South Africa, renowned for its gold and diamonds and other precious minerals, is also a treasure trove of luxury property options, from elegant villas in tropical lifestyle estates to lavish homes in scintillating cities and opulent ocean-front apartments with spectacular views.
The Chas Everitt International Property Group is at the forefront of marketing these real estate gems to high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) around the world, via its membership of the global brokerage network Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® (LeadingRE) and its luxury property division, Luxury Portfolio International®.
Group CEO Berry Everitt talked to JamesEdition about South Africa as a growing investment destination for the global HNWI population, and the country’s attractive housing market featuring striking properties from Cape Town’s world-renowned Atlantic Seaboard to the prestigious North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal and Sandton, the “Manhattan of Africa”.
Berry EverittBerry Everitt, CEO of the Chas Everitt International Property Group"There is a growing awareness of South Africa as an excellent investment migration destination," says group CEO Berry Everitt. "And of the country's attractions, not the least of which is an exceptional lifestyle, combined with great natural beauty, a favorable climate and political stability. Increasingly, South Africa is also seen as a stable, 'safe haven' destination away from the social and economic problems currently being experienced in many other parts of the world”.
berry@everitt.co.za 
+27 82 441 3601 South Africa boasts the highest number of HNWIs in Africa, with almost 39,000 USD millionaires, 98 centi-millionaires and five billionaires, according to the latest Africa Wealth Report by Henley & Partners. And in our experience, many affluent individuals who emigrated from South Africa in the past decade are now returning.
The country also attracts significant numbers of affluent retirees from the northern hemisphere and is home to four of Africa’s 10 wealthiest cities – Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban/Umhlanga, and Pretoria – with at least 3,700 properties valued at more than USD1 million, which makes it one of the top 20 prime residential markets in the world. Cape Town has also recently been named as the world’s second best city to live in, after New York, which has further raised interest in its luxury property offerings.
South Africa has also positioned itself well as the “gateway to Africa”, which is increasingly regarded by global investors as the new frontier for real growth and opportunity, given a mostly young population of 1,2 billion and an economy that is expected to be worth a total of USD4 trillion by 2025.
Many global companies in the luxury sector have already entered the African market and a rising number of HNWIs are already finding lucrative business opportunities across the continent in the communications, financial services, infrastructure, retail and manufacturing sectors, as well as in agriculture, logistics and commodities.
South Africa is a visible leader in this shift of perspective and the base for many new Africa-focused enterprises for many reasons, but one often-cited advantage that it has in this regard is its highly-rated and well-regulated banking system, composed of institutions that are among the world’s best managed and capitalized, and overseen by an extremely competent and risk-averse central bank. Another is its highly-developed IT and communications capabilities, which are already extending across the continent.
The country also has a thriving tourism industry, which presents its own opportunities for global property investors, especially in the growing eco-, agricultural and medical tourism segments.
According to Statistics SA, the sector has almost recovered to its pre-Covid state and is expected to do so in 2024. There were almost 8 million visitors to South Africa in 2023, with most arriving from other African countries and some 2,2 million from Europe, the Americas, Australasia, the Middle East, and Asia.
Most African visitors currently come to South Africa for business reasons. Meanwhile, most overseas visitors are keen to get close to wildlife in our wonderful game and nature reserves for at least part of their trip, and we are seeing an increasing number of affluent tourists become motivated now to buy land and homes close to these reserves.
The latest available figures show a strong rise in alternative tourism segments such as food, cultural and medical, with the latter having been boosted lately by the difficulties and delays that patients have been encountering when dealing with the national health systems of countries like Canada, the UK and the US. This has created increased demand among foreign investors for boutique farms, independent gourmet restaurants and upmarket guesthouses in tranquil, luxurious surroundings conducive to post-surgery recovery.
However, the biggest draw card for high-end property buyers in South Africa is still the exceptional value proposition created by the current Rand exchange rates against major currencies like the US Dollar, Pound, and Euro, combined with the quality and variety of luxury properties across the country.
The most expensive real estate in South Africa is to be found in Cape Town in the Western Cape province, where the average prime property currently costs the equivalent of USD5200/sqm. In the Umhlanga area on the north coast of the KwaZulu-Natal province, the prime property rate goes down to an average of around USD2000/sqm and in Sandton near Johannesburg, which is the financial heart of the country, the rate is USD1800/sqm.
