Aunty Pat’s BnB Regulations

The rental of homes in decent neighbourhoods of Cape Town is becoming increasingly unaffordable to local residents.

Both property values and rentals are rising much faster than local people’s incomes, increasing inequality in what is already among the world’s most unequal cities – preventing integration and cementing colour-coded spatial injustices inherited from the past.

• According to Stats SA, Cape Town property values grew by 10% in the year ending October 2025.
• According to PayInc (formerly Bankserv Africa), real net pay across the country grew by only 1% over approximately the same period.
• According to PayProp’s Rental Index for Q4 2025, the Western Cape remains the most expensive rental market in SA, with average rent rising 6.8% to R11 894.
• According to the City of Cape Town’s Local Spatial Development Framework for the CBD, 70% of residential accommodation in the CBD was either hotel-managed or listed on Airbnb.

In this context, Minister of Tourism and GOOD Party Leader Patricia de Lille’s publication of a proposed code of good practice to regulate short-term rentals is an excellent intervention on behalf of all Cape Town residents who don’t necessarily own multiple properties but do care about the soul of the city.

As Aunty Pat pragmatically explained, the short-term rental market creates new opportunities for hosts, travellers and communities, while also “raising concerns for municipalities and residents… highlighting the need for clear, fair and responsible practices.”

Although the regulations will carry national weight, they will have meaning for Cape Town, where the DA-led City has already effectively auctioned off Cape Town’s soul.

The fact that 70% of accommodation in the city comprises short-term rentals, while the number of affordable homes developed in the area remains zero, adds peculiar logic to the City selling off the Good Hope Centre for a snip to an evangelical pastor.

Yes, we want all the benefits that tourists bring – including a regulated short-term rental market. However, it’s not necessary for the benefits to come at the expense of local citizens or communities.

Cape Town’s tourism blessings must be more widely spread than just to those who have property to spare in good neighbourhoods and can cash in through entering the short-term rental market.