'South Africa has never had an organisation dedicated to residential property and as a result our property transfer duty and estate agent's commissions are among the highest in the world.' He says our residential property market is one of the smallest for its population.

'There are nearly 10 million households of which around 7.5 million own their own homes.

Yet less than one million are able to trade their homes as part of an effective house market and only about 150 000 houses are traded per year.'

He says Respoa is already working on a major programme to broaden the house market to include the millions of homeowners unable to build wealth from their homes.

'Making their homes tradable will create a wonderful opportunity for them to develop their wealth.'

Called the Trafalgar plan, it will set out ways in which government, banks, the private sector and professionals can work together for this purpose. More details of the plan will be released in April.