Cape Town Investors Buy Into Johannesburg's Trendy Melrose Arch

Cape Town-based companies are among the buyers who have already invested around R100-million in homes in Johannesburg's stylish and trendy Melrose Arch says Ronald Ennik, chief operating officer of Pam Golding Properties and managing director of its Gauteng division.

Dr Andrew Golding, CE of the Pam Golding Property group, says Melrose Arch is an ideal option for companies and business executives who require convenient, upmarket residential accommodation with sound investment potential. "It makes good business sense to own a residential property that is available whenever required, and which will provide a sound return on investment, making it cost effective," he says.

The residential node of Melrose Arch - widely acclaimed, both at home and abroad, as the most exciting mixed use development in South Africa right now

- will be officially launched on 7 April at a function that has an exclusive guest list of 200, many of whom will be from Cape Town.

"To date, three or four Peninsula corporates have bought with the intention of providing upmarket, ideally located accommodation - as an alternative to hotels - for executives who are frequent business travellers to Johannesburg."

The homes so far sold by Pam Golding Properties - which has the sole mandate to market the residential component of Melrose Arch - have ranged in price from R2-million to over R6-million, says Ennik.

Peet Strauss, manager of the Pam Golding office at Melrose Arch, from where he is spearheading the sales effort, says most of the local buyers to date are either young professionals, older people who are moving from bigger homes, or corporates such as the Cape Town buyers.

"Overseas interest - particularly from the USA, UK and Europe - has been running high. An offshore investor bought one of the penthouses for R6.5-million, while another foreign buyer has purchased four units, with the intention of keeping one and selling the others," says Strauss.

"The rate of home sales so far is a clear signal of the appeal of the cosmopolitan and trendy European-type high street living provided by Melrose Arch," says Ennik. "Residential investors are buying not only a home but also a lifestyle.

"Stylish and fashionable and a genuine product of the New South Africa, it is a truly world-class precinct that has no peers in this country - not only in the sense that it has been embraced by all of the colours, creeds and cultures of our Rainbow Nation but also because of its unique mix of trendy, upmarket and award-winning restaurants, clubs, hotels and top-end shopping facilities," Ennik concludes.

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From Greg Kukard - Tel (011) 444 6900