Your home will probably cost more than everything else you spend in your lifetime combined. Yet most people spend more time choosing a holiday than preparing for the purchase. Here’s what that costs.
A couple walked into our offices last year with a signed offer to purchase on a R3.5 million house in Sandton. They’d viewed it once, on a Sunday morning, for about 40 minutes. They loved the kitchen. They could picture their kids in the garden.
They had not been pre-approved by a bank. They didn’t know what transfer duty was. They had no idea that ~R300,000 in closing costs was about to land on them. They thought the R3.5 million was the number.
They’re not unusual. We see it regularly.
Morgan Housel wrote that people spend more time researching which television to buy than thinking about the financial decisions that actually shape their lives. He wasn’t talking about property, but he might as well have been.
For most South Africans, the home they buy will cost more than everything else they spend money on combined. More than cars, more than school fees, more than retirement contributions. It’s a 20-year leveraged bet on a single asset, in a single suburb, in a single city. And in a market like Sandton where over 5,000 properties changed hands in 2025 and competition for well-priced stock is intensifying as rates come down the gap between a considered purchase and an emotional one is measured in hundreds of thousands of rands.
What the considered version looks like. You get pre-approved before you start viewing so you know what you can afford, not what you wish you could. You budget the full cost: purchase price plus ~10% in closing costs plus deposit. You read the conditions of sale and you know what’s included. We’ve watched deals collapse over a R15,000 argument about a pool pump. And you choose a conveyancer based on capability and communication, not on who quoted R5,000 less.
Housel also wrote that wealth is what you don’t see, the financial margin that lets you sleep at night. The best property purchase isn’t the biggest house you can qualify for. It’s the one that leaves you breathing room for rate increases, for a R120,000 geyser and inverter replacement, for the fact that maintaining a Sandton garden with a pool costs significant money each a month before you’ve paid a cent on the bond.
That couple in Sandton? They got their bond, they adjusted their budget, and the transfer went through. But it nearly didn’t. And the stress of scrambling for R300,000 they hadn’t planned for coloured what should have been one of the best moments of their lives.
Your home is your biggest investment. The best time to treat it like one is before you sign.
Jenna Moritz Attorneys | Sandton | National reach
