Many people are moving from Gauteng to small, safer and more scenic places to decrease stress, and such semigration has played a significant role in the growth of the Cape Town and Western Cape property markets over the past decade, says Pieter Janse van Rensburg of Just Property.
However, the drought was a catalyst for some semigration interest shifting to the Garden Route and KwaZulu-Natal’s north coast. Now, however, semigration to the Western Cape from other parts of the country is “going full steam ahead”.
Lew Geffen Sotheby’s Arnold Maritz says there was a decrease in the number of tourists and semigrants to the greater Cape Town area during the worst of the drought, but numbers picked up again after the water crisis passed.
“The provinces that receive the most inbound migrants are Gauteng, Western Cape and North West, respectively. Gauteng gets its most ‘in-migrants’ from Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape. The Western Cape gets its highest influx of local migrants from the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
“The majority of migration to Gauteng and North West is probably for work opportunities and business, while migration to Western Cape will be motivated by a mix of work opportunities, the pursuit of a better lifestyle and retirement.”
He says the Western Cape enjoys the second highest volume of incoming migrants and arguably the highest volume of middle-class to wealthy migrants looking for retirement lifestyle opportunities. He says developers have spent significant resources to accommodate this growing demand.
Stats SA data indicates that, for every three incoming migrants, there is about one person leaving the Western Cape. “The largest proportion goes to Gauteng. They would typically be younger people seeking better work opportunities after obtaining tertiary qualifications,” Maritz says.