Cape Town - The Pam Golding Property group (PGP), South Africa's largest residential real estate group in terms of turnover, has posted over R10bn in sales for the calendar year to date (January to October 31 2005), comprising 10 636 units, according to CEO Andrew Golding.

This represented substantial growth for the company so far in 2005, compared to the R13bn in residential sales concluded over the financial year to end-February 2005, Golding said. PGP had trebled its sales turnover and doubled unit sales over the past four years.

The outlook for 2006 was for continued steady growth in the property market of between 12% and 15%, he added during a recent media presentation on local property market conditions.

The PGP group now has 229 offices in total, situated both around Southern Africa and abroad, nine of which are black-owned franchises operating within its rapidly expanding Empowerment Division.

"In the Western Cape, home to the group's headquarters, we retain our market leadership position, while KwaZulu-Natal remains the stronghold of our franchise operation, and the Eastern Cape - the Garden Route in particular - sees increasing interest in homes, further strengthened by international exposure through high profile golfing events such as the President's Cup.

"We believe that the forthcoming 2010 Soccer World Cup will have extremely favourable spin-offs for both South Africa and the property market, and have already sold three homes at Dainfern Golf Estate to those involved to the World Cup activities."

According to Golding, during the past year South Africa's residential property market had seen steady growth, averaging at around 30%. Although some segments within the market had been experiencing a slowdown, overall acitivity reflected steady, sustainable growth ranging from 12-15%.

"While there is the possibility of an interest rate increase on the horizon, we see this in terms of a temporary correction which should not affect the stability of the property market," he noted.

He added that foreign ownership of residential property remained extremely low overall at approximately 1% of the market's total turnover.

"While we fully support the government's move to assess the level of foreign ownership in South Africa, we are confident that they will arrive at the conclusion that this is still very low relative to overall ownership, and that the benefits of foreign investment in the country in general have positive spin-offs for the country."

Concluded Golding: "We are optimistic that the 2006 government budget will continue to support economic growth and provide further relief for the taxpayer, and we would welcome some relaxation of exchange controls and also lower taxation on pensions - the latter which would help encourage consumer saving."