Property to rent in the major cities of South Africa would be a far cry in price compared to property rentals in one of the smaller towns dotted right throughout this amazing country.Should you prefer to choose mountains, rivers, sea, the Karoo or wherever you decide to live, it is tough finding the perfect place to put your roots. Before investing your hard-earned money, why not rent a property before buying; there are excellent deals on property rentals at the moment, as we are still recovering from the recession that left us a little breathless over the past couple of years.It is often schooling that is the major lure if we have children to educate, or it might be our line of business that can take us as far afield as Mpumalanga or the North West. Comparisons of property purchases, when investing, is a good guide, but not always the deciding factor. After all, family and life values still play a vital role when buying our dream home.Making comparisons is interesting, and statistically, you will be able to see exactly which suburbs in which provinces have the best sale rate and growth rates. Graphs are a good barometer indicating which provinces will give you the very best value for your money when buying or investing in real estate.Gauteng is the strongest province, with whopping 33% sales over the past three years, compared to 3% in the Limpopo Province and 3% in Northern Cape. Kwa Zulu Natal shows 14% real estate sales over the past three years with the Western Cape showing sales of 18%.The Free State’s sales stand at 8%, North West, 6% and Mpumalanga shows 5% sales over the past couple of years.The period from January 2003 to December 2010, numerically, shows real estate sales of R145 480 in the Eastern Cape and the Free State, R105 725. Gauteng outnumbers everyone by showing figures of sales in this time frame of R824 231.Natal, on the other hand, adds up to R251 019 during the period of January 2003 and December 2010, Limpopo tallies up to R376 70, Mpumalanga R88 234, North West R85 156, the Northern Cape R24 827 and the Western Cape shows sales in the region of R361 626.Comparisons of property purchases - annual indices: for September 2010, 11% for the Eastern Cape, 9% for the Free State, 4.61% for Gauteng, 6,34 for Kwa Zulu Natal, 8 % for the Western Cape and 5% for the Northern Cape.Comparisons of property purchases – these are the figures for bonded transactions for the month of September, 2010, with a breakdown per province:Eastern Cape shows 0,48249 bonded transactions, the Free State, 0, 534591, Gauteng, 0,679266, Kwa Zulu Natal, 0,597668, Northern Province 0, 48888889, and the Western Cape 0,247853. The total for the month of September, 2010, for all the provinces, shows a total of 0,547793.Comparisons of the same provinces for the years 2003 to 2010 shows an interesting history, by comparing the same month of each year, respectively. Comparing apples with apples is the way to go.September 2003, bonded transactions for real estate sales show a figure of 0, 486459, September 2004: 0,690576, September 2005: 0,730955, 2006, for the same month of September, the figures show 0,744859 (notice how the figures climb, with a build up to the recession).In September 2007 the figures are 6,76265, and then the credit crisis hits hard in 2008 with figures totaling right across all the provinces with bonded transactions showing an all-time low of 0,5915 for the month of September.In September 2009, the figures climbed to 0,620564 for bonded transactions making quite a strong recovery, and in September 2010 the figures for bonded transactions stands at 0,547793.Real estate has taken a knock over the past years, but, looking at the figures it is not difficult to see that there is a definite upswing in the real estate market. Good news indeed for the economy.