Buffalo City Housing Market Report - 2018
With support from the Cities Support Programme of National Treasury, the Citymark project undertakes analysis of South Africa’s residential property markets, with a particular focus on the lower end of the market. Utilising title deeds data obtained from Lightstone Pty Ltd, the analysis separates the market into four segments, allowing the careful examination of the differentiated performance of the entry level (under R300 000), affordable (R300 000 – R600 000), conventional (R600 000 – R1.2m) and high end (over R1.2m) markets. By merging suburb-level data from the deeds registry with StatsSA subplace data from the 2011 Census, we can undertake detailed, spatial analysis of residential property markets.
As part of our series of reports on the eight metros in South Africa, this report on the residential property market in Buffalo City, Eastern Cape, provides a detailed analysis of government-sponsored properties, freehold and sectional title homes, new and resale transactions, lending, and first-time homeowners.
The report finds that Buffalo City has the smallest residential property market of all eight metros, in terms of number of properties (122 156) and total value (R78.8bn). 34% of residential properties are valued under R300 000, with another 32% valued R300 000 – R600 000. Government-subsidised houses make up 30% of residential properties in BCM. The number of new transactions in the entry and affordable market has declined significantly in recent years, while new transactions in the conventional market have grown. The majority of new transactions in the conventional and high-end markets have been estate properties.
CAHF’s work in South Africa is supported by:
