Looking for houses along the peninsula is quite a discouraging ordeal. Not only are they few and far between, but their prices are astonishing.

But how does the Cape, aggregated with the overall property prices of the Western Cape, compare to the rest of the country? Not too badly, actually, although we obvious take the biggest slice of cake.

Here’s the breakdown, according to BusinessTech:

Financial services company, FNB says that all five of its major regions’ house price indices showed slowing year-on-year growth in the 3rd quarter of 2016.

Gauteng, the largest region, has been leading the way to slower average house price growth for a some years now, noted John Loos, household and property sector strategist at FNB.

Its year-on-year rate of increase reached a lowly 2.1% in the 3rd quarter, down from the 2.7% rate for the previous quarter, having slowed all the way from a 9.3% high at the end of 2012.

Gauteng is not the weakest in terms of house price growth, though, FNB said, with Mpumalanga, Free State, Northern Cape, North West and Limpopo Provinces rising by a mere 0.8% year-on-year in the 3rd quarter, while the Eastern Cape Province had a growth rate of just 0.1%.

Slightly stronger than Gauteng was KZN, with a house price growth rate of 4.2% year-on-year, albeit also on a slowing trend, FNB said.

The strongest performing province remains the Western Cape, with year-on-year house price inflation of 10.5%. Due to a combination of lifestyle, being well run, and with very good economic opportunities, the Western Cape is the most expensive province, with an average house price of R1,256,372, followed by Gauteng, and KwaZulu Natal.

These are the provinces’ house-price average:

• Western Cape – R1 256 372
• Gauteng – R1 016 804
• KwaZulu Natal – R988,142
• Eastern Cape – R815,914
• Other 5 provinces – R803,692

But how weird is this: although starting salaries in Cape Town are notoriously low compared to our Gauteng counterparts, it seems that on average, our household incomes are considerably higher when we get to the age of actually being able to own a house:

And there you have it.

[source:businesstech]