How long it takes to sell your home in South Africa's five metros right now

New FNB data shows the average time homes are currently on the market for across South Africa’s five major metros.

The latest FNB House Price Indices for the country’s major regions revealed that for the the summer quarters of 2016/17, the estimated time on the market in Ethekwini was
the longest of the major metro regions – 17.29 weeks

This was followed by Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape at an estimated 16.64 weeks.

The best performer, according to FNB, and by some margin, is Tshwane Metro, which although not having significant house price growth appears to have a vibrant market.

Tshwane Metro’s 10.14 weeks beats Cape Town’s estimated 13.14 weeks.

The Western Cape region however, continue to have by a significant margin the fastest average house price growth in the first quarter of 2017, compared to the rest of the country’s major residential regions, FNB said.

However, mounting affordability challenges in that province are believed to have caused some slowing in its house price growth in recent quarters.

FNB reported last month that the number of homes being resold at values below their previous purchase price has climbed in recent months.

Given that most homes are resold a good number of years following their original purchase, the large majority (87.7%) of total properties as at January 2017, sold at above their previous purchase price, FNB said.

• 73.6% at 110% or more than previous purchase price
• 8.6% at 105%-109% of previous purchase price
• 5.5% at 100%-104% of previous purchase price.

The bank pointed out that it uses deeds data property transfers registered by individuals below the value of R10 million to obtain a residential-dominated data sample.