Weekend Argus Saturday 2025-10-25

The student accommodation landscape in the Western Cape, particularly in Cape Town, is defined by a systemic supply-and-demand imbalance that creates persistent challenges for all stakeholders. The significant and chronic shortage of safe, accredited and truly affordable beds is made worse by the region’s high property values and rental costs, says the South African Student Accommodation Providers Association (SASAPA). Talking to Independent Media, SASAPA ceo, Inga Ncomanzi, says what stands out about this sector in the region is “a broken financial model where a core issue is the significant disconnect between the actual cost of providing compliant, quality accommodation in high-value areas such as Cape Town and the capped allowances provided by NSFAS”. “This creates a challenging environment for providers who want to serve the NSFAS market sustainably.” The association…

In September, Eazi Real Estate celebrated eight successful years of keeping property sales simple, affordable and Eazi. Since opening our doors, our goal has been to make selling your home straightforward and stress-free, while helping sellers save millions with our fixed-fee model. With thousands of sales concluded and hundreds of valuations completed every month, we’re proud of the results our team achieves across the Cape Metro and Winelands. Supported by our bespoke, world-class tech-enabled system, we track every valuation and sale, giving us deep insight into local market trends and the performance of correctly priced homes. The numbers tell the story. Since 2021, homes priced accurately within 5% of their market value have sold in a median of just 25 days, compared to 79 days for overpriced properties. In fact,…

Cape Town isn’t just a city – it’s a collection of distinct personalities. Each suburb has its own voice, pace, and character, with the people who live there often reflecting these traits. Whether you’re looking for heritage estates, coastal villas, or cosmopolitan lock-up-and-go apartments, the suburb you choose reveals as much about you as it does about your lifestyle. “Buyers aren’t just purchasing bricks and mortar,” says Alexa Horne, Managing Director of DG Properties. “They’re buying into an identity and a community – a way of life that resonates with who they are and how they want to live.” Here’s how six of Cape Town’s most distinctive neighbourhoods might look if they were people – and the kinds of homes that define them. Bishopscourt & Constantia – The Discerning…

Cape Town, the most expensive city in Africa when it comes to real estate, is set to become the wealthiest city on the continent by 2030. This is according to the Africa Wealth Report 2025, which includes six South African towns in its top 10 wealthiest cities. The report is an annual overview of Africa’s private wealth, published by Henley & Partners and New World Wealth. The report highlighted, amongst others, Africa’s Top 10 Wealthiest Cities and Cape Town ranked second (to Johanneburg). In fact, the report says Cape Town has “shown impressive wealth growth over the past decade and is on track to overtake Johannesburg to become Africa’s wealthiest city by 2030”. The number of dollar millionaires (R17m) living in the city has grown by 33% in the past…

True crime has never been my guilty pleasure, but somehow The Perfect Neighbor grabbed my attention. There’s something about documentaries that shifts your perspective, that lets you peek into realities far removed from your own. Set in Florida, the documentary tells the story of a long-simmering dispute between neighbours that spirals out of control over children playing in the street. What makes it so haunting is the perspective: it is captured through the slightly fisheye, smudgy lens of American law enforcement body-cams. There are no interviews, no voiceovers, barely any context. The camera simply shows you what happened, letting the tension and danger unfold in real time. At first, the footage feels slow, almost mundane. You might find yourself thinking, “Get to the point.” But those small moments, glimpses of…

I find music biopics fascinating. Condensing a legacy into a feature film is no easy feat. However, Hollywood has delivered some gems over the years, like Walk the Line, Elvis, Ray, Bohemian Rhapsody, La Vie En Rose and 8 Mile, to name a few. Now, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere has been released on the big screen. Helmed by Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen, it is written and directed by Scott Cooper. The film, which is based on Warren Zanes’ 2023 book of the same name, chronicles Springsteen’s journey in the build-up to the release of his 1982 album, Nebraska. A key character in the story is Jon Landau, Springsteen’s manager and record producer, and Jeremy Strong slips into those shoes with ease. A seasoned actor with numerous accolades…