Cape Town's luxury home shortage deepens as wealthy buyers move in

Real estate agents say homes in Cape Town's most sought-after areas often sell before or soon after they are listed, and well-priced properties regularly draw several offers, with cash deals and purchases by buyers who never view the house becoming more common. "Well-located homes are being sold within days of listing," said Andrew Golding, chief executive of Pam Golding Properties.

Seeff Property Group recorded 115 home sales above R20 million in Cape Town in the first half of 2026, including 13 above R50 million, based on PropStats data. The city had a record 190 such sales in 2025, up from 144 in 2024 and only 49 in 2019. "Stock levels remain tight," said Ross Levin, who runs Seeff's Atlantic Seaboard and City Bowl offices.

The shortage is sharpest along the Atlantic Seaboard, in suburbs such as Clifton, Camps Bay, Fresnaye and Bantry Bay, which sit between Table Mountain and the ocean. Nettleton Road in Clifton, which has fewer than 30 properties, has become the most expensive street in the country, where prices of R100 million to R150 million are no longer unusual. Grammy-winning South African DJ Black Coffee paid R157 million last year for a five-level house on the road, believed to be the highest price paid for a house in South Africa in 2025, while a Spanish buyer paid R170 million for two empty plots on the same street. A four-bedroom house there is now on the market for R175 million.

Apartments have also climbed. The median price of a sectional-title unit in Clifton reached a record R31.17 million in the first five months of 2026, up 64% from R19 million in 2020, according to property data company Lightstone, and units there now sell for more than R200,000 a square metre. Sales on the Atlantic Seaboard and in the City Bowl rose 26% to R11.3 billion in 2025, with sales above R20 million climbing 61% to R4.2 billion and international buyers spending about R2.8 billion, or a quarter of the total.

Further south, family homes in Constantia start at about R20 million, and a house there sold this year for R48 million at the full asking price to a foreign buyer who did not view it, while entry prices in neighbouring Bishopscourt run from R30 million to R35 million. "Winter has become less a period of reduced demand and more a phase of reduced supply," said Basil Moraitis, Pam Golding's regional head for the Western Cape.

Much of the demand comes from inside South Africa, with wealthy families moving from Johannesburg and Pretoria to the Western Cape citing crime, failing water and power supplies and poorly run municipalities in Gauteng, and many keep their Johannesburg homes while buying a second house on the coast. Agents also report steady demand from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and France, and rising interest from the United States. Cape Town had 8,500 dollar millionaires, 35 people worth at least $100 million and three billionaires in 2025, according to the Africa Wealth Report by Henley & Partners and New World Wealth, while South Africa gained 7,100 dollar millionaires in the past year to reach 48,200, or 38% of Africa's millionaires.