Over the past six years the Eastern Cape has maintained the lowest average vacancy rate of all provinces at 6.3 % - more than 2 % lower than the national average for the same period . This lower vacancy rate is partially attributed to the reduced number of rental properties in the province . The province ’ s vacancy rate has remained largely static in 2022 compared to 2021 .
Not surprisingly , tourist accommodation vacancies in the Western Cape and Gauteng are higher than the residential vacancy rate in each province . Prior the pandemic , short term rentals and tourism kept residential vacancies in the Western Cape low . However , bans on international travellers to South Africa have slowed the recovery of the tourism accommodation sector . Gauteng ’ s tourist accommodation sector continues to be impacted by a slowdown in business travel .
After two years of strained escalations and rapidly increasing costs in the form of rates , taxes , maintenance and utilities , landlords will be looking to above inflation escalations to recover . This is likely to result in prime , high demand areas achieving above average rental growth . However , other pockets of the residential rental market will continue to see high levels of vacancies due to high supply or a lack of demand that is linked to unusual economic stressors .