When I first started planning my move to the City Bowl, I felt I had it all "figured out" – the doable budget, a solid wishlist, and a fairly optimistic idea of what moving would look like. A few weeks in and far too many Property24 tabs later, Cape Town’s rental market has had its chance to humble me. And the City Bowl has started feeling like the Hunger Games arena.
Welcome to Part 2 of my moving diary: the apartment hunt. Together with my potential flatmate, there have been promising listings, disappointing viewings, 2 failed applications, and 1 question I never expected to ask this often: why does a R20 000 apartment not come with a stove?
If you missed Part 1 (why I want to move to the City Bowl), that’s where we were originally looking for. Now, it’s time to see what happens when that wishlist meets reality, exploring what it’s actually like to look for an apartment in Cape Town (plus, all the lessons I learnt along the way). May the odds be forever in our favour.
If apartment hunting in Cape Town has felt a little unhinged, the numbers suggest we’re not being dramatic.
Inflation may not be on our side, but at least the season is: we've watched several rentals get reduced, sometimes more than once, which taught us that there was room to negotiate.
So if you're looking during the rental off-season, know that you can usually offer below the asking price.
Our original budget was R15 000–R20 000 for a 2-bedroom. So, naturally, I wanted to know whether we were being realistic or completely delusional.
The answer: inconclusive. Here’s what, based on recent listings, you can expect from some areas in/near the City Bowl:
| Area | Min rental price | Max rental price | Average rental price | What it means for our R15k-R20k budget |
| Gardens | R14 500 | R30 000 | R22 745 | One of our better bets, but parking, finishes, or space are often the compromise. |
| Vredehoek | R16 800 | R50 500 | R24 700 | Options around our ceiling exist, but plenty sit in the low-to-mid R20 000s. |
| Tamboerskloof | R17 500 | R30 000 | R24 500 | We can get in, but the sub-R20 000 pool is small. |
| Oranjezicht | R18 000 | R48 500 | R25 700 | Listings are rare, and most 2-beds sit above budget. |
| Sea Point | R14 500 | R55 000 | R33 400 | Cheaper 2-beds exist, but often mean tiny spaces, no parking, or no stove. |
| Green Point | R16 250 | R100 000 | R38 605 | Rare finds appear around our budget, but most stock sits in another league. |
Surprise, surprise! Our budget sinks far below the average and sits right on the bottom margin. R18 000 might get you in the game. It just might not get you very far, or even get a stovetop (can you tell I’m bitter about this?).
Here's an example of a property listing, the rental price and what it will get you (you'll note that this is a couple grand above our budget).
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Hopefully, your budget is slightly more generous than ours. But if not, don’t worry, there is still a little room for us to play around in. If anything, a smaller list could be less overwhelming and fewer new listings to fixate on every day.
Now buckle up, and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle. Welcome to the rollercoaster that has been the past few weeks, where we deep dive into the experience of what it’s actually like to search for an apartment in the Cape Town CBD.
Enjoy the ride! (Hopefully more than we have.)
I’m not going to lie: it’s been brutal. A new listing pops up, hope returns, then you view it, lose it, or realise the second bedroom is actually a glorified cupboard. Repeat.
Apartment hunting also becomes a full-time job on top of your actual full-time job:
So if you’re also either looking or are thinking of looking, just be prepared for the amount of time and energy it takes. Maybe keep your calendar a little sparse for the next few weeks. Or set up email alerts when a new listing pops up instead of checking every 10 minutes. But also make sure to fill your life with other things that bring you joy.
With all that being said, we are still hopeful. And even when a viewing was a disappointment, it still helped us to hone our wishlist. We quickly learnt what we liked, and more importantly, what we didn’t like (thankfully, my flatmate and I largely overlapped).
What started as the basics (2 bedrooms, parking, and somewhere central) has become:
I wasn’t expecting apartment hunting to teach me so much about wide-angle lenses, flattering lighting, and the wonders of AI. Cape Town agents have truly mastered the art.
A few things you can only judge in person:
If a place looks remotely promising, view it. Twenty minutes in person tells you more than an hour of zooming into photos.
We built up a solid list of questions with every viewing:
If you’re with the tenant, ask:
And don't forget to take your own photos and videos. You think you'll remember what it looks like, but trust me... A day later and you'll be wondering: How big was the lounge really? Were there BICs in the second bedroom? And of course, was there a stove?
One thing we learnt really quickly was that the advertised rent is only the starting point.
To compare apartments properly, you have to:
Suddenly, the R17 000 flat isn’t necessarily cheaper than the R19 000 one.
Our solution has been a spreadsheet comparing the real monthly cost and features. Slightly obsessive? Yes. Useful? Also yes.
Requirements vary, but we were generally asked for:
Let’s be real: Both my flatmate and I have entry-level jobs, plus additional income streams. We thought our combined income comfortably supported a R15 000–R20 000 rental.
What we hadn’t anticipated was how rigidly some agents apply the 30% affordability rule. For a R19 000 rental, for example, you’ll need R57 000 in joint monthly income.
Multiple income streams also look messier on paper than they feel in real life. After two unsuccessful applications, we’ve accepted that one of our parents may need to sign surety. Slightly humbling at the ripe old age of 25, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
Hopefully now, you can not make the same ones. And if you’re also dancing on the line of that pesky affordability rule like we are, it might be worth phoning up that parent in advance so that you can quickly play that card if you need to.
After 26 enquiries, 18 viewings, and 2 unsuccessful applications, we still don’t have the keys. But we have a much clearer idea of what we want, what we can afford, and which compromises we’re willing to make.
I still don’t know which apartment will become home, but at least there’s one part of the move I don’t have to worry about. When we finally get the keys, I’ll be booking one of Wise Move’s trusted Cape Town moving teams to get us through the front door.
Until then, the tabs stay open, and the hunt continues. Somewhere out there is a 2-bedroom City Bowl flat with sunlight, parking, and, dare I dream, a functioning stove.
