The Continuous growth in urban population trends across South Africa has seen most people continue to flock to cities and this had led to an increase in demand for affordable accommodation in the cities. In Cape Town, most newcomers cannot afford the formal private rental market in and around the city centre, where rentals for a studio apartment starts at about R8 000 a month in Woodstock and Salt River, and a whole lot more in central city neighbourhoods like Gardens or Sea Point.
It is due to this continuous demand for decent housing with access to running water, electricity, security among others that the small-scale private affordable rental properties have arisen to meet that urgent need, mostly in the form of formal backyard rental accommodations. Rarely mentioned in the debates around South Africa’s housing policy, the affordable formal backyard rental market provides accommodation to more low-paid and underprivileged households than the state’s subsidised housing programmes such as the so-called RDP type housing. According to the 2011 Urban Land Mark report, the small-scale private rental market in South Africa is one of the most “successful, efficient and pervasive accommodation delivery systems in South Africa,” accounting for 35% of all rentals, or 10% of all South African households.
