Johannesburg - The carnage in South Africa’s golf-estate industry, particularly along the coastline, continues.
The George region, especially, is under the cosh since a combination of stricter access to mortgage finance and poor house-price growth has led to sales of erven in golf estates drying up overnight.
The latest golf estate to collapse is the Le Grande golf estate in George, one of those forming part of Rita Krok Family Trust Developments.
This is one of several family trust companies belonging to the very affluent Krok family.
Rita Krok is the wife of the magnate Solly Krok, who started the Gold Reef City casino complex in Johannesburg with his twin brother, Abe Krok.
Auction Alliance is putting a large part of Le Grande under the hammer later this month.
Rael Levitt, the chief executive of Auction Alliance, said distressed coastal property sales are on the increase and he expects the market will be under pressure for the next 18 to 36 months.
He expects the Le Grand golf estate to be snapped up for 50% less than it could have fetched in 2007.
This is the second development of the Rita Krok Family Trust Developments to land on the auction floor.
The previous one was the Hartenbos eco-development between the Hartenbos and the Klein Brak rivers near Mossel Bay, which netted R35m at an auction in March this year.
