Cape Town Housing Market Report - 2021
As part of our series of reports on the eight metros in South Africa, this report on the residential property market in Cape Town, provides a detailed analysis of government-sponsored properties, freehold and sectional title homes, new and resale transactions, lending, and first-time homeowners. Valued at R1.229 trillion as of June 2021, Cape Town’s residential property market is the largest of the eight metros by value. Only 16% of residential properties in Cape Town were valued at R300 000 or less, and 25% of all residential properties are state-subsidised.
The report, which draws on deeds data as of 30 June 2021, begins to unpack the impact of COVID and economic lockdowns on the residential property market. Total new transactions rose by 2.7% to 9 436 in the first year of the pandemic, although the data shows that this increase was clearly driven by the delivery of government-subsidized housing, which made up 48% of new transactions in 2020, suggesting that government managed to continue its delivery during COVID while private sector activity declined. The pandemic and associated lockdowns dampened activity in the resale market in 2020, which saw 15% fewer resale transactions in the metro compared to 2019. Furthermore, record-low interest rates were expected to boost the number of first time homebuyers in 2020. However, the number of first-time homebuyers/owners in CT did grow by 4.7% in 2020, but this was a result of increased delivery of government-subsidised houses, not increased bonded transactions.
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 five segments, allowing the careful examination of the differentiated performance of the entry level (under R300 000), affordable (R300 000 – R600 000), conventional (R600 000 – R900 000), high-end (R900 000 – R1.2m) and luxury (over R1.2m) markets.
CAHF’s work in South Africa is supported by:
