Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa August 2013 | Page 24

GETTING STARTED

BYJOHN ROBERTS

To Gate Or
Not To Gate...

G

Is community life for you?

ated communities have become the
accepted, and often desired, form of
homeownership in the 21st century with
buyers increasingly prepared to pay the premiums
associated with living behind guarded security or
access-controlled gates.
Consequently, gated residential communities
and garden apartments are the t ypes of
developments most likely to be the new ones
coming to the market. While composite South
African figures are not as easily at hand, US
statistics show these types of properties have
grown from only 2000 in the 1970s to more than
50000 by the new millennium.
That equated to around 6% of that country’s
households living behind walls or fences with
about half of them in communities where access
was controlled by gates, entry codes, key cards or
security guards.
In essence, gated communities have several
common elements. Gates and fences provide the
perception of security, safety and privacy - and in
affluent neighbourhoods, privacy means exclusivity
and thus higher property values. Adding weight to
the argument is that a automatic gate system or
private security access boosts the property value
regardless of whether or not it actually impacts on
crime in that area.
Facing facts, everyone wants to feel proud of their
environment and including the element of a gated
community to the home address can offer prestige
akin to a private club where access privileges are
required and the real benefits of crime prevention
are a bonus.
To a lesser extent, gated communities may also
offer buyers the opportunity to purchase a more
modern home than those found in established
areas, simply because the homes found in those
communities are newer than the freestanding ones
in the neighbourhood.

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August 2013 SA Real Estate Investor

There is also the opportunity for sharing the
costs associated with expensive facilities - tennis
courts, swimming pools, convenience centres
and stables and equine facilities are ones that
come to mind. These are items many property
owners would be unable to afford individually,
but in pooling resources and opting for communal
living, can become accessible.
Not often considered is that gated communities
also aid safety measures for the neighbourhood.
The body corporate can erect speed bumps and
enforce lower-than-typical speeds on the roads as

“Gated communities
and garden apartments are
developments most likely to be the
new ones coming to the market”
measures for residents’ safety, particularly children.
They also foster a sense of togetherness - a
feeling of unity and the unspoken understanding
that neighbours will look out for their peers,
standing aside one another in times of need or
fighting together for common causes.
Those luxuries come at a price with levies generally covering communal water, rates and
taxes, security, common property maintenance
expenses and community employees should that be
applicable - working out higher than the individual
costs associated with a freestanding home.
The municipality may also deem the road
infrastructure within the gated community as
private property, meaning the onus for repairing
potholes and maintaining the network falls to
the residents as a cost above the taxes already
collected for upkeeping the country’s streets.
Homeowners in both freestanding properties
and gated communities or f lats are billed
individually for their rates, lights and water use

in line with recent changes to the Sectional Title
Act and local municipalities’ requirements.
The question then is just how much more
homeowners are prepared to pay for living in gated
communities against those opting for freestanding
properties. While not backed by qualified,
independent data, the figures emerging from estate
agents show a property within a gated community
can command a 10-15% premium on a similar
freestanding home.
That equates to roughly R50000 on a threebedroom house, yet for a buy-to-let investor, there
is the possibility of recouping some of that higher
capital outlay in higher rentals. On average, rental
income is around 20% higher in gated communities
with the tenants gaining a sense of value for money,
security and the assured serenity made possible by
the relevant rules applying to that community.
However, the elephant in the room (or the gated
community) is the perceived security. Reality has
shown security in gated estates is not as efficient
as projected or perceived with many of the crimes
committed undertaken by the residents themselves.
In high-end property developments, the issue of
bored, drug-taking youths has become something
many have had to tackle while hoping it does not
rear its head too high as to be noticed.
Essentially, while in most cases it is possible to
minimise and control crime in gated communities,
it can never be wholly removed. Developers put
into place every conceivable means to limit crime
from external sources, but the inside responsibility
becomes that of the owners and the body corporate.
That means there is still place for locking motor
vehicles; not leaving valuable items exposed on car
seats; locking the house doors and installing
burglar alarm systems and burglar bars.

RESOURCES
Just Property Group
www.reimag.co.za