The suburbs with the most expensive rent in South Africa right now

Cape Town is home to the most expensive areas in South Africa to rent a property, with rents for a two-bedroom apartment hitting R75,000 monthly.

According to the latest Rode’s Report on the South African property market, flat vacancy rates nationally in South Africa dropped from 8.1% in Q4 2023 to 7.9% in Q1 2024.

That said, vacancy rates are still above the 7.2% average in 2023.

The quarter-on-quarter vacancy rates are an improvement from the Covid-high of above 10% and is partially explained by the improvement in tenant finances.

According to data from Payprop, the number of tenants in arrears declined to 17% in Q4 2023 from
17,5% in Q3 2023 – well below the pandemic peak of 25%.

“This data might surprise readers, given the financial struggles of the consumer, but a possible explanation is that this is an improvement compared with the dire situation during Covid-19,” said the report.

A boost for the rental market over the short term has been 15-year high interest rates, which are continuing to push many potential buyers into the rental market instead.

“Prospects for the economy over the next few years are not bright (low growth in household incomes) and although interest rates will likely decline, they will not drop again to the ultra-low pandemic levels,” said the report.

“Thus, it will remain cheaper to rent than to buy over the short term, and it would make sense − purely from a financial point of view − to rent and religiously save the difference between the rent and what the
bond instalments would have been.”

Regionally, the Western Cape continues to stand out due to its low flat vacancy rate of 2.3% in Q1 2024.

Semigration is boosting demand for renting and buying properties in the Western Cape, which also has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation.

Cape Town’s vacancy rate averaged 2.5% in Q1 2024, with George and Stellenbosch having a vacancy rate of 0.0%.

Vacancy rates in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, on the other hand, grew to 9.3% and 11.2%, respectively.

“On a positive note, flats were less empty in Johannesburg than at the end of 2023, while the trend was the opposite in Pretoria.”

Most expensive areas

Cape Town is also home to the four most expensive areas in South Africa, which are currently rented.

Since the last Rode’s Report, data for rent along the Atlantic Seaboard in Cape Town has been provided, which clearly shows that the area has the highest rents in the country.

On average, a 2-bedroom upmarket apartment in Camps Bay, Clifton and Bantry Bay in Cape Town will cost R75,000 – the most expensive in the country.

Following this, Sea Point, Green Point, and Three Anchor Bay, also near the Atlantic Seapoint, have rents of R35,000 per month.

The Cape Town City Centre (R24,000) and Hout Bay (R22,000) follow in third and fourth.

Heatherlands in George (R16,000) and the Groenkloof area in Pretoria (R15,000) are the only areas in the top 10 not found in Cape Town.

The top 10 most expensive areas to rent a two-bedroom upmarket apartment can be found below:

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