Foreigners who do not have residency in South Africa pay more, on average, for their properties than foreigners who do have residency – and both categories pay more, on average, than local buyers.

An analysis by Lightstone, a provider of comprehensive data, analytics, and systems on property, automotive, and business assets, has revealed that the combined foreign share of the residential market has increased marginally since 2019. This analysis covers residential purchases from 2019 to 2024.

Lightstone, analysis is limited to residential properties bought by natural persons with one property per title deed only. The analysis also distinguished between foreign buyers in South Africa with SA residency, and those who do not have residency.

“Over the past six years, we’ve seen a growing gap between what local buyers pay for property compared to foreign buyers.  The data shows that in 2024, non-resident foreigners paid an average of just over R2.7 million, more than double the R1.2 million average paid by local purchasers,” says Hayley Ivins-Downes, Managing Executive Real Estate Cluster at Lightstone.

Foreigners without residency who bought property in 2023 outnumbered foreign buyers with residency, a pattern which continued in 2024 as the graphs below show.

The proportion of foreign buyers with residency has slipped from 3.8% in 2019 to 3.3% in 2024, while the proportion of foreign buyers without residency has increased from 2.9% to 3.7%. House sales to locals have drifted back marginally, from 93.3% to 93%.

The Western Cape is the preferred destination for foreign buyers, leading the way in each of the three price bands analysed: they accounted for just over 40% of all purchases in transactions above R10m, around 25% of transactions between R5m-R10m, and around 15% of transactions between R3m-R5m.

Scarborough, a seaside village situated on the edge of the Cape Point Nature Reserve, was the suburb with the highest proportion of foreign buyers in 2024, followed by Chapmans Peak, Bakoven and De Waterkant. All the top 22 suburbs were in the Western Cape.

The key takeaway from the graph below is that the higher the value of the property, the greater the percentage of foreigner buyers – and in 2024, foreign buyers made up 40% of all purchases above R10m.

While foreign buyers remain a small segment of the market, their influence is clear in the high-end property space especially in the Western Cape. As global interest in lifestyle and investment properties grows, this trend is likely to continue in key coastal areas,” concludes Ivins-Downes.

Lightstone is a provider of comprehensive data, analytics and systems on property, automotive and business assets. Lightstone has access to unique and proprietary data sets which allow it to build sophisticated analytics and spatial models to deploy various technologies to a range of industries. Our analytical, business and industry expertise are paired with our technical excellence to guide clients in managing risk and making business critical decisions. For more information, please visit: www.lightstone.co.za.