{"id":866181,"date":"2026-07-18T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=866181"},"modified":"2026-07-17T16:10:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:10:47","slug":"wealthy-foreigners-are-taking-over-one-of-south-africas-richest-seaside-villages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/866181\/wealthy-foreigners-are-taking-over-one-of-south-africas-richest-seaside-villages\/","title":{"rendered":"Wealthy foreigners are taking over one of South Africa’s richest seaside villages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Llandudno in Cape Town saw the highest proportion of foreign property buyers over the past decade, with over half of its homes sold to foreigners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is according to the latest property data from Lightstone Property, which was released in July 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the property data, two out of every three homes sold in the secluded Cape Town village since 2015 were bought by foreign buyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Llandudno, situated on Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard between Hout Bay and Camps Bay, is one of South Africa’s most exclusive residential areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite its reputation as a suburb of Cape Town, it has no shops, commercial activity or even streetlights, giving it the feel of a secluded coastal village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its Blue Flag beach and dramatic scenery have long made it one of the city’s most desirable addresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The figures form part of a broader analysis of approximately 2.39 million residential property transactions across South Africa over the past ten years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lightstone found that just 6% of these transactions involved buyers born outside South Africa or identified as foreign through other indicators, with the analysis limited to purchases by individuals rather than companies or trusts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, while foreign buyers represent a relatively small share of the overall market, their influence grows significantly at the luxury end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While foreign buyers accounted for a relatively small share of the period’s transactions, they accounted for 15% of transactions on properties valued between R4 million and R10 million, 26% between R10 million and R20 million, and 39% for properties above R20 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat means two out of every five homes valued at more than R20 million were bought by a foreign buyer,” said Hayley Ivins-Downes, Managing Executive: Real Estate Services at Lightstone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research found that 94% of all purchases between 2016 and 2025 were made by South African-born buyers. A further 3% were South African citizens born abroad, while another 3% were classified as foreign buyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Western Cape is the number one destination for foreign buyers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Although foreign buyers are active across the country, the Western Cape recorded the highest proportion at 7.8%, narrowly ahead of Gauteng on 7.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The province also led for properties worth more than R1 million, while Limpopo ranked third, reflecting strong demand for luxury game estate properties. Cape Town also attracted the greatest foreign property spend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lightstone estimates that international buyers acquired around R153 billion worth of residential property in the city during the period, compared with R107 billion in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The higher value of Cape Town purchases reflects the city’s concentration of luxury coastal homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowhere is this more evident than along the Atlantic Seaboard, stretching from De Waterkant and Sea Point through Bantry Bay, Clifton, Camps Bay and Llandudno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Llandudno, 67 of the 102 homes sold since 2015 were purchased by foreign buyers. With an average transaction value of R29.2 million, these purchases amounted to an estimated R1.96 billion in property acquisitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearby Bakoven and Camps Bay recorded similarly high levels of international demand, with just under half of all property transactions involving foreign buyers and average purchase prices of between R16 million and R17 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together with Llandudno, the three suburbs accounted for roughly R8.6 billion in foreign-owned property purchases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lightstone also found that foreign buyers are influencing property values in some of Cape Town’s most sought-after suburbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Bantry Bay, properties owned by foreign buyers are currently valued 31% higher than those bought by South Africans, while the gap reaches 39% in Tamboerskloof and 29% in De Waterkant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wealthy foreign buyers have also been drawn to suburbs such as Constantia, Bishopscourt, Scarborough and Kommetjie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other villages seeing a similar trend include McGregor, Riebeek Kasteel, Paternoster and Stanford, showing that international demand for South African property is filtering into more coastal areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photos of Llandudno, Western Cape <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This top suburb saw the highest proportion of foreign property buyers over the past decade, with over half of its homes sold to foreigners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":866198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2078449968499601494","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[2279,10349,25821,853],"class_list":["post-866181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-cape-town","tag-lightstone-property","tag-llandudno","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866181","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\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866207,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866181\/revisions\/866207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}