The Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) recently officially launched its ninth edition of the State of Cape Town Central City Report for the year 2020.
The economy of the Cape Town CBD remained stable in 2020 despite Covid-19, as the largest sectors of the town economy retail, legal services, medical practices, the finance, investment, insurance and banking sector and the accommodation and travel sector continued to dominate.
Meanwhile, in the background, first-time buyers and investors were flooding to the developers’ sales offices to snap up these tiny apartments.
The sheer speed of the sales was almost unprecedented. Micro-apartments at Newlands Peak in Newlands (by Rawson Developers) sold out entirely on launch day. BlackBrick Cape Town in the city’s CBD (by Ryan Joffe Properties) sold 60% of its micro-units in its first week. The Flamingo in Sea Point (by Signatura) enjoyed similar success, with only 5 of its compact studios still listed as available.
So, what is the secret behind the appeal of these controversial, small-space properties?
“One of the biggest and most obvious attractions of micro-apartments is their relative affordability,” says Brad Morgan, Head of Marketing at Rawson Developers. “With interest rates as low as they are today, first-time buyers can get their hands on a micro-unit in a top-tier lifestyle development for a very similar monthly outlay to what they would no