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If you found yourself moving during the height of the pandemic, then kudos to you.

You may well have scored quite a sweet rental deal.

Things are a little different now, with COVID-19 becoming something we are becoming used to living with.

Rental prices are on the up, which is lekker for rental companies and property owners and less so for folks needing a place to stay amidst the chaos.

PayProp, a payment platform for the rental industry in South Africa, has been keeping an eye on the numbers with its latest rental index.

Per BusinessTech, the index has shown that South Africa’s rental growth has bounced back quite solidly in the first quarter of 2022.

The year-on-year (YoY) growth recorded in January, February, and March was 1,5%, 1,1%, and 3% respectively.

As it stands, national rent has increased by 1,8% YoY between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022. That’s a R139 increase, putting the average rent to R7 958 in the first quarter of 2022.

The only province to see negative YoY growth during the first quarter of 2022 was Gauteng:

The average rent there decreased by 0.1% (R11) in Q1 2021 to R8,379 in Q1 2022. Gauteng was the fourth most expensive province in which to rent in the quarter, just R2 behind KwaZulu-Natal.

We don’t even have to guess which province is the leader when it comes to rental prices.

Indeed, the Western Cape is still the most expensive province for tenants after a decent increase of 2,8%, from R9 142 in Q1 2021 to R9 399 in Q1 2022.

Ja, we sommer feel that.

The North West is the cheapest province to rent (R5 521), followed by the Eastern Cape (R6 365).

[source:businesstech]