Market drivers include the discovery of Port Elizabeth as an attractive tourist destination, an automotive parts export boom in the region, and the emergence of a growing middle class of buyers.

As well as the Coega industrial development, which has ignited demand in areas such as Bluewater Bay, which is ideally placed as a dormitory town for the new export complex.
 
While there is demand across the board in the Port Elizabeth region - for homes ranging from those of blue-collar workers with subsidised loans to those of upmarket executives from satellite industries that are servicing the Coega scheme - beachfront properties in particular are in demand.
 
Botha says that a sellers? market has emerged in the area.
 
Developers have identified gaps and a great deal new of development is under way, notably in terms of townhouses and cluster homes, many of which are selling off-plan.
 
Prices of more than R1m - an unheard of level in the city just a few years ago - are becoming quite common. A Summerstrand home sold recently for R2-million and an upper Walmer home for R1.7-million.
 
Nonetheless, the city still offers value relative to other major coastal centres, and growing awareness of that fact is adding impetus to demand, says Botha.