South African Banks’ voluntary sales programmes for defaulting debtors are growing throughout the country

The third quarter has shown mild improvement on the previous quarter in terms of the growth in building completions.

With a new national census in the offing, the trends inherent in the latest population estimates released by StatsSA already spell good opportunities that some clever property developers and investors have started to scen

The continuing low interest rate environment and slight increases in disposable income have sustained nominal property value growth

More home owners are selling their properties to downscale due to financial pressure, according to the latest FNB Estate Agent Home Buying Survey released on Tuesday.

The current outlook on the rental property market has been stable, however, this does not mean that there are no concerns for property owners and managers alike

Government spending on infrastructure remains key to the outlook for the construction sector in 2010 and beyond.

Commercial building cost inflation rose to 29% in the second quarter of 2007 from 16% during the first quarter of the year, the FNB Commercial Property Finance Property Building Cost Index showed on Tuesday.

The index reflects the average building cost per square metre, as priced by building contractors when winning tenders. As such, it reflects the combination of contractors' input costs, their own pricing power which varies over time due to market conditions, and the standard of the property developments in question.

While the retail and office property building costs indices have been showing increases, the industrial property sector has seen some tapering off in its inflation rate, the index showed.

The retail property sub-index showed a year-on-year building cost inflation of 39.5% for the second quarter, followed by office space with 26.2% and industrial space inflation of 13.9%.

"One should not read too much into the tapering in building cost inflation in the industrial property sector. Its index showed strong growth in 2006, running a bit counter-cyclically to the other two sub-indices, and was probably due for a breather coming off a high base," said John Loos, FNB property strategist.

He noted that the renewed surge in the index broadly tracked the producer price index for building materials, which experienced a lull in 2006 before seeing its inflation rate climbing as 2007 approached.

"The rise suggests a significant input cost push effect, especially as it comes at a time when there exist a feeling that especially office rentals still need to adjust further upwards in order to make many more projects viable, and in so doing alleviate a vacancy rate," said Loos.

The FNB CPF Commercial Property Building Cost Index, constructed by Industry insight, has seen slowing growth over the past 18 months, but this slowdown is expected to be a temporary reprieve for the construction industry.

Good old scarcity is accounting for much of the pricing pressure which developers are encountering. Demand for commercial space is outstripping supply and developers are hard pressed to bring new projects on stream.

 “What we have noticed,” states Neno Haasbroek, CEO of Sycom Property Fund, “is that there has been some improvement in the pricing on smaller jobs – those in the R20m region – but for the larger projects – the R500m or R1bn developments – it is hard to find competitive pricing.” The large construction companies have their hands full with the infrastructure projects under way in South Africa and this is likely to continue over the coming years.

Some impact from the higher interest rates is filtering through, but the underlying trend of too little supply to satisfy the growing demand means that costs are expected to see building inflation turning up again.

Although the cost of materials is rising – cement, for example, is currently being imported –contractors and service providers are raising their rates at well above inflation levels. With significant expenditure on infrastructure (such as the World Cup Stadiums, Gautrain and the Coega industrial development zone) competing with commercial developers for resources, there is likely to be renewed pressure on building costs in the years ahead.

Pity the developer outside the main metropolitan areas. If there is a large project, which cannot be handled by local contractors, they will be pushed to find anyone to deal with the development. “Even if they can get a contractor,” notes Haasbroek, “the quotes are likely to be rather uncompetitive.”

For an investor in PUTs, this represents encouraging news. “With costs escalating at present rates,” says Craig Hallowes, spokesperson for the Association of Property Unit Trusts (APUT), “rentals for existing properties will be rising as they come up for renewal.”

Haasbroek gives an example: “We can’t bring a new office block on line in Sandton for under R120/m2 at present. Although I don’t think that we are yet at the point where rentals will be running at replacement cost, if the rent is currently R70/m2 or R80/m2, then I think that you can expect a 20% rise when renegotiation takes place. This is more of an issue than it has ever been before.”

In the past, the lead time to bring an office block on stream was about 12 months, while land was readily available and rezoning took place rapidly. This meant that supply could respond to increases in demand relatively rapidly. Now, however, councils have tightened up markedly on rezoning. Add to that building cost inflation and it is easy to see that supply is no longer as flexible as it was historically.

In the case of retail developments, a higher number of subcontractors are used for specialist items such as glass and aluminium. This is placing additional strain on retail developments as the specialists are notably scarce at the moment.

Building confidence in SA rose back to near a record peak in the second quarter of this year, reflecting a boom spurred by public spending and pent-up demand for affordable housing, an independent survey showed yesterday.

The FNB building confidence index rose to 88 points from 87 in the first quarter of this year, edging back towards a historic high of 89 posted in the fourth quarter of last year.

FNB chief economist Cees Bruggemans said improved confidence in the building industry reflected higher overall economic growth, which quickened to an average annual rate of 5% over the past three years from 3% earlier in the decade.

"We have barely started. It looks like we are in an extended growth cycle which is likely to last another 7-8 years," he said.

Release of the survey coincided with official data yesterday showing that capital spending by the government rose by 25,4% to R71,8bn in the financial year which ended in March, with expenditure on land and buildings soaring by 149% and construction up by 23,1%.

A slowdown in public sector capital expenditure is expected this year, before the pace picks up again in 2008, the figures from Statistics SA showed.

Construction is playing an increasing role in the economy, with the sector expanding a blistering 21,3% in the first quarter of this year a 17-year record.

At the same time, the government's R416bn infrastructure spending drive is having positive spin-offs, although it focuses on ports, roads, railways and soccer stadiums.

The FNB building survey showed that confidence in the nonresidential sector, which covers commercial buildings, was steady at 94 points but fell in the residential sector to 82 points from 86 in the first quarter.

This suggested business conditions there had been hit by the cumulative two percentage point increase in lending rates last year, Bruggemans said.

The Reserve Bank raised its key repo rate by half a percentage point to 9,5% again in June, and many analysts expect another hike at its meeting next month. But the residential slowdown is unlikely to last, the survey carried out by the Bureau for Economic Research showed.

"Regarding the business outlook for the third quarter, residential contractors said they expected business conditions to remain more or less stable, but an improvement in the tempo of building activity is expected," FNB said.

Bruggemans said there was "enormous pent-up demand" for affordable housing units worth R170000-R250000 from the expanding black middle class.

FNB commercial property strategist John Loos said builders in the nonresidential sector were "very optimistic" and "upbeat" about short-term prospects but they also indicated that shortages of skilled labour and inadequate supplies of materials were "seriously constraining" operations.