From the Desk of the MD - April 2019
Category From the Desk of the MD
Over the past month, a surprise round of load shedding and the news coming out of various commissions of enquiry have underlined the scale of the corruption that SA has to clean up before it is likely to get back on the path to really significant economic growth and job creation.
We believe that this is going to happen, and that those who are able to invest in property now will reap excellent rewards over the next three to five years as the country recovers and housing demand rises.
But realistically, the turnaround is not going to happen overnight and unfortunately, will very likely come too late for many SA consumers and home owners who are currently struggling to make ends meet.
While household debt levels have decreased, wage increases have not kept pace with inflation over the past year, and retrenchments in many industries mean that families that used to have two incomes now often have to try to live on one.
Every petrol and electricity price increase pushes homeowners in these situations closer to the point where they are unable to make their home loan repayments and risk losing their homes and having their credit records so damaged that they are unable to borrow money, rent another home or buy again for years to come.
However in our experience, most homeowners who are in this kind of financial trouble won't talk to their bank about it until it is too late, and that's why we are urging those who think they may have a problem to make use of our realRescue service. This gives them the opportunity to explain their situation to a RealNet agent, who will then act as their intermediary with the bank, and work to get them listed as financially distressed sellers on the relevant assisted sale programme.
All four major banks have these programmes, and their biggest advantage is that they make it possible for distressed sellers to keep their credit records intact by facilitating the sale of their properties on the open market instead of them being repossessed and sold at a sheriff's auction.
RealNet is accredited on all the assisted sale panels and although the final decision as to whether the homeowner qualifies will always be that of the bank, homeowners who would like our support should contact us without delay via the realRescue page on our website or call us on 0860 460 460.
Author: RealNet
