In Cape Town’s bluest-of-blue-chip suburbs, the real action this season isn’t on the beaches but behind the mirrored glass of mega-villas offering killer views, marble pools, private chefs and price tags in discreet font.
Checks by The Sunday Times show the bookings board is full well into January, as global high-flyers head to South Africa, where the holiday home high life now comes with names that sound more like James Bond lairs than beach houses: Obsidian, Villa Vista, Sea Lion and Halcyon.
They generally come with the obligatory butler-on-demand service, concierge teams and jet skis.
With average price listings around R80,000 a night, these Cape Town rentals are comparable to high-end holiday homes in destinations such as Monaco and Ibiza.
Nic Sadleir of Steadfast Africa, which manages about 50 villas in Cape Town’s blue-chip suburbs, says the portfolio is about 80% booked for this season, including the architectural icon Pengilly House in Cliff Road, Clifton, which rents for about R250,000 a day.
Sadleir said most of Cape Town’s top properties are owned as investments or additional homes by foreign nationals or corporations, and guests are generally foreign too. Many are groups of affluent young people travelling the world’s hotspots together, with Cape Town featuring on their radar as much as destinations such as Monaco and Ibiza.
This trend emerged earlier this year when 22-year-old Turkish TikTok personality Musa Mustafa (@musametas) claimed to have spent R2m to rent the Iron Man House in Clifton for seven days. The ultra-luxury villa offers the ultimate experience for up to R300,000 a night.
Sadleir said this was the first year since Covid that bookings had exceed pre-Covid 2019 levels, with demand driven by limited luxury hotel rooms and suites in the city, where prices are rising faster than villa rates due to the growing supply of high-end Airbnb-style rentals.
Helen Untiedt, co-founder of Perfect Hideaways, said the holiday season was booming, with guests looking for specifics and wanting to maximise time with private chefs and concierge services.
“They also want to hear the ocean, so our best-loved Atlantic Seaboard hideaways are right on the beach ... Bakoven Seahorse is literally sandwiched between boulders and sand, and Nalu or Oasis on Glen hover over Glen Beach,” she said.
But some demands are impossible, she said. “One big ‘if-I-told-you-who-I’d-have-to-kill-you’ movie star stayed at one of our super-secure hideaways with a helicopter pad. His team sent us an insane 400-item kitchen pre-stocking list, and he was only staying for three nights. Our concierge team did their best; but sourcing fresh organic llama milk and Japanese ginger flower buds in South Africa was just not possible.”
Online luxury real estate platform Mansion Global notes that after last year’s slowdown, global luxury rents are recovering, recording an average annual growth rate of 3.5% in the second quarter, close to the 4% seen pre-Covid.
In Plettenberg Bay, K Cottage is still available for Christmas and New Year bookings in Airbnb. But this seven-bedroomed futuristic villa, which overlooks Keurbooms Beach — and comes with a 22-hectare garden reserve, pool, tennis court, home gym and a private beach area — will set you back R740,000 for a minimum four-day stay.
He added that a “second season” is emerging during Cape Town’s winter because of extreme heat in the Middle East and southern Europe, where destinations are also overcrowded. This trend is compounded by South Africa’s safari season, and boosted by direct flights between George and Hoedspruit.
Agents agree, noting that wealthy travellers — especially from the Middle East — seek to escape extreme heat and overcrowded European hotspots. South Africa’s winter overlaps with peak safari season and the northern hemisphere’s school holidays, making Cape Town an attractive base for travellers pairing a villa stay with a luxury lodge.
Direct flights between George and Hoedspruit have strengthened this circuit by letting high-end visitors move easily between Cape Town, the Garden Route and Kruger-area reserves.
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