Only one formal house exists per 3,3 families who earn less than R26 000 a month – this accounts for more than 80% of South African households – and the trend is worsening, according to Lightstone.
In its June 2025 Property Newsletter, the automotive and property research group says that the overwhelming majority of South African households are currently priced out of the South African property market.
“There’s something very wrong if such a large demand is not being met and, although the problem is well known in the property industry, no real solutions are forthcoming from the government actors who are responsible for solving these problems,” says Renier Kriek, MD of Sentinel Homes. “The root causes are mainly systemic and need to be addressed by the government. It is simply not acceptable that since 2000 we have added 19,3-million inhabitants in South Africa, but our economy has managed to produce only 1,9-million homes.”
Not only are there not enough houses, but new developments are victim to rising construction costs making each generation of property less affordable to consumers than previously. In fact, property prices have been outpacing wage increases for the past 70 years – not only in South Africa, but in most of the world.
Add to this trend South Africa’s flaccid economic growth resulting in low job creation and low wage growth, and it’s easy to see why affording a home is becoming harder and harder for low to middle earners.
Certain things need to change outside the property market before problems can be tackled from within, says Kriek:
- Economic growth: South Africa sorely needs economic growth driven by consistent economic policy. Not only graft, but also mismanagement of state and parastatal finances need to stop. “For example, paying CEOs of dysfunctional utilities more than the Prime Minister of the UK is wasteful and robs citizens of funds that could go towards housing,” says Kriek.
- Structural reform: Foreign investment coming into South Africa is not the kind that creates infrastructure or jobs. It’s portfolio money that can easily be withdrawn. The country needs structural reform that embraces deregulation, labour market reforms, trade liberalisation, privatisation or public-private partnerships, and tax reforms to encourage infrastructure investment. This may also require currency devaluation, which is a difficult political proposition and is unlikely to be popular with richer consumers.
- Vocational training: Artisans are retiring faster than they can be replaced which puts upward pressure on housing production costs. Most of South Africa’s workforce is not well-suited to its services-oriented economy. It needs to reindustrialise to create jobs for the skills we have, encouraging technical trades such as plumbers or electricians.
- Restrictive labour policies: South Africa’s restrictive labour policies make labour much more expensive than in competing economies such as Bangladesh or Sri-Lankha. This could be resolved by devaluing the currency or reducing imports – or simply by liberalising labour laws. That might mean workers are paid less, but that more people will have jobs as a way of creating an economy that works for all – and this would be a temporary situation that will correct itself as more jobs are created.
“Making such changes at a national level will ensure that problems in the property market are not intractable,” says Kriek. “But these necessary reforms will also go a long way toward rejigging the economy generally for the better.”
Inside the property market, several problems are making housing construction more costly and therefore less affordable when properties are sold, Kriek adds:
- Bureaucratic sprawl: This is one of the largest problems developers face and not unique to South Africa. Bureaucrats and lawmakers heap regulation upon regulation, increasing time to approvals from months to years – or decades in some cases. The government needs to streamline or completely remove regulations that cause delays and add costs to housing developments.
- NIMBYism: NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) refers to people who object to new developments they perceive to be invasive of their lifestyles or threatening to their status. In South Africa, it has become the nimby pastime to delay new housing developments in the courts. This not only discourages development, but the spectre of a nimbyist court challenge adds to the cost of producing new housing stock. Legislative and enforcement frameworks intent on solving housing production should be designed to allow for rigorous public consultation and objections, but limit the time allowed for the process and restrict access to the already full and overburdened court system.
- Fixed charges: Fixed charges, like a basic electricity fee, hit poorer households the hardest. Low-cost housing becomes substantially more expensive when municipal rates and fixed charges are added, creating the risk that owners cannot afford the property. This disincentivises developers from entering that segment of the market. So, as a rule, fixed charges should never be applied and all municipal charges on property should be either a progressive tax (ie: you pay a smaller percentage if you are poorer) or based on actual consumption.
- Small unit avoidance: Fitting more smaller units on a piece of land means building more kitchens and bathrooms, which are the most expensive structures in a house regardless of size. It also takes the same energy to sell small properties as large properties. So there are already structural disincentives to building small properties. “The government can offset this deterrent with better tax breaks or programmes that release land to developers to build only small, affordable homes,” says Kriek.
- Slow land release: A major part of the solution is the faster release of new land for development. Socially responsible public comment and input must be part of a well-structured and well-managed, but shortened process. Some processes, like an environmental impact study, could be run concurrently with others or even be eliminated completely for some areas. Ideally, processes would be designed to be carried out in advance on land earmarked for development and developers would be told which land is available without having to wait. For example, municipalities may conduct environmental impact assessments in advance on peripheral areas earmarked for development.
- Lender and landlord protection: Home financers or landlords are often seen as large bureaucratic and potentially predatory institutions that do not invite sympathy from the public (or the courts). Yet, they provide an invaluable service by transforming the shorter-term savings of ordinary South Africans into capital that goes to homeloans and housing developments, among other longer-term investments. Eviction procedures and foreclosures need to be rationalised, and their timeframes shortened to ensure that, while consumers must be treated fairly, this important function is not put at risk through delays and procedural disadvantages. Burdensome termination procedures disincentivise capital deployment into the provision of housing finance or rental housing.
“If 80% of South Africans cannot afford a home, and developers are unwilling to meet the demand, something is terribly wrong,” says Kriek. “It’s not an innovation or economical problem, but a systemic one that the government needs to rectify. The problem is market design, and that is something for which we rely on government – and for which the political will must exist to take some tough decisions.
“The private sector is profit driven and the demand clearly exists, so it’s up to the government to create the incentives and ease the restrictions that prevents the private sector from earning their bread in the provision of affordable housing,” Kriek adds. “There’s more than enough money floating around – government just needs to create a market that provides incentives for the available resources to flow to where the demand already exists.”