ABSA Excludes Expensive Housing From Affordability Calculations

This little snippet from this article caught my eye:

George accepts Absa's calculations, which show that the average house price is around R900 000. That estimate is based on the monthly mortgage applications Absa approves. Houses costing more than R2.6m are excluded from the calculation to prevent distortions from a couple of very expensive houses on the Cape coast (those of R28m, where the buyer needs to borrow the last R3m).

Anyone who thinks ony a "couple" of houses are being excluded are deluding themselves. I went to PropertyGenie and did a search for property with a minimum price of R2 500 000 in Cape Town and got 373 listings in the past month in the Southern Suburbs alone! Add to that the Atlantic Seaboard, City Bowl and the nicer areas of the Northern Suburbs and that "couple" becomes a couple hundred.