Exploring the barriers to homeownership for low-and moderate-income families in South Africa

Purpose-built, professionally-managed, well-located multifamily rental housing accomplishes what the government seeks to achieve: improving lives with quality housing that also provides access, opportunity and amenity. For many low-and moderate-income families, home ownership is not immediately within reach. More importantly, the South African Multifamily Residential Rental Association (SAMRRA) members report that, increasingly, their residents are choosing to rent, actively seeking a balanced lifestyle in amenity-rich, well-located rental homes, says Palesa Mkhize, the CEO of SAMRRA.

South Africa is a rental nation, Mkhize says. “Approximately 4.5 million (23%) households rent their homes, according to a 2025 report compiled by the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance (CAHF) with SAMRRA. 15% or around 685,000 households, reside in ’apartments’.

“In the face of growing (and unmet) demand, 54,000 new rental units were added to the market over five years, a 9% increase, positioning multifamily rentals as a cornerstone of modern housing solutions.” Affordability remained a major challenge for South Africa’s homebuyers last year. “Many buyers simply didn’t qualify for the bonds they were hoping for,” said Leonard Kondowe, the national manager for Rawson Finance. “The rate cuts we’ve seen this year helped, but they weren’t a silver bullet – especially with high living costs eating into disposable income.” Lightstone recently told “Independent Media Property” that its data shows a typical transacting “middle” clustering around R500k to R2m, with an average sale price of R1.3m.

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“Lightstone gives a salary benchmark of R27k(pm) to service a R750k bond,” the property information, valuations and market intelligence provider said recently. SAMRRA, which represents privately owned residential stock, designed specifically for renting rather than for sale, says it welcomes President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement in the State of the Nation Address outlining a new housing model that expands affordable housing and shifts support to include rental subsidies. The President stated, “We are introducing a new model for housing, where people are given subsidies for ownership and rental in areas that are suitable for them. We are shifting from building houses for people to supporting them to build, buy or rent their own housing.”

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