South Africa’s housing market rose 7.8% in the past year, but gains were uneven.
Homeowners in some parts of South Africa saw property values rise at a pace that outperformed many investment products over the past year.
While national house prices increased by 7.8% in the year to January 2026, according to Statistics South Africa's Residential Property Price Index, growth differed markedly across the country.
If homes were ranked like unit trusts, some of the country's best-performing investments over the past year would have been found in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape rather than the traditional property hotspots.
The biggest winner was not Cape Town, Johannesburg or Pretoria. It was Limpopo.
