World-Renowned Personal Finance Guru Buys SA Property
2009-04-03
Her numerous books on how to make sound personal financial decisions have all topped best-seller lists. She also dispenses her priceless, money-saving (and -making) advice in columns, on TV (she is, for example, a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey show) and through speaking engagements, for which she earns around $80 000 a pop.
From her personal success alone, it is plain to see why Suze Orman is so widely respected and generally regarded as a guru when it comes to money matters and making sound financial decisions and investments.
So the fact that she has just bought property in South Africa ought to speak volumes about the positive prospects for the country's property market – especially at the upper end. This point is driven home even further when one learns that this is the first time and place that Orman is buying any property outside her native United States. Over there, she owns multiple homes: a townhouse in San Fransisco, a condominium in Fort Lauderdale and two apartments in New York.
For her first international property, Orman has selected an apartment in the über-plush and exclusive The Cliffs development in Northcliff, Johannesburg.
But apart from the obvious favourable exchange rate - making even an exclusive multi-million Rand apartment a bargain for any overseas buyer – why else DID Orman choose to invest in South Africa?
Orman says she did it “for the same reason I invested in the number one property markets in the USA – San Fransisco, Florida and New York – position, position, and position.”
Johannesburg’s attraction, says Lew Geffen, chairman of Sotheby’s International Realty in South Africa, is that it is increasingly recognised by the international business community as the 'real gateway' to potentially lucrative South African and African markets.
"And because of its growing global reputation, it’s a great place to buy luxury property especially if you are buying in dollars, euros or pounds. Mansions in suburbs such as Sandhurst and Hyde Park cost a fraction of what they would in the upper income suburbs of American and European cities and for high-flying executives who prefer lock-up-and-go properties there are apartments such as those in the Melrose Arch, Michelangelo and The Cliffs developments that are also very well-priced in world terms."
At The Cliffs, for example, the three apartments left cost between R5-million and R9-million – small change for someone of Orman's financial calibre.
And as for the 'position' Orman referred to? Northcliff is not called 'the rooftop of the City of Gold' for nothing. It is quiet, exclusive and boasts many architecturally designed homes as well as spectacular and unrestricted views.
In fact, when in residence at The Cliffs? Orman won't even realise that she is in Africa...