{"id":846180,"date":"2025-12-27T07:06:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T05:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=846180"},"modified":"2025-12-27T07:06:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T05:06:48","slug":"the-south-african-city-that-is-building-the-most-houses-still-has-a-housing-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/846180\/the-south-african-city-that-is-building-the-most-houses-still-has-a-housing-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"The South African city that is building the most houses still has a housing crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The City of Cape Town has comfortably created the most housing units across South Africa\u2019s metros, but is facing severe housing issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA said that the nation\u2019s metros develop their residential landscape in their own, unique way, ranging from free-standing homes to high-density upward housing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA\u2019s latest ten-year review of private sector building statistics shows that the City of Cape Town was the most active metropolitan municipality during the period 2014 to 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The metro saw the completion of the most dwelling houses and flats, as well as the fourth-largest number of townhouses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the city recorded just under 97,000 new housing developments over the period. This was comfortably ahead of second-placed City of Tshwane at 56,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City of Johannesburg was fourth overall, but did record the most townhouse builds at 20,900. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, flats don\u2019t seem very popular in the City of Johannesburg, accounting for only 1% of new residential units. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas flats accounted for 40% of new residential units in both the City of Cape Town and eThekwini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, Stats SA data also showed a notable shift in residential development in the City of Cape Town from dwelling houses to flats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the City of Johannesburg, there has been a significant shift towards townhouses, accounting for a substantial share of private-sector residential development in the municipality since 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Affordability crisis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to Property24, the average selling price in Cape Town has risen from around R1.5 million in 2016 to R2.1 million in 2025. This comes despite a weak macroeconomic environment in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of this rapid house price inflation has been linked to a shortage of houses in the area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking with Politically Aweh,<\/a> Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill Lewis said that the city\u2019s housing backlog now sits at about 600,000 homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has been exacerbated by a significant decline in national housing grants and the semigration of 100,000 families from Gauteng over the last two years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the housing shortage, the growth of Airbnb in Cape Town is also considered a major factor contributing to the city\u2019s rising property prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Town, like many other popular tourist destinations, has seen a rise in property owners opting for short-term rentals, which can drive up demand and prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise of wealthy buyers in the city has also increased tension from residents of the city, who claim to be priced out of their own city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case in point is Kalk Bay on the West Coast of False Bay, whose fishing industry has been replaced by tourism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to a plethora of old buildings, trendy restaurants, art galleries and bohemian boutiques, the town has seen an influx of wealthy buyers and investors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Areas across False Bay have seen house prices rise by as much as 150% by 2025, driven by residential and investment buyers, including Airbnb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data from Seeff Property and Lightstone shows<\/a> that full-title house prices in Kalk Bay rose from R4.9 million in 2020 to R9 million by early 2025\u2014an over 80% increase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rising municipal rates and property valuations are putting these long-term residents under pressure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cape Town is comfortably building the most houses across South Africa’s metros, but still can’t keep up with demand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":846185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[2279,1809],"class_list":["post-846180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-cape-town","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846180"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846801,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846180\/revisions\/846801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}