Cape Town leads with 9 out 10 of SA’s most expensive suburbs

Guest piece for Seeff Property Group

January 12 2024

An analysis of the average selling prices this year across the country by the Seeff Property Group reveals that nine of the most expensive suburbs are in Cape Town. Only Sandhurst from the Sandton-Johannesburg area makes it into the top ten.

These top ten suburbs now all command an average price of well above R10m and in the top suburbs the average is now just about R20m (Clifton and Bantry Bay).

Notably, where there were three Sandton-Johannesburg suburbs in the top ten list five years ago, this year, there is only Sandhurst, although it boasts a notably uptick in the median price.

Notable too, is that Higgovale in the Cape Town City Bowl is now also in the top ten list. It once again stands as testimony to the allure of Cape Town, but more than that, the absolute confidence in the Cape Town property market, says Samuel Seeff, chairman of the group.

Cape Town is not just the best city in the world as voted for the eighth year running by the Telegraph Travel Awards this year, but the best place to invest your property money according to Seeff. Wealthy Joburg buyers along with international buyers are all investing in Cape Town, and their confidence has been rewarded, says Seeff.

Despite a challenging year, Cape Town is set to end on another exceptional year for the property market with an average transaction price of R2.1m according to Lightstone data.

Comparatively, Johannesburg only reached around R1.6m, Pretoria around R1.5m and Durban R1.3m. Sandton averaged around Sandton R2.3m compared with the Atlantic Seaboard which stands on around R8.2m based on Propstats sales data.

The average transaction price for Cape Town doubled over the last ten years and is up by about 35% from the 2019 pre-pandemic year. Cape Town also once again achieved the highest average prices in the country this year.

Ross Levin, licensee for Seeff Atlantic Seaboard says it is no surprise that 7 of the top 10 suburbs are located in the premier Atlantic Seaboard and City Bowl belt where buyers have spent on average more over the last three years.

He says further that despite the market challenges, the market here has traded slightly up on the 2022- year, which was already a very successful year. The market has been made up of a greater quantity of deals, albeit at lower price bands. That said, the market at the upper end still traded up compared to the 2019 pre-pandemic period.

SA’s Top Ten Super Luxury Suburbs by Average Selling Price in 2023

RANK	SUBURB	AREA	MEDIAN PRICE	HIGHEST PRICE ACHIEVED
1	Clifton	Atlantic Seaboard	R25M	R150M
2	Bantry Bay	Atlantic Seaboard	R22M	R60M
3	Llandudno	Atlantic Seaboard	R19.95M	R33M
4	Sandhurst	Sandton/Joburg	R19M
5	Bishopscourt	Southern Suburbs	R17.55M	R90M
6	Higgovale	City Bowl	R16.2M	R33M
7	Waterfront	Atlantic Seaboard	R15.2M	R54M
8	Fresnaye	Atlantic Seaboard	R15M	R71.25M
9	Camps Bay	Atlantic Seaboard	R14.8M	R42M
10	Constantia Upper	Southern Suburbs	R13.1M	R70M

Source: Seeff, based on Lightstone/Propstats data

The Southern Suburbs areas have also achieved an excellent year under the circumstances with close to R5.5bn in sales this year. Hout Bay has also enjoyed another exceptional year with sales of over R1 billion and the great Blouberg over R2 billion.

Luxury buyers continued to flock to Constantia Upper and Bishopscourt, says Francois Venter, lead agent for Seeff Constantia. There have already been 10 high value sales above R20m in Constantia and eight in Bishopscourt, in both instances, the highest on record. Luxury rentals have achieved rates of up to R120,000 per month in Constantia according to Jacqui Bush and Sonya Garisch from Seeff.

According to the CCID State of Cape Town report released earlier this year, there has been an increase in new businesses opening and the city awaits the opening of Amazon in the new year. Development is ongoing and everywhere you look, the city is at work getting things done.

Several pillars support the Cape Town property market, says Seeff. Aside from own-use residential sales, it has a buoyant rental market for both residential and short-term rentals which makes Airbnb investments a lucrative option, especially with tourism growing. On top of that, the market is further boosted by an influx of semigration and international buyers and tenants.

Seeff says buyers across the price spectrum continue seeing Cape Town as a safe store of wealth. We have seen that wealthy buyers from upcountry as well as international buyers are prepared to put significant funds into the property market. In fact many Europeans have preferred to invest here over the last two years as they are not as bothered about local challenges as we are.

Notes – statistics from Propstats and Lightstone

247@propertyflash.co.za