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The selling prices of flats or townhouses bought in Johannesburg or Ekurhuleni have barely budged since 2020.

This is according to the latest Residential Property Price Index (RPPI) released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) last week.

The RPPI tracks how property values for a particular type of property have changed relative to December 2020, which is assigned a value of 100. An index of 120 therefore means prices are approximately 20% higher than in December 2020, while an index of 90 means they are approximately 10% lower. The index does not show the average price of a property, but rather how prices for similar properties have moved over time, allowing property value trends to be compared between cities and periods.

The chart below shows the increase in the index for sectional title properties (such as townhouses and flats) between December 2020 and April 2026 for South Africa’s eight metro municipalities, as well as an average for the eight metros.

The chart above shows that the index for sectional title properties in Johannesburg is flat while in Ekurhuleni there has also been little growth.

What makes the figures considerably worse for property owners is that the RPPI measures prices in nominal rands. It does not adjust for inflation. Cumulative inflation, since the end of 2020, has been around 30%, meaning that a property whose selling price has remained unchanged over that period has suffered a substantial decline in real value.

In the chart below, The Common Sense has estimated from the index what the real change in the prices of sectional title properties in the major metros has been. It is fairly confident that the broad trend of Cape Town being up in real terms, and all the others being down, is correct.

The only metro that has shown an increase in real value terms of sectional title properties is Cape Town.

The Common Sense has previously written on how the country’s economic centre of gravity is slowly shifting to Cape Town from Johannesburg, with more construction activity in Cape Town than in Johannesburg, and with the number of registered taxpayers in Cape Town now exceeding the number in Johannesburg, all being indicators of an economic shift.

This trend is, at least partly, explained by the differences in how Cape Town and the other metros in the country are governed.

Cape Town has established itself as the country’s best-governed metro, while Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, and other metros have struggled with deteriorating infrastructure, unstable government, and weaker municipal finances. Capital and skilled households respond to those differences. Cape Town has consequently attracted investment, jobs, and skilled people, while much of Gauteng, as well as other metros in other provinces, has failed to do so. Property prices are increasingly reflecting that reality. A home is an investment not only in bricks and mortar, but in the city around it.