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LAND TRANSFERS DECLINE BY 9.2% IN 2017

21/02/2018 07:10:00 BY KWANELE DHLADHLA

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MBABANE – Property development punters seem to have been less active in making long-term investments through buying property.

This is arguably backed by the lessened number of property (land, residential or commercial transfer that has been registered by the Deeds Registry Office for nine months.

Between April and December 31, 2016, the deeds registry office registered 785 property transfers (deeds of transfer) which was a reduction by 83 from 712 registered between April and December 2017. Independent calculations by the Business Desk show that this decrease was 9.29 per cent.

A deed is a legal document (instrument) by which an asset owner (the grantor) transfers his or her right of ownership (title) in an asset to another party (the grantee).

Simply put, this refers to the number of properties that have exchanged hands during the period under review.
In most cases, property buyers borrow money from commercial banks to buy their properties of choice.

In this regard, the deeds office reported that it registered 795 Mortgage Bonds in 2016 which was a reduction of 56 from the 736 during the same period.
A mortgage bond is finance borrowed against immovable property, using that property as security for the loan.
Interestingly, the number of deeds of transfers nearly corresponds with the number of mortgage bonds.

The registration of so many mortgage bonds can be linked to credit to the private sector which grew by 2.4 per cent month-on-month to E13.9 billion at the end of November 2017, according to the Central Bank of Swaziland (CBS).

CBS reported that the expansion was mainly driven by all private sector credit components which comprise of credit to other sectors of the economy, credit to businesses and credit to Households and Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISH).
“Year-on-year, private sector credit increased by 4.8 per cent,” disclosed CBS.