Rental Growth Hits A Seven-Year High

What It Means For Investors, And How Our Conveyancers Keep The Deal On Track

The first PayProp Rental Index of 2025 has confirmed what many landlords suspected from the flurry of "LET BY" boards: average national rents grew 5.6 percent year-on-year in Q1, pushing the typical monthly payment to R9 132 – the fastest escalation since 2017 and, crucially, well ahead of inflation (2.7 percent in March). A parallel trend deserves equal attention: tenant arrears have flattened at a record-low 17 percent of accounts, a sign that higher asking prices are not yet tipping households into default.

For buyers who intend to rent out newly acquired properties, those two data points – stronger escalations and a stable payment track record – translate into healthier cash-flow projections when they run the numbers before signing an offer to purchase. But the opportunity is far from uniform across South Africa's nine provinces.