A legal wrangle between the South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) and the City of Cape Town over rate hikes linked to property value has not deterred a local buyer from paying a record price for a five-bedroom home.
The buyer spent more than R157m to clinch the deal in Clifton’s Nettleton Road — arguably the country’s most expensive residential street. The house was designed by renowned architect Stefan Antoni.
Real estate veteran Lance Cohen, who brokered the deal, said, “municipal rates do not influence high-end buyers. Cape Town continues to attract wealthy investors and visitors.”
Cohen revealed the buyer was South African.
“I have signed a non-disclosure agreement. I cannot reveal the name of the purchaser. This is the highest price for a house in South Africa this year,” said Cohen.
The purchaser paid R157.5m, excluding VAT, for the home advertised as “the pinnacle of Cape Town living, perched high up in the most exclusive address in the country”. The 940m² property’s municipal value was pegged at about R124m. The estimated monthly property rates, included in the listing, was R53,055.
The house boasts lavish interiors throughout with a double-volume entertainment area that merges with the mountainside garden, leading to a terrace with a rim flow pool overlooking Clifton. There are two parking bays.
All bedrooms are en suite. The property has two “self-contained staff quarters, a cinema room, gym and elevator access to all floors, among many other features”.
“What this is signalling is that the property market in Cape Town is on fire. There is a higher demand now for high-end real estate in Cape Town than there is supply,” said Cohen.
“There are numerous buyers — at R100m plus — looking to buy property in Cape Town. We have a problem of a shortage of available properties for sale, and the demand as well, over the summer period.”
He said his agency was inundated with requests for December rentals in “excess of R2.5m a month”.
“We also have more prospective tenants looking for high-end properties to rent than what is available to rent,” he said. A lot of concierge services are reaching out to us looking for luxury rentals.
“Cape Town is attracting high-end rentals, not just backpackers. The attraction is for high-end visitors for the summer period. And this is only wintertime.”
Property economist Erwin Rode agreed with Cohen that property rates do not affect high-end owners.
“Certainly, they wouldn’t affect middle and high brackets ... There is a lot of brouhaha in Cape Town about the rates. I don’t think it is going to affect the property market.”
Rode said it was plausible that demand for high-end properties was outstripping supply.
“Cape Town has a healthy property market,” he said. “We know there is a lot of migration towards Cape Town.”
The city's 2025/26 budget proposal got wealthy property owners hot under the collar. It proposed an average 7.96% rise in property rates across all categories, residential, commercial and industrial.
High-end properties, such as the Nettleton Road home, could be hit with a 20% rate hike. The impasse prompted Sapoa to take the city to the high court to have three tariffs implemented on July 1 reviewed and set aside.
The organisation said it was challenging the city over fixed charges for cleaning, water and sanitation. But mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said it would be “patently unfair” to charge wealthy property owners the same tariffs as lower-income or middle-class households.
Hill-Lewis said the city's budget protected homes under R2.5m and extended rates relief to many more middle-class homes, “all while preserving the city’s critical infrastructure and service investments.
“In contrast, this court application by the richest of the rich property portfolio holders seeks to go back to a system of regressive taxation which hits ordinary families and the poor, the hardest,” he said.
He said if Sapoa were to succeed in their case, the effect would be “to have ordinary families effectively subsidising the wealthiest property owners”.
“The city scrapped the old ‘pipe levy’ charge — which arbitrarily linked fixed charges to a home’s pipe connection size — because it was unsustainable for R50m and R500,000 homes to make equal contributions to Cape Town’s infrastructure and fixed service costs.”
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