Most people associate the glamour of real estate with marketing millionaires’ mansions around the world, it actually sells far more family homes, flats and townhouses in local suburbs.

“In fact,” says Lew Geffen, chairman of Sotheby’s International Realty in SA, “sales of these more modest homes make up the bulk of our business and are absolutely what kept us going all through the recession, when there were far fewer upmarket properties available for sale.

Ahead of the Soccer World Cup, increasing exposure of SA is driving up global interest in SA properties as investments, and that the demand among overseas investors is broadening to lower-priced apartments, townhouses and suburban homes as well as upmarket coastal and resort properties.

The reason is that most of these investors are looking at the prospects for property here long after the soccer tournament is over. SA is unusual in its potential for market expansion over the next few years as hundreds of thousands of people become increasingly economically empowered and enter the formal housing market for the first time.

What is even more exciting though is that SA property investors are becoming increasingly aware that they have a potential gold mine right on their doorstep, and are starting to accumulate portfolios of local properties rather than spend their money offshore.