Property prices & affordability in South Africa
What a home costs across South Africa's cities — and, the part that actually decides things, what you need to earn to buy one. For any price, we work out the deposit, the monthly bond at today's prime rate of 10.50%, the transfer duty SARS will charge, and the gross income a bank would want to see.
The number that surprises most first-time buyers is not the price — it is the transfer duty and the income threshold. A bank will generally lend against about 30% of your gross salary, so the asking price you can realistically chase is set by your payslip long before it is set by the market. Working backwards from that is a shorter conversation than browsing listings you cannot finance.
Prices below come from buyers and renters reporting anonymously what they actually paid, so they are a community view rather than an official index — thin in a new area and more useful as more people contribute. Where an area has no figure yet, the affordability maths still works: use the bond calculator with a price you have in mind.
Johannesburg
Pretoria
Cape Town
Durban
Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth)
East London
Bloemfontein
Polokwane
Mbombela (Nelspruit)
Kimberley
Rustenburg
Centurion
How we work out affordability
For each area we take the median home price and calculate the monthly bond repayment (assuming a 10% deposit at the prime rate over 20 years), add the transfer duty on the SARS table, and work back to the gross income a bank would typically want — based on the rule that your bond repayment shouldn't exceed about 30% of what you earn.
On top of that, buyers and renters can anonymously report what they actually paid, building a live, community view of each area — no names, no addresses, just the numbers.
Should you rent or buy?
Compare the equity you'd build by buying against the rent you'd pay over the same years.
Median prices are from cited sources; reader-reported figures are unverified and shown for general guidance only. Affordability figures are estimates, not a credit decision or financial advice.