Finweek, in its 23 December 2010 issue, had a survey of the suburbs with the biggest percentage annual increases, across the provinces and nationally. In Johannesburg for example, two of the five with the biggest increases of golf estates, including Dainfern and the others included the classic suburbs like Hyde Park.

Of course, statistics only tell half of the story and if, for example, the statistic is a median sale price in a golf estate, then it is really going to depend whether they are still selling plots in the estate or selling houses, because if they are selling plots, the averages should be much lower as a piece of land without a house is understandably going to be sold for less money than one with a house on it. So, for example, Blair Atholl is the 8th most expensive golf estate in South Africa, with a value of R5,48 million and it beats Dainfern in the 14th spot, which has a value of R3,89 million. That only tells half the story, because Blair Atholl, out of approximately 330 stands only has about 50 houses built, with about another 50 on the go, whereas Dainfern with approximately 1 300 stands has virtually no empty stands available in the entire estate. In short, a piece of land at Blair Atholl is going to cost you more in some cases than a fully built house in Dainfern and obviously the gap between Blair Atholl and Dainfern in this example will only grow as Blair Atholl becomes more developed. This is an example of why one must always be careful when going through averages and statistics, to make sure that you understand what you are comparing, because otherwise it might just tell you a very different story to what you may think.

In this case, the story came out right, and that is that Blair Atholl properties cost much more than Dainfern, but the statistics certainly did not illustrate the real gap between the two estates. Similarly, I used to live in a suburb called Atholl, and the average price in Atholl is always brought down considerably because on the fringes of Atholl there are a number of townhouses and apartments which understandably sell for less than larger properties with bigger houses on them. Of course, estate agents love all of this because they can produce statistics however they like, depending on who they are trying to persuade – the seller or the buyer.