The busiest areas were the West Coast enclave between 12 and 20 km north of Cape Town, including Bloubergstrand, Table View and Parklands; and the West Coast areas further north such as Melkbosstrand, Langebaan, Yzerfontein and Saldanha as well as certain parts of the northern suburbs, notably Welgemoed and Brackenfell.

“The Table View, Parklands and Blouberg figures are particularly impressive,” says van der Berg, “because they show that average sales prices are within 10% of the listed price, something that hasn’t happened for a long time (at the peak of the recession the gap was up to about 20%) and this was achieved despite a 5% rise in prices (to an average of R1,1 million). Also, the average waiting time for a sale was down to 80 to 90 days.

She says almost twice as many expensive properties were sold compared to last year. This is partly because many of these are cash sales and buyers of luxury properties are not as adversely affected by the recession as the middle to lower markets.

Van der Berg says the revival in confidence in property has led to a renewed demand for Rawson franchises, and in the Western Cape Rawson Properties has added about 10 new franchise or sub-franchise areas (on top of the 60 already in operation) in which the agency would like to be represented.

“Looking at the situation realistically it is likely that, although prices should increase by 5% to 10% this year, it will not be before 2013 that we are again in a price boom.”