The Unsubscribed Life

Most of the property news a person reads has almost nothing to do with the house they are thinking of buying. National headlines about prices rising or falling are averages across cities that might as well be other countries, and social media is full of confident predictions from people who will never be asked to account for them.

Meanwhile the information that actually matters for a house in Tzaneen or Polokwane is local and fairly dull. What did similar homes on nearby streets sell for, going by registered sales rather than asking prices? What does the municipal valuation roll say about the property, and how does the rates bill compare with the neighbours'? If it is a sectional title unit, is the levy account healthy, and when was the last special levy?

A buyer who switches off the national noise and studies those few things will usually decide better than one who has read every forecast. The trouble is that the noise is designed to feel urgent, and the useful information is not. Nobody sends a notification about a levy statement. So choosing what to pay attention to falls to the buyer, and done properly it looks a lot like ignoring things on purpose.