Whilst certain connected people run around scooping up available plots of land, on the hope that the land price will show a quick growth once the town normalizes .....it is important to point out that the only way the property, both erf and building will show a "quick" growth will only occur if their is a demand for said property.
This being said, we have to ask ourselves, what is the attraction for Oranjemund....
The short answer......."Nothing!"
The only reason it is here is due to diamond mining.....
A prominent person was happy to let me know that Standard Bank was planning to open shop in our little town soon....
Was this a good thing?
No necessarily ....... as I keep pointing out for the last seven years, the town is still dependent on ONE cash source....NAMDEB......and until that changes, it matters not how many new business you get to open shop in Oranjemund, they will be all feeding from the same trough...
This was starkly evident during the Global recession that occurred a few short years ago...
For some odd reason, people running the show , have the firm belief that there will be a huge demand for properties in Oranjemund in the future..... sure , it would seem evident by all the folk running around for current plots...... but a lot of these are speculators..... and I am going to come straight out and say it..... a lot of these plots will still be vacant land five years from now....
I was asked, "How do we create another cash source in Oranjemund?" , well contrary to popular belief , no matter how many tar roads you build to Oranjemund, the 15 tourist car's a day that visit Luderitz, will not be able to sustain the town of Oranjemund..... So tourism will help two or three local business's, but not the entire town....
The stark reality is, to develop the local economy, you need to produce "something" locally, which due to our remote location....is just not feasible .....raw products and transports being an unrealistic expense...
About 6 years back we had grape farmers in town.... they were keen to setup shop.....but things fell apart.....I will not get into why narrow mindedness stopped that party....
So if we cannot produce local , how else are we going to sustain the town.....
Residential........
I have to go now, but will comment further on this later......
Soon some might be able to buy a house cheap but nobody will be able to build a decent house cheap in Oranjemund so plots might not be in great demand after people realize this.
Quote from: Mike Stenson on March 12, 2016, 09:38:17 AM
Soon some might be able to buy a house cheap but nobody will be able to build a decent house cheap in Oranjemund so plots might not be in great demand after people realize this.
The other trick, after all those folk take out bonds to buy a house, they will battle to sell it forward at a later stage..... unless something "big" changes in Oranjemund...
If things don't work out the way the Powers that be predict.... you gonna have a lot of unhappy and poor people living in the middle of nowhere , unable to leave , even if they wanted to.
Just my two cents.
Had a word with a person in the legal fraternity....
Seem's the company has approached the courts to recover overdue rentals from a number of defaulting tenants ...... these smaller business's are battling to survive, imagine how many more are going to default once they start paying for rates/power and water........ and a possible bond for the aged property....
My mind still boggles how the powers that be cannot see where this is all going to end...
23_146_26
Perhaps if it was laid out in Point Form, it might be easier to comprehend?
1) Oranjemund only exists because of diamonds!
2) There is only ONE source of revenue in the town, NAMDEB!
3) We will never produce anything worth keeping the town alive!
i) Tourism will not sustain a town this size!
ii) Due to our remote location and lack of facilities(which we once boasted about), people are not going to flock here!
iii) If Kudu Gas came to town, the job permanent jobs created will be 60!
4) When the town was laid out around 1956, the maximum lifespan for the mine was thirty years, nobody dreamed the diamonds would last as long!
5) The Main reason why the mine decided to "normalize" the town 8 or 9 years back, was to try and save the town as they believed that land based operations were coming to an end.... by 2014 they said.... only to discover new deposits with their new beaches...
6) For some reason, the mine cannot see that the buildings they are trying to offload to their employees and private people are way past their shelf life , a liability them and about to become a liability to the poorer folk, who will have to take on debt to "own" a house.
......tbc