Joburg’s property market is making a comeback

Johannesburg’s residential property market has seen a steady decline in sales volumes since 2019. However, it saw a modest rebound in 2024, with stable total sales value, fluctuating average prices, and growing interest in affordable and mid-value segments.

Lightstone data found that residential property sales volumes improved slightly from 2023 to 2024. However, it still lags behind levels seen in 2021 and 2022.

Although the average price of property sales has increased over the period, it fell in 2024, and the total value of sales has been constant over the period.

“Lightstone analysed purchases processed between R30,000 and R50 million in Johannesburg for the period 2019-2024,” said Lightstone’s managing executive of the real estate cluster, Hayley Ivins-Downes.

“While Johannesburg’s residential property market has faced challenges in recent years, we have seen a promising uptick in sales volumes in 2024.”

“The increase in activity compared to 2023, even if modest, signals that there may be more optimism in the market moving forward, despite the overall decline since 2019.”

According to Lightstone data, sales volumes have fallen from 37,000 in 2019 to under 35,000 in 2024, although 2024 was up on the six-year low of just under 32,000 in 2023.

The average price of transactions in Johannesburg has remained relatively static over the period, from just under R1.3 million in 2019 to just over R1.3 million in 2024, but did rise to over R1.4 million in 2023.

The total value of sales in Johannesburg has fluctuated over the past six years but has stabilised to around R47 billion in 2023 and 2024.

“Although the average property price in Johannesburg has remained relatively consistent over the past six years, we did notice a slight decline in 2024,” Ivins-Downes said.

This fluctuation, combined with stable sales values, highlights the market’s ability to adapt to shifting economic conditions.

The graphs below show the sales volume and average price of residential properties in Joburg from 2019 to 2024.

Time on the market

Properties have also spent more time on the market over the period, rising from 79 days in 2019 to 97 in 2024.

Discovery in Roodepoort is the quickest selling of Johannesburg’s suburbs at 52 days on the market, followed by Amorosa in Roodepoort at 54 and Bassonia at 57 in Johannesburg’s southern suburbs.

Bryanston in Sandton topped the number of properties sold at 157, which took an average of 108 days to sell.

Parkhurst was next, selling 84 properties at 70 days on the market. Douglasdale came in third with 79 properties sold, at an average of 77 days on the market.

Houses in “Super Luxury Areas” were consistently on the market for the longest time in each of the six years, however, the type of property that spent the least time on the market showed quite a bit of variation.

“Mid-value” areas spent the shortest amount of time on the market in 2019 and 2021, while “Affordable” properties sold the fastest in 2020, 2023 and 2024.

In 2022, “High value” areas spent the least time on the market.

Properties listed at R5 million or more spent more time on the market in each of the six years reviewed, although only marginally so in 2024.

Properties listed at R500,000 to R1 million spent the shortest time on the market in 2019, and the price buckets changed positions each year after that, ending up with R1.5 million to R2 million in 2024.

“The extended time properties have spent on the market since 2019 is indicative of broader trends in buyer and seller behaviour,” Ivins-Downes said.

“In 2024, we saw particularly strong activity in Affordable and Mid-Value areas, underscoring how different price segments are performing in today’s market.”

The graph below shows the time residential properties in Joburg spent on the market from 2019 to 2024.