With our coastal resorts entering their cooler season in terms of the weather – there seems to be no cooling off in terms of demand for top-level homes in such areas.

A national property group has opened a new franchise in the Eastern Cape to serve the needs of buyers and sellers in Aliwal North and surrounding areas.

The beleaguered N2 Gateway housing project in the Cape, originally scheduled for completion in June 2006, will cost R3bn when the 22 000 units are finally completed in around three years' time.

Yet another celebrity has been spotted shopping for property along Cape Town's exclusive Atlantic Seaboard and this time the price tags of properties viewed were around the R6m mark.

While blue-chip houses in Camps Bay fetch tens of millions in an area where even garages are reported to have sold for more than a million rand, Kadephi Welkom has just taken his first step on the property ladder, buying a house in Khayelitsha for under R300 000.

Properties in Cape Town's urban fringe Western Coast suburbs – Milnerton, Brooklyn, Rugby, Sanddrift, Tygerhof and Century City – are benefiting from their closeness to the Cape Town CBD, reports Mark Vladislavich, franchisee for Rawson Properties in Milnerton and adjacent areas.

The difference in asking and selling prices in the property market is back to normal levels, said the MD of Homenet, David Rogers.

A local buyer has forked out R21.85m for a mansion in one of Cape Town's upper-class suburbs, Bishopscourt.

A largely untold aspect of the commercial and industrial property boom of the moment is growing foreign interest and investment in SA.

Deeds office data shows that since 2005 Somerset West has recorded more transfers in the upper millions than its Helderberg counterparts.

Rising interest rates will not necessarily affect the residential property sector negatively as relatively high confidence levels, a strong economy and an emerging black middle class continue to buoy the market.

A four-bedroomed apartment on Clifton beach has sold for a staggering R34m to a prominent UK businessman – the highest price achieved for an apartment in SA to date.

Homes in Cape Town and Johannesburg’s old stately suburbs may boast outrageous price tags – but Noordhoek in the Western Cape has the country’s most expensive house.

Property developers are increasingly shifting their attention away from well-developed metropolitan areas to small rural towns.

Two years after PE was identified by certain newspapers as SA's fastest growing city, the effects of its 'astronomical' house price growth are still being felt by entry level buyers.

Despite four interest rate increases since June last year, and probably two more pending, Durban's property market remains active, with some suburbs showing house price growth well in excess of Absa's national average of 15.2%.

The sharp slowdown of house price growth should provide the SA Reserve Bank with ammunition to limit interest rate rises.

Coastal property sales from the West Coast to Knysna this festive season wiped out all signs of a cooling property market.

While house prices across the board are no longer racing ahead at 20% to 30% a year on the back of rising interest rates, it seems that wealthy investors still have plenty of appetite for residential property.

The demand for property in Sea Point and Green Point is booming amid World Cup excitement.

A four-storey villa on what is arguably Cape Town's most exclusive street has been sold for R42m - the highest price recorded for a house sale on the Atlantic Seaboard.

Despite high crime levels and a weakening currency, SA has taken its place as one of the world's top emerging economies with a property asset base that is likely to continue its upward value growth path for the next five or six years.

With SA increasingly in the spotlight as a highly sought after tourism destination, particularly given the forthcoming 2010 World Cup, the appealing country lifestyle and historic appeal of the Western Cape Winelands continues to arouse high interest.

Not many are convinced, but the SA Government has denied it is about to regulate foreign land ownership - particularly along the Cape coastal area - which it says is being increasingly sold off at excessively high prices which only foreigners and 'the super rich' can afford.

Foreigners are ready to shell out as much as R21 000 a day to rent certain properties on the Atlantic Seaboard in the Western Cape.