May 12 2026 13:20
Garreth Elston, Golden Section Capital
The JSE’s listed property sector delivered a recovery in April with the J803 All Property Index returning 5.76% for the month, and the J253 SA Listed Property Index 5.40%, bringing the one-year rolling total return to 28.16% and 26.01% respectively.
Garreth Elston of Golden Section Capital said the relief was welcome after a difficult first quarter for 2026. While April did not erase the accumulated damage of the preceding month, reestablished positive directional momentum across most of the stocks and demonstrated that the underlying investment case for listed property, grounded in a well-supported income return and a slowly recovering capital value trajectory, remains intact.
Performance breadth improved considerably relative to the prior quarter. Collins Property Group led the month at 11.60%, followed by UK-landlord Hammerson Plc at 11.42% and Fortress Reit at 9.95%. Of the forty-two series in the universe, the large majority produced positive total returns in April, with only a handful of names: Accelerate, Balwin, and Fairvest A among the more notable, ending the month in
negative territory, said Elston.
The MSCI South Africa Real Estate Annual Index, published on April 21, confirmed that direct property
delivered a total return of 12.0% to December 2025, the strongest outcome since 2018, with income return holding steady at 8.5% and capital growth recovering to 3.3%.
Elston said the data provided context for interpreting the persistent discounts at which many listed names trade to their reported net asset values.
“While the direct market performs, the listed sector’s underperformance on a year-to-date basis reflects sentiment, liquidity and technical factors, rather than deterioration in the underlying asset fundamentals,” he said.
The South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA) Office Vacancy Report also released in April, recorded a national office vacancy rate of 12.6%, the lowest since mid-2020. This confirmed that the recovery in offices, while gradual, was real and broadening geographically. Corporate activity in April was among the busiest the sector has seen in months. Emira Property Fund acquired a 20.17% stake in Octodec Investments from seven institutional investors, followed immediately by a voluntary cash offer to acquire up to a further 14.73% at R16.75 per share. This price represented a discount of about 32% TO Octodec’s reported neat-asset-value (NAV).
Emira appears to be an active participant in the listed property merger and acquisition landscape. Emira may look to buyout Octodec in the future. Octodec is a diversified group with significant portion of their assets located in the Johannesburg and Pretoria CBDs. Emira is largely owned by Castleview, a listed group which is investing in direct property and listed JSE funds such Emira and Accelerate Property Fund.
247@propertyflash.co.za
