A miss is as good as a mile. A situation in which you manage to buy a house or stand for sale somewhere at the backyard of the property market when the initial dream was about one in Harare North’s affluent Borrowdale Brooke will never cover up for the fact that you failed to achieve what your heart fondly desired from the word go. The heart is very honest it will never take a consolation as the first prize or a second best as the best. Its therefore, wise to know about what critical factors that can be involved if one has plans for fulfilling long cherished dreams of owning property in a suburb of choice. Remember the tenets of success will never make special adjustments for you. Those who build aeroplanes had to make them round without sharp edges because they had to comply with already existing principles of aero dynamics. You too in like manner must acquaint yourself with important factors about real estate so that you comply and avoid living a life of regrets. Here are some few but important of these factors that are pillars for your quest to achieve your real estate dream .

Suburb Density

Suburb density is basically about the average size of stands in a particular suburb. Sizes less than 300sqm are considered to be high density, those between say 400sqm and around 700sqm are considered as medium and all sizes beyond 700sqm are low density. Its important to know about suburb density because there are some aspects of real estate in Zimbabwe that are density or area specific. A good example of these are title deeds and price per square meter. About title deeds you should know that the greater percentage of properties in low densities have title deeds as compared to high densities and I believe that the major reason why this is so is the issue of past policies of segregation that where calculated to ensure that those who stayed in high densities would never access economic empowerment available through the avenue of collateral security. In terms of prices you should know that low densities are cheaper in terms of price per square meter as compared to high densities simply because purchasing in low densities is more like wholesale buying whilst in high densities it is retail.

House or Stand Price

Guess what, the reason why knowing house prices is important, is something very simple yet the price issue can be a very complicated affair for many a property investor. You should know prices because you need to have a correct budget. But many aspiring investors are unaware of the fact that property prices are greatly influenced by the immediate location such that you can never determine a price for your budget by comparing a house in suburb A with a similar one in suburb B. You cannot compare an apple to a banana. Unfortunately, many using this flawed method end up with wrong perceptions of price and of course to the detriment of their budgets. If you want a house in Borrowdale your unmistakable price guide are the prices of similar houses that where recently sold in Borrowdale. Never compare Borrowdale with Mnt Pleasant, Borrowdale is Borrowdale and Mnt Pleasant is Mnt Pleasant.

Supply and Demand

Supply and demand is an economic principle well known by many yet many still need to be educated about it but with a special focus on its impact of the Zimbabwean property market. After economic challenges of the past fifteen years there are certain residential stand types that are now out of stock so buyers have to make do with what is there. Good examples are 1000sqm stands like those in Westgate Adylin in Harare West and vacant 300sqm stands within established high density suburbs like Glen View. Besides the economic subsidence another reason why some of these stands are out of stock are local government by-laws that prohibits the sell of undeveloped stands in municipality projects. So subsequently, these supply side shortages may cause the prices of the best alternatives to sour despite the expectation that they should drop because of liquidity challenges in the economy. The take home lesson for investors in light of these things is that the reality on the ground is dictating that they should accept new stands at the periphery of the capital city as long as they are serviced to an acceptable level and have legitimate papers .

With the rise of the so called “land barons” who are property fraudsters an inability to verify the legitimacy of papers is blocking many property investors from achieving the long cherished real estate dream. The issue of buying property in special cases like deceased estates and when a seller is ill is also another aspect a serious property investor should be thoroughly aware of. Indeed these are very important topics however, one cannot cover everything in a single article the reader is therefore, at liberty to visit my blog propertymattersnews.blogspot.com for a more comprehensive experience involving a diversity of topics that are covered by over sixty articles.

DISCLAIMER : THIS ARTICLE DOES NOT REPLACE THE ADVICE ONE SHOULD GET FROM HIS OR HER PROPERTY ADVISERS.

This has been a submission by Cain Ndhlovu.
You can connect with Cain Ndhlovu via the following: https://propertymattersnews.blogspot.com, https://twitter.com/cainndhlovu, https://www.facebook.com/propertymattersnews/.
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The views expressed in the article are those of the author and not necessarily Living Zimbabwe.