Rental market bleeds tenants dry

LEPHALALE - A recent survey by News24 rated Lephalale as the most expensive town to live in South Africa, with the average rent for a three-bedroom house amounting to R15 000 per month.
Residents and estate agents attribute these exorbitant prices to the sudden demand for contractor accommodation that hit the town when construction commenced on the Medupi Power Station in 2007/8.
With the capital injection of a R140-billion building project came huge demands for accommodation and it quickly became clear that Lephalale was not ready for the development and the influx of people.
Contracting companies paid whatever they had to secure accommodation for their workers and many residential properties ended up with far more occupants than they were designed for.
Lephalale went from a small mining town where everyone knew each other to a city-like boomtown overnight. New buildings popped up on every corner as developers raced to cash in on the lucrative rental market.
Now as construction work at Medupi winds down, rental income has followed suite, but according to Renette le Grange of Remax Lephalale, the value of property in this town is still much higher than anywhere else in South Africa.
For many long-time residents, life has changed irrevocably. It has become necessary for both parents in a household to work with one family in Onverwacht. They told Northern News they had to let their gardener and housekeeper go as their rent just kept escalating.
“All our expenses are going up but our income stays the same. It seems like soon average income-families will have to start sharing houses to get through each month,” a concerned resident said. At the other end of the spectrum are property owners, cashing in on the high demand.
Margie Geyser from Remax says many owners get irritated when the rent don’t reflect in their accounts on the first of the month. “This process takes a few days and it is not always possible to pay the owner his or her rent by the first day of the new month as some people and large companies renting properties only pay after the first. The money takes a day or two to reflect in the rental agent’s account and only then can the rent be transferred to the owner of the property,” says Geyser.  She recommends that people who live off their rental income, structure their debit orders accordingly.