News
Posted on 2022-08-12
The JSE All Property Index closed at 8 066 last night.
Nedbank’s flexible working setup
and real estate optimisation strategy is paying off, according to the
group’s CEO, Mike Brown. The bank has implemented a hybrid work model
where a portion of its workforce will continue to work on-site and
remotely. Through its strategy to consolidate and standardize its
buildings, its number of campus sites (offices) has decreased from 31
to 24 over the past four years, with a long-term target of 19. Its
optimal workplace distribution mix is expected to settle at around 60%
at Nedbank premises and at 40% as a mix of hybrid and permanent
work-from-home models to support an anticipated workforce model of 50%
full-time on premises, 30% hybrid, and 20% permanently off-site. During
H1 2022, 51% of its employees worked from home – excluding branch
employees.
UK-focused REIT Capital & Regional
has published its half-year results to June 2022, resuming dividend
payments with a proposed interim dividend of 2.5 pence per share. The
company’s various debt reduction initiatives, which included Its
Blackburn sale above book value, the completion of its £21m Walthamstow
residential disposal, securing lettings to the NHS and TK Maxx at Ilford
which enabled a positive loan amendment, and the acquisition of its
Hemel Hempstead debt at a significant discount, resulted in a
considerable improvement in its net LTV from 49% as at December 2021
(and 72% as at 30 June 2021) to 40% on a proforma basis as at 30 June
2022. Its share price has increased by 1.4% over the past week.
While total residential property transfers were on
track to match or exceed 2021 following the drop in sales in 2020,
Lightstone says that total transfers for Q1 and Q2 2022 amounted to
129 642, marginally down from 2021 when 130 102 transfers took place in
the comparative quarters. However, the total purchase price soared to
R156bn in 2022, well up on the R69bn recorded in 2020 and R112bn in
2019. There has also been a sharper decline in the volume of bonded
transfers, 10.8% down in Q1 2022 and 5.9% down in Q2, with bonded
transfers in 2022 has dropped to 68 731, 53% of all transfers, from
74 986, 57% of all transfers in 2021. The total purchase price of all
properties increased from R153bn in Q1 and Q2 of 2021 to R156bn in 2022
with the total purchase price of bonded properties declining from R104bn
in 2021 to R101bn in 2022. Gauteng accounted for 37% of all
transactions in Q2 of 2022 compared to 24% in the Western Cape. Sales
values were the same in both provinces at R31bn (36%) of total sales
suggesting that sales in the Western Cape commanded higher values.
Demolition at 142 Bree Street in Cape Town has begun to make way for
Africa’s first-ever biophilic development, The Fynbos. Before clearing
the site for construction, the developers, Lurra Capital, gave the
existing derelict building a new lease on life by turning it into an
urban street art gallery, which boasts over 1 000 artworks, created by
120 graffiti artists from 30 countries. The Fynbos Street Art Campaign
welcomes graffiti artists to participate in a competition that will see
the top 5 commissioned to paint murals over several floors of lift
shaft within the new building.
