Langenhovenpark - A detailed review of this popular suburb - Tjaart Breedt
Tuesday, June 8, 2021
As property professionals we get asked a lot of questions. The question most often asked is: “How is the market?” A second question following close behind is: “Is this a good neighbourhood to buy in?” This question is not only asked by potential new residents to the City of Roses but also by people who lived here for a long time and who just wish to replant their roots to a new suburb. We decided to have a look at some of the more well-known suburbs around Bloemfontein in a series of articles giving you some background information on them as well as what it is that draws people to them.
In this first article we will be taking a closer look to Langenhovenpark, a well-known suburb to the western side of Bloemfontein. Langenhovenpark is a popular suburb due to its easy access from the N1 and is one of the newer suburbs of Bloemfontein. The suburb has been growing at a constant speed and offers a lot of activities for all ages.
According to information obtained from Lightstone, Langenhovenpark comprises of approximately 1226 freehold properties and approximately 3300 sectional title units. The age composition within the suburb is also quite interesting with a fair spread of ownership across all ages. Again according to Lightstone, the age composition of Langenhovenpark is 20% of people 65 years and older, 39% of people 50 to 64, 31% of people between the ages of 36 and 49 and only 10% between 18 and 35. We would like to note here, that this is only based on ownership and not necessarily on occupation of properties as Langenhovenpark is a popular suburb for investors wanting to invest.
When looking at the current trends in buying property we see that for 2020 only 6% of buyers were in the age group 65 years and older, 18% of buyers were in the age group 50 to 64, 39% were between 36 to 49 and 37% were between 18 and 35. It is therefore clear that current buyers seems to be younger buyers.
So, what happened in the market for 2020? Well, we saw a total of 224 sectional title units being sold while 47 freeholds sold. An interesting fact is that Langenhovenpark has been in the top 2 most sold category for the past 5 years when looking at sectional title sales, a clear indication of the popularity of this suburb. In the past 5 years we saw 224 sectional title sales in 2020, 222 sectional title sales in 2019, 221 sectional title sales in 2018 and 217 sectional title sales in 2017. Freeholds had 47 sales in 2020, 55 sales in 2019, 56 sales in 2018 and 63 sales during 2017.
When buying it is always good to have an idea as to the median prices of properties within a suburb. The median prices in Langenhovenpark for sectional title units amounted to R 872 000 in 2020, R 900 000 in 2019, R 875 000 in 2018 and R 850 000 in 2017. Freehold properties had a median price of R 1 680 000 in 2020, R 1 600 000 in 2019, R 1 730 000 in 2018 and R 1 500 000 in 2017. It is interesting to see that the median prices fluctuated similarly on both sectional title as well as freehold properties in 2019.
Why would you buy in Langenhovenpark? The suburb is located well in terms of location still close to town as well as easily accessible from the N1. In recent years we have seen numerous shopping centres added or being upgraded. The most familiar shopping centres are @the Park, The Towers, Dynarc walk as well as Royces. Some of the lifestyle attractions are that of Pretty Gardens as well as Greenside nursery, these winning numerous awards over the past few years. Restaurants are many and includes well know franchises including Ocean Basket, KFC, Debonairs, Romans pizza, Spur and RocoMamas. That does not mean those are the only family restaurants as some of the bigger scope of restaurants includes some local restaurants like Longhorn Grill, Copper Clover, JC Chinese restaurant, Fullhouse Chinese restaurant, Stadium Fast foods and Kalahari.Fish. There are however numerous other smaller restaurants.
There are some daycare centres but no schools. Most children attend schools like Universitas Primary School, Eduplus private school, Grey College as well as Eunice School for Girls. Tertiary education is present within the suburb with CTU Training solutions as well as Akademia. The University of the Free state is also a mere 2.5km away.
One of the most known attractions of Langenhovenpark is the weekly “Boeremark”. An attraction which sees hundreds of people flocking to the market every Saturday. Prior to COVID Langenhovenpark also had the biggest Parkrun on Saturdays. Langenhovenpark is truly a suburb for families and still remains one of the most popular places to buy in.
We spoke to a resident who has lived in Langenhovenpark for a number of years to find out what it is that made him buy year in the first place, and what keeps him in the area. Mr Pieter Jordaan is also a well-known entrepreneur and the head the Bloemfontein Akademia Afrikaans University. He responded: “We have been living in Langenhovenpark for the past 12 years. In this time we saw how big and small business were established here and the suburb just keeps on expanding. We have shopping centres with the best shops in Langenhovenpark. Restaurants, butcheries and clothing stores are just on our doorstep. We are close to the best schools and although traffic is sometimes a bit busy it still flows enabling us to get our children to school on time. Safety, like in other suburbs, are not guaranteed but we have not had any incidents at our home. Afriforum is constantly involved within the community. Everything you need is in Langenhovenpark”.
We hope that this article has given you some more insight into this popular suburb.