A look at the South African property market over time, according to the Monopoly board.
The original South African Monopoly board (released in 1963) focused on four of South Africa’s biggest cities:
Johannesburg (which saw the highest property values on the board), Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Durban.
Lightstone Property has conducted a then-and-now comparison of the board game street values.
The most expensive real estate was Eloff Street at R400. Cape Town properties were in second place, with Long, Plein and Parliament streets as the prime pickings. An investment in Musgrave Road would have been an excellent one as it is by far the most expensive street in Durban from the original board, and is now nearly four times as valuable as Gillespie Street. The 2002 edition underwent a makeover - streets in Durban, Bloemfontein, Cape Town, and Johannesburg were replaced with cities, neighbourhoods and landmarks. Property in Clifton, the prime property suburb on the board, would set you back R40,000.
Fast forward to 2015, and Clifton is still the suburb with the highest property values. The median price for a property in Nettleton Road is R41m. That’s over 1,000 times the price of a Clifton property on the 2002 Monopoly board. The top Durban street to own property in is Hickory Road, in the Hawaan Forest suburb, where property will set you back about R9m.
This article originally appeared in Neighbourhood, Sunday Times.