Cape Town -Residential property prices in Cape Town have sky-rocketed by 141% since 2010, outstripping other metropolitan municipalities.
This is according to Statistics SA's new residential property price index (RPPI) which compares how housing prices have increased since 2010 across the eight metropolitan municipalities and nine provinces.
“Anecdotes about steep property price rises in the City of Cape Town are not without merit. Since 2010, residential property prices have grown by 141% in the City of Cape Town, outstripping other metropolitan municipalities.
Since August 2014, price increases in Cape Town were consistently higher than other metros. After remaining relatively flat in 2018 and 2019, prices surged further,” read the report.
The price index for the City of Johannesburg, on the other hand, recorded the slowest increase over this period, with residential property prices rising on average by 71%.
Nationally, residential property prices increased by 5.8% in the 12 months to November 2022.
Prices increased by 7.4% in the Western Cape and by 3.6% in Gauteng over this period. The City of Cape Town and Ekurhuleni were the main contributors to the annual inflation rate for all metropolitan areas in November.
Researcher at Ndifuna Ukwazi, Nick Budlender said: “While property price growth has benefited a small group of Capetonians, it has also priced a much larger group of people out of the formal property market entirely.
The majority of people living in Cape Town simply cannot afford a safe and decent home.
“Instead of the apartheid government, evictions today are mainly driven by a highly exclusive and expensive property market, and the consequences for individual families and wider communities are devastating. Not enough has been done by the government to capture some of the increased value and use it to protect our most vulnerable residents.”
Stop CoCT founder Sandra Dickson said affordable housing was needed.
“The reason for this artificial property price boom in Cape Town is to be found in the huge semigration of people and big money to Cape Town from the other provinces.
“The main reason for this is the political uncertainty, failing municipalities and general deterioration of safety and infrastructure.
“Cape Town is expanding like a mushroom in the R1 million to R2m sector.
However, affordable housing below this amount is seriously lagging, leaving resident Capetonians wanting and not getting a better life.
“They are more and more unable to afford a home due to this artificial property bubble.”
“We are also living a reality where the Cape Town municipality is spending vast amounts of money and resources to mainly attract outsiders to the City. All the while the vast majority of Capetonians are unable to benefit from this policy and find it increasingly difficult to make ends meat and to pay their exorbitant municipal bills for services,“ Dickson said.
The City of Cape Town said it would review the data and respond in due course.
Cape Times