Analytics group Lightstone has published some of South Africa’s notable property trends for 2019 – including the most valuable suburbs and the best-run municipality.

The group’s data shows that South Africa is home to 9,876 suburbs with Hospitaalpark in Limpopo, Havenside in Kwa-Zulu Natal and Hartzenbergfontein AH in Gauteng taking the top three spots based on growth inflation over the last year.

Last year, 315,899 properties were sold in South Africa amounting to R243 billion. To date, 261,097 properties have sold in 2019, totalling R210 billion.

The town of Noordhoek, in the Western Cape, achieved the average highest transaction prices across the year at R4.5 million.

The most expensive residential property sold in 2019 was R45.7 million, while the most expensive commercial property sold for R365.5 million.

Below are some of the other notable statistics.

The highest-valued suburbs 

In Johannesburg, the suburbs of Sandhurst, Westcliff and Blair Atholl have the highest average value.

In Cape Town, Llandudno, De Bosch and Constantia emerged as the suburbs with the highest average value.

Umhlanga in Kwazulu-Natal also features among the top 10 suburbs with the highest average value.

Best-run municipality

In 2019 the Good Governance Africa (GCA) rated Mossel Bay in the Western Cape as the best-run municipality in South Africa.

Lightstone noted that the town is made up of 24,8133 properties (freehold, sectional title and estates) with 15,390 transactions having taken place over the last five years.

The value of properties in the area has enjoyed a steady increase with freehold properties making up the largest percentage of the property market with 65.9%, followed by estates with 18.92% and sectional title units with 15.1%.

Limpopo beats Cape Town

Cape Town has traditionally been highlighted as consistently showing growth above the national average. But in October 2019 Limpopo took over in terms of inflationary growth.

Limpopo boasted a 5.9% annual growth with an increase in high-end properties – most of which have become second homes to affluent Gauteng residents.

The increase in mining activity in the province has also had a positive effect on property developments in the area. Inland municipalities of Ekurhuleni, City of Tshwane and City of Johannesburg continue at a stable rate of between 1% and 4%, whereas coastal municipalities generally perform above this range.

The low and mid-value wealth segment continues to challenge the trend by showing annual growth of more than 4% whilst other wealth segments perform below this.

Women are buying

Looking specifically at property, single females dominated property sales in both 2017 2018 and 2019, compared to single men and even married couples.

The average price of homes purchased by single females is around R800,000.

Car purchases in the last year have also been divided equally between women and men, and female Porsche owners climbed from 6 to 9% in the last year.

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