The housing market has emerged as a bright spot in South Africa’s fragile economy in 2020, with industry players reporting an unexpected boom in property purchases on the back of near 50-year-low interest rates. The South African Reserve Bank’s decision to cut interest rates by three percentage points in 2020 brought the bank’s prime lending rate to 7%, making home ownership more affordable and resulting in a flood of first-time homebuyers. Read more here: Lower interest rates also pushed more existing homeowners into the secondary homeownership market. In other words, an increasing number of existing homeowners now own more than one property either for investment purposes (to let and generate regular income), to own as a holiday home, or for other reasons.