Purchasers snapped up over 130 apartments totalling more than R200million in a matter of days at the launch of a new Rabie development, Mayfair, at Century City in the past week.
In fact all 70 units in the first phase, Mayfair Gardens, were sold out within 45 minutes at the VIP invitation only pre-launch function ahead of the public launch weekend.
“The last time we saw anything near this level of buying was with The Island Club launch at Century City 10 years ago,” says Rabie project manager, Miguel Rodrigues.
Rodrigues said they had not been able to satisfy all those who had arrived at the VIP function ahead of the public weekend launch and a Board decision was made to fast track the launch of the second phase, Mayfair Court, months ahead of schedule.
“Our professional team worked around the clock to finalise sales agreements to make this possible.”
He said Mayfair Court comprises 66 apartments selling from R1,2m and these too flew out the window with only a handful left to sell by the end of the weekend and strong interest continuing throughout the week.
Rodrigues said the launch of Mayfair followed the successful sell out of three earlier residential developments at Century City in the past 18 months all of which were sold out nine months to a year ahead of completion.
“The rate of sales at these developments took us completely by surprise and for the first time in a decade we literally ran out of new development stock. We worked flat out to bring Mayfair Gardens to the market to meet pent up demand and expected sales to be brisk but did not anticipate just how brisk and yet again we are sitting with little or no new development stock and are re-evaluating our urban planning to unlock additional residential opportunities to meet continued demand.”
Rodrigues said while Century City had tended to outperform the rest of the market in recent years there were also other fundamentals driving sales.
“There is no doubt there has been a swing from equities to property and investors are now back in the property market buying aggressively.
“The vast majority of purchasers on Thursday were investors for which Century City properties have added appeal as they are practically guaranteed a tenant as we have a long waiting list of good quality tenants. Due to demand continuing to outstrip supply rentals have shot up in recent years and new one bedroom apartments are fetching around R8000 a month, two bedrooms R10 000, three bedrooms upwards of R13 000 and around R25 000 for large free standing homes.”
“Mayfair will only be completed in the third quarter of 2016 so one can expect Mayfair rentals will be higher as two sets of escalations would have taken place by then,” said Rodrigues.
For further details contact Brian Usher on 021 5550105 or on 082 5717024.