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If you have a good tenant, and they pay their rent on time each month, consider yourself fortunate.

That’s true pretty much wherever you own property, but especially so in Cape Town.

The latest stats from credit bureau TPN show that residential vacancy levels in the Mother City have climbed to 28,8% in the second quarter (Q2).

Across the province, the vacancy rate now stands at 14,4%, with Moneyweb reporting that this is the first time double digits have been reached.

In the Q2 report, Cape Town is defined as the City Bowl area.

Here’s Michelle Dickens, TPN’s CEO:

“The Cape Town story is a double whammy of increased supply caused by converting short-term holiday rentals into long-term lets and work-from-home opportunities, which allow tenants to relocate to the more affordable Northern Suburbs”.

I really want to say they’re more affordable for a reason, but I’ll rise above the temptation.

The Northern Suburbs is the best-performing area in the Cape, with the vacancy rate sitting at just 5%.

Gauteng is faring slightly better, with vacancy rates in the province as a whole recovering from 13,8% in Q1 to 12,4% in Q2.

Sandton remains an outlier, with an eye-popping vacancy rate of 26.7%. This is significantly higher than the 22.4% reported in Q4 of last year.

Dickens says this “remains a concern”, noting the impact of office-to-residential conversions “with large lease-up portfolios of quality new units with enticing incentives putting pressure on this area”.

KwaZulu-Natal sits at 14% vacancy, slightly above the national average of 13,1%.

Do with this what you will, but if you’ve been putting off doing that renovation your tenant has been asking about for months, now might be the time.

You can see the full results of the Q2 Vacancy Survey here.

[source:moneyweb]