It is likely to cost you more than R6‚500 a square metre to build a house

23-01-2017
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Bizcommunity.com
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The cost of building houses rose on average to R6‚539/m² in November‚ representing inflation of 6.4% over 11 months from January‚ Absa property analyst Jacques du Toit said in a research note on Friday, 20 January.

His calculations were based on private-sector building data released by Statistics SA on Thursday.

Highest building cost inflation was for houses smaller than 80m². Their building cost rose 13.6% to R4‚438/m² from January to November.

The cost of building flats and townhouses rose 6.7% to R7‚581/m²‚ and for houses larger than 80m² building costs rose 4.1% to R6‚614/m² over the 11 months.

Du Toit said the statistics provided by local governments showed a small growth of 1.1% in the number of houses built from the matching 11 months in 2015.

But this growth was thanks to more flats and townhouses getting built because both the number of new small and large houses completed declined.

The number of new housing units for which building plans were approved fell 8.5% to 51‚137 units from the matching 11 months in 2015.

The drop was mainly the result of a decline of 25.5% in the planning of new houses smaller than 80m². Plans approved for houses larger than 80m² fell 6.7%‚ whereas in the flat and townhouse segment‚ 9.9% growth was recorded.

The real value of plans approved for new residential buildings declined 0.6% to R46.43bn. The real value of new residential buildings reported as completed declined 2.4% to R28.7bn over the same period. These real values are calculated at constant 2015 prices.