South African Property Market - Lightstone House Price Index For April 2021

The current annual house price inflation rate in the South African property market was according to the Lightstone Residential Property Index 4.13% at the end of March 2021, whilst the monthly house price inflation rate was at 0.34% - a positive increase since the beginning of the year.

The historically low interest rates have had an overall positive impact on the property market from a performance perspective where we now see most of our provinces breaking above their five-year highs.

Low value houses (price below R250 000) has also seen quite a big drop in annual house price inflation from 10,6% in 2017 to 5,7% in the 1^st Q of 2021. Luxury value bands (priced above R1,5 million) have however shown good recovery during the December 2020 and has increased from a low of 2,8% in 2017 to 4,1% in March 2021.

For some time the performance gap between coastal and inland properties was getting narrower but it is starting to widen again in response to the favourable interest rates - with coastal properties' annual house price inflation growing by 6% and non-coastal properties by 4,4%.

Free hold properties has shown annual price inflation rates of 4,5% across South Africa - whilst sectional title, as has been expected due to i.a. the CV-19 pressures on the buy-to-let market, has seen a lower annual price inflation of 2,9%.

The Western Cape had at 3,5% the lowest house price inflation rate at the end of the first quarter of 2021 - while the other provinces were:

North West - 7,7%

Mpumalanga - 7,2%

Eastern Cape - 6,6%

Limpopo - 6,1%

Kwazulu-Natal - 4,7%

Free State - 4,4%

Northern Cape 4,0%

Gauteng - 3,6%

The Western Cape's house price inflation has dropped from a high of 9,7% in 2017 to 3,5%. The North West Province has shown the biggest growth in annual property price inflation amongst all South African provinces - growing from the lowest position in 2018, at -0,8%, to 7,7% in the first quarter of 2021.

The City of Cape Town also had the lowest annual house price inflation of all city municipalities, dropping from 9,5% (2017) to 2,1% in the 1^st quarter of 2021. Nelson Mandela Bay had the highest annual price inflation of all South African city municipalities - growing from 4,1% (2017) to 7,5% price in the 1^st quarter of 2021.