Citymark South Africa: Government-subsidised housing at national and provincial level (2012-2021)

CAHF develops Citymark dashboards as part of our market intelligence on the South African housing sector. The first dashboard in the series provides a national overview of the residential property market, while the second dashboard offers a view of the housing market in each of the eight metropolitan municipalities in South Africa, including the distribution of residential properties at the local area level by market segments.

In this third dashboard, we focus exclusively on government-subsidised housing in South Africa at national and provincial level. The dashboard was most recently updated in July 2022 to include data to the end of December 2021. You can click on the four tabs at the top to look at how many properties have been registered, how many have transacted, as well as which lending institutions have been providing mortgages to these properties.

As you explore the dashboard, keep in mind:

• New transactions refers to the first time a property is registered to a private individual on the deeds registry; this indicator serves as a proxy for new construction, and include houses that were built by a private developer as well as units that were built through government programmes and transferred to beneficiaries. Only houses where the beneficiary has received their title deed will be included in this data.
• Resale transactions refers to existing properties that are sold for a second and then subsequent times.
• Bonded transactions refer to properties that transacted with a mortgage within three months of the closing date of the property transfer.

Government-subsidised properties refers to properties that are built through government housing programmes. The identification of government-subsidised housing (RDP, BNG, Discount Benefit Scheme, and other subsidised housing for ownership) on the deeds registry is difficult because there is no explicit marker tied to the deeds records of government-subsidised properties. Therefore we apply a proxy with a set of rules – properties that would “sell” for less than R300 000 the first time, on plots smaller than 500m2, etc. This is an imprecise approach, and so the figures in this dashboard should only be taken as indicative.

Data source: This dashboard utilises 2021 title deeds data obtained from Lightstone Pty Ltd, South Africa’s largest retailer of deeds registry and other data. This dashboard only covers transactions which appear on the deeds registry (the formal market) – it does not include properties that are not formally registered on the deeds registry, as might be found in backyards or in informal settlements.
To read full reports on the residential property market in each of the eight metros, visit our Citymark project page. Please contact Alison Tshangana on alison@housingfinanceafrica.org with any questions.

Suggested citation: Centre for Affordable Housing Finance. Citymark South Africa Dashboard: Government-subsidised housing at national and provincial level (2012-2021). https://housingfinanceafrica.org/documents/citymark-south-africa-government-subsidised-housing-stock-and-transactions-national-2008-to-2018/