In one Cape Town suburb, the average home sells for R33 million. If you want to live there, this is what you'd need to earn.
You see them driving supercars, wearing designer brands, and casually soaking up the sun during working hours.
You may be curious: how much do Cape Town’s wealthiest residents earn?
Well, if they live in the city’s most expensive suburb (Clifton), now you’ll know.
To become one of them, this is what you’ll need to earn, win, or inherit.
On the Atlantic Seaboard, Clifton is home to multimillionaires and a handful of billionaires.
Christo Weise, the founder of what we know today as Shoprite, has mentioned owning a home there.
The average sale price in the area is R33 million as of September 2026.
But you can find a more reasonably priced flat for R9.5 million.
If you’re looking for a hillside house, you can buy a four-bedroom property overlooking Clifton 4th for just under R50 million.
To buy the cheapest home on Clifton’s limited property market, you’ll need to earn R316 000 a month.
To purchase the average home, you’ll need a minimum monthly gross of R1.1 million.
That’s without a deposit.
If you have a R3.3 million deposit, you’ll only need a gross income of R989 000 a month.
Property TypeAverage Asking PriceMinimum Gross Income (Monthly)1 BedroomR9.5 millionR284 5382 Bedroom R15.5 millionR464 2463 BedroomR44.5 millionR1.32 million4 BedroomR59.2 millionR1.77 million
But you don’t have to buy to become one of Clifton’s 507 residents.
You can rent.
To rent in Clifton, agents and landlords require you to earn at least 3 times the rent.
On the rental market, there’s a furnished studio flat for R22 000 a month.
You’ll need to earn at least R66 000 a month. But if you’re renting with a partner, that’s only R33 000 each.
Your other choices are a furnished 1-bedroom for R35 000 or a 2-bedroom for R95 000.
You could get an unfurnished 3-bedroom flat for R100 000 a month.
But unlike most rentals, this 3-bedroom has a 24-month lease period.
If you don’t mind a very brief experience of how the wealthy live, you can pay R5 000 a night to rent a 3-bedroom beachfront bungalow.
Daily rentals like this typically don’t require a payslip or bank statements.
A furnished four-bedroom bungalow is available for R185 000 a month.
On a single salary, you’d need to earn R555 000 a month.
But if you attempt to split it with seven other people (two bodies to a room), you’d only need to contribute R23 125 a month.
Property TypeAverage RentalMinimum Gross IncomeStudioR29 500R88 5001 BedroomR35 000R105 0002 BedroomR95 000R285 0003 BedroomR130 500R391 5004 BedroomR138 750R416 250
According to census data from 2011, the last census in which data was reported on a suburb-by-suburb basis, most Clifton residents earned over R51 280 a month.
If these salaries kept up with inflation, that starting salary would be R106 209 today.
At the time, most residents either owned and had fully paid off their home (33.3%) or were renting (32.6%).
A handful (7.6%) owned but hadn’t paid off their bond.
Some (21%) adults even resided in these sought-after homes rent-free.
