While reaching for your wine glass for the third time in the last 60 seconds your partner across the table coughs purposelessly to try and fill the silence of one awkward dinner party. To help you avoid any future uncomfortable silences, RE/MAX of Southern Africa has compiled some fascinating dinner conversation trivia that you might like to mention at your next formal sit down:
1) Most Expensive Home Ever Sold
One of the most expensive recorded real estate sales in South Africa was priced at a whopping R290 million. Bought by a German couple in 2016, the home was situated in Bantry Bay overlooking the Cape’s iconic Atlantic Seaboard. To ensure future privacy, the sale of the home included two adjacent vacant plots so that nobody could build anything to obstruct their views. Talk about securing your investment.
2) Roughly 20% of South Africans live in informal housing
According to the General Household Survey of 2017 compiled by StatsSA, 79,4% of households in metropolitan areas live in formal dwellings, followed by 18,0% in informal dwellings, and 1,3% in traditional dwellings. Informal dwellings were most common in Buffalo City (26,0%), Johannesburg (21,1%), and Ekurhuleni (20,3%) and least common in Nelson Mandela Bay (6,6%). Traditional dwellings were most common in Eastern Cape (22,3%) and KwaZulu-Natal (14,4%). Though these percentages might seem low, the numbers still translate into millions of South Africans living outside of the formal housing sector.
3) Companies own half of all land in Limpopo
According to the Land Audit Report of November 2017, 50% of the 7,758,940 ha of registered land in Limpopo is owned by companies, with individuals owning a mere 22% in comparison. This, however, is not the case for the rest of the country. Of the 93,956,125 ha of all registered land in South Africa that falls under private ownership, individuals own 39%, followed by trusts at 31%, companies at 25%, CBOs at 4%, and co-ownership at just 1%.
4) State owns less than 20% of all registered land
As would be expected in a capitalist society, 82% (93,956,125 ha) of the total 114,223,273 ha land is owned by private landowners. The rest falls under state ownership.
5) Foreigners own just 2% of South African farmland
South Africans own 92% of total farm and agricultural holdings while foreign nationals own just 2%. In terms of property, of the 726,966 sectional title unit owners in the country, 567,148 (78%) are South African nationals while 132,672 (18%) are foreign nationals. 4% are reported by Land Audit Report to fall under the category of ‘other’.
