So, you are considering buying a house in South Africa, but should you buy a pre-owned house in the suburbs or a new one in a residential estate? While there are some benefits to buying a home in the suburbs, there are many reasons why it makes more sense to buy a house from a property developer in a new residential estate.
The first consideration is that property developers spend a lot of time and money determining the best way to build a high-quality home that requires minimal maintenance and provides maximum value for your money. A property developer chooses everything from your light fittings to the garage door motor to be of good quality, efficient, and easily replaceable, if necessary.
On the other hand, if you buy a pre-owned suburban house, you are often entirely at the mercy of the previous owners’ whims. Quality and workmanship are often wildly inconsistent because the previous owner loved DIY projects, and you did not notice that the floating shelves you love so much were glued to the walls instead of properly bolted until the wall’s paint started peeling off.
The next consideration is that property developers apply the latest style, material, and efficiency trends when building the houses and apartments in their new property developments. For example, features like built-in gas lines, solar panels and backup electricity solutions are now standard for many new property developments. In contrast, in older suburban houses, you have to retrofit these features to a home that was never designed to accommodate them, which can be costly or visually obtrusive.
New property developments also strive for green building certification, which looks at efficient energy and water usage, construction materials, indoor environment quality, land use and ecology, transport access, and innovation to ensure that both the houses and the development itself are as efficient as possible.
Another value add that a property developer brings to the table is the convenience of added amenities. There are certain features of a suburban home that a property developer cannot add to every house in an estate, like a pool in your backyard or a nice big braai area. The developers’ solution is to provide a set of communal facilities. Many new property developments add kids’ play areas, braai facilities, play fountains, and swimming pools to the estate for everyone to use. So, you do not have to stop entertaining your friends and family when you move to an estate. It also gives your children a safe place to play with their friends. An added bonus is that you do not have to maintain any of it, unlike a suburban house where it is all your responsibility.
Lastly, security is the deciding factor for most people. Residential estates provide the best overall security solutions unless you are willing to spend vast amounts of money on private security for a suburban home. Most new developments offer a range of top-notch security features like biometric access control, twenty-four-hour patrolling guards, electric fencing, and more, all of which would be too expensive to implement for a single house. You can live without these security measures, but then you become responsible for keeping your family and your belongings safe, which, as most South Africans will agree, means never getting a good night’s sleep again.
Central Developments, Gauteng's leading residential property developers, builds all its new developments with exactly these considerations in mind. Cascades Waterfall in the Waterfall node and The Atlanta @ Amberfield City in Centurion are prime examples of estates where they applied these trends.
Both estates offer a variety of houses and apartments in different configurations with impeccable interior designs and are EDGE-certified by the Green Building Council of South Africa. Their interior and exterior finishes are made of high-quality materials chosen for their aesthetics, efficiency, and longevity. For example, the Chromadek roofing used at both these estates is specifically designed to resist the harsh South African elements and offer you longer-lasting protection. The homes in these estates also provide optional backup electricity solutions with most floor plans. So, no more worrying about load-shedding, and you will get a smaller electricity bill at the end of the month!
Both Cascades and The Atlanta have many family-friendly amenities, like communal braai areas, kids’ play areas, and a swimming pool for hot summer days. Combined with the twenty-four-hour, state-of-the-art security that both these estates offer their residents, it is easy to understand why living in a property development instead of a suburban house just makes so much more sense!
