When you first look at a house in an estate, you tend to look at the house.
You notice the kitchen, the size of the bedrooms, the garden, where the sun comes in and whether there is enough space. You think about what you would change and whether you can see yourself living there.
What you probably don't think about quite as much is everything that happened before you reached the front door.
But live in an estate for a while and that starts to matter.
The guard who knows your car and waves you through. Children riding their bikes in the road. People walking dogs after dark. The same neighbours you pass most days. The park that becomes part of where your children play rather than somewhere you have to drive them to.
You get used to these things.
So used to them, in fact, that you can forget they are part of what you bought.
Your home starts to feel bigger than your erf.
The streets become familiar. So do the people. You know which way you like to walk in the evening. You notice when someone is renovating or a new family has moved in. You know the gardens you pass every day and the places where people tend to stop and talk.
Every estate has its own version of this.
At Steenberg, it might be driving past the vineyards with the mountain ahead of you. In another estate it is children meeting in the park after school, walking through fynbos, or simply coming home through beautiful, well-kept streets.
It isn't necessarily the big things that make the difference.
It is going for a walk after dinner without giving it much thought. Letting the children cycle to a friend's house. Coming home late and seeing the guards at the entrance. Going away and feeling comfortable leaving the house.
None of this sounds particularly important when you are looking at properties.
Until you live it.
Then it simply becomes part of everyday life.
Perhaps that is why people who have lived in estates for many years often find it difficult to imagine living outside one. It isn't only the security they would miss. It is all the other things that came with it.
And those things are not always obvious on a viewing.
A beautiful house will always matter. The space, the light, the garden and the way a home makes you feel matter enormously.
But the house is still only part of where you live.
When you buy in an estate, home begins before you reach the front door.