Thus USD1 million would buy around 192 sqm of prime property in Cape Town, 500 sqm in Umhlanga and 555 sqm in Sandton, compared to around 26 sqm in New York, 29 sqm in London, 51 sqm in Sydney and just 17 sqm in Monaco, which is the world’s most expensive prime real estate market.
It may be more illuminating, though, to compare real homes for sale in similar locations.
For example in San Francisco, a coastal prime city with many similarities to Cape Town in terms of lifestyle and climate, the least expensive ocean view property currently listed for sale on JamesEdition is a 67sqm one-bedroom apartment priced at USD615 000
For less than half that price (USD273 000) investors could acquire a 124sqm, three-bedroom apartment with ocean views in Camps Bay, one of the most sought-after suburbs along Cape Town’s world-renowned Atlantic Seaboard.
The area is famous for its white sandy beaches, trendy restaurants and bars along a beautiful promenade and excellent location overlooked by Lions Head, Table Mountain and flanked by the Twelve Apostles range.
Alternatively, for the same spend of USD615 000, they could buy a luxury four-bedroom home in a secure estate in the legacy Cape Town suburb of Constantia, which is known for its beautiful greenbelts, wine farms and wildlife, and is home to some of the most desirable residential real estate in SA.
Also well within that budget is a 1,200sqm, four-bedroom house in Franschhoek, a small town in the heart of the Cape Winelands that is known as the gourmet capital of South Africa. This house offers panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and plum orchards, and has its own solar power and water supplies.
For those in search of a warmer climate and a summer rainfall season, the subtropical Dolphin Coast to the north of the Durban/Umhlanga metropole on the eastern side of South Africa is home to several outstanding lifestyle estates that are often compared to similar developments close to Miami, in the US state of Florida
One of the best-known is the Simbithi Eco-Estate, which has its own golf course designed by Peter Matcovitch, where the most expensive home currently for sale is an exceptional five-bedroom villa with unmatched ocean views that is priced at just under USD1,6m.
In the comparable Coconut Grove, Coral Gables or Miami Beach areas which contain Miami’s most sought-after gated communities, it would cost around USD2,5m to buy a similarly sized luxury family home in the Nautilus neighborhood. On the other hand, a spend of USD1,6m could purchase a 114sqm, two-bedroom condominium in a boutique building.
Looking further inland, there is Sandton, the premium financial and residential area to the north of Johannesburg that is often referred to as the Manhattan of Africa. Chas Everitt is currently marketing an ultra-modern, four-bedroom, glass-walled house in a prime central location that offers an outdoor patio, a wine cellar and a spa bath for around USD700 000. By contrast, a similar property in Manhattan in New York would cost around USD2M.
In a higher price segment, there is a magnificent five-bedroom estate on 2 hectares of land in Sandton, priced at just over USD 2.6 million, while a property of similar scale would cost buyers at least USD 5.9 million in NYC.
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South African locations less known to foreign luxury buyers also can offer many enticing real estate options. Examples are Garden Route with its string of world-class golf courses and luxury estates such as Fancourt, and the Paarl Valley, which is home to the magnificent Val de Vie and Pearl Valley estates as well as Franschhoek.
Through our membership of LeadingRE and Luxury Portfolio, we are proud to be able to ensure that these gems are also now gaining exposure to a truly global audience of HNWIs. The Luxury Portfolio website is visited by more than three-million affluent individuals a year.
The LeadingRE network of market-leading independent brokerages spans 70 countries, 550 companies and more than 136 000 real estate professionals who collectively sell more than USD$350bn worth of property a year.
The Luxury Portfiolio division, however, is made up of only 200 brokerages that have been hand-selected and invited to participate based on their understanding of the global luxury market, commitment to providing exceptional, personalised service that builds trust with a global client base, and willingness to collaborate with other members to help their HNWI clients find the properties that most closely match their requirements, wherever in the world these may be.
If you want to learn more about investing in the growing real estate market of South Africa, contact Chas Everitt via JamesEdition.
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