From London to Cape Town and Why We Only Act for the Buyer.
Picture a video walkthrough playing on a phone late at night. The rooms look right and the light looks right but the house is six thousand miles away and somebody else is holding the camera.
That scene will be familiar to anyone buying from abroad. It was familiar to me too when I moved back to Cape Town in 2021. Viewing from abroad while managing time zones and coordinating visas made the whole thing harder than I expected. It also showed me something I had stood close to for years without ever standing in its shoes.
Two Decades Across Two Markets
My career began in prime London property with early years at Savills and then a move in 2006 to Aylesford International in Chelsea. It was a grounding in the top of the London market and in the people who buy there.
In 2008 the work brought me to Cape Town for the first time. That stretch made one thing very clear. Property changes hands in South Africa in a very different way from the United Kingdom and that lesson has shaped everything since.
Back in London I spent a number of years at Savills in residential development and high value property advising buyers from home and abroad. Part of that role meant presenting London property to investors in South Africa so the two markets have always sat side by side for me.
A Gap Seen From the Buyer's Side
In 2021 I came back to Cape Town while still working with Savills. This time I arrived as the person relocating and I saw the market the way you would see it from abroad.
Buyers here had access to excellent selling agents. What they had very little of was independent representation that sat only on their side of the purchase.
You see it most clearly in the paperwork. In a South African sale the conveyancing attorney is appointed by the person selling you the house. That is normal practice here. It does mean the one professional formally appointed in the transaction was chosen by the seller.
Building What Was Missing
That gap became Sophie Gamborg Global Property. Today my team and I act for the buyer and nobody else. When the right answer is to walk away from a house we say so.
We advise on homes and relocation and investment across Cape Town and South Africa. Every stage of that work is laid out in how we work from the first conversation to long after the keys are handed over.
Around every search sits a trusted network of legal and tax and foreign exchange and immigration and property specialists. Money coming into the country moves under its own rules set out by the South African Reserve Bank on exchange control and that is why we bring the forex partner in before an offer is signed rather than after.
What Two Markets Teach You
If you are buying from London or Zurich or Dubai you arrive with instincts that were formed somewhere else. Some of them will serve you well here and some will cost you time. Two decades across London and Cape Town is how I help you tell the difference.
The questions I hear most from buyers abroad are gathered in our FAQs and the longer story of how the business came together sits in our story. I also shared it recently in a PrimeResi feature.
Where It Usually Begins
Many of the people we work with meet Cape Town first as visitors. A long lunch or a morning on the beach plants a thought that does not leave when the flight home does.
When that thought starts turning into a plan I would be glad to hear from you before anything else is decided.
The move will always ask a lot of you. Having one advisor on your side from the first question to the last makes it feel a great deal lighter.
