Latest news with #urbancentres
Zawya
17-07-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Top suburbs for buy-to-let investments in South Africa: where to invest now?
High yields, low vacancies and rising rental demand are fuelling investor confidence in South Africa's rental market. With the country's average gross rental yield reaching 10.36% in Q2 2025 and national vacancy rates at their lowest since 2016, conditions are ripe for property investors. Bradd Bendall, BetterBond's National Head of Sales, says investors should look closely at suburbs offering a combination of strong rental yields and low vacancy rates — the clearest indicators of sustainable income and tenant demand. "South Africa's residential rental market is showing strong growth, with demand outpacing supply in many parts of the country, says Bradd Bendall, BetterBond's National Head of Sales. 'This, coupled with the relatively low prime lending rate, creates ideal conditions for investors looking to expand their buy-to-let portfolios.' The PayProp Rental Index for Q1 2025 reports a year-on-year rental increase of 5.6%; a performance the report describes as 'the best South Africa's rental market has seen in years'. When identifying promising suburbs for property investment, Bendall says two key metrics should be top of mind: rental yield and vacancy rate. According to the Global Property Guide, South Africa's average gross rental yield stood at 10.36% in Q2 2025. Drivers of rental yield Factors that influence rental yield include location and demand. 'Properties in urban centres, university towns or commercial hubs tend to offer higher rental returns,' says Bendall. 'Not only is the tenant demand usually high, but the rental income is more consistent.' Different property types can offer stronger rental yields. Apartments and sectional-title units typically require minimal upkeep, making them more cost-effective to maintain. Their lock-up-and-go convenience also appeals to a wide range of tenants. Properties located in areas with reliable service delivery, strong infrastructure, and robust economic activity are consistently in demand. Long-term leases tend to provide a stable and predictable income stream, while short-term rentals, particularly in popular tourist destinations along the coast, may deliver higher returns, but require more management. 'Consider your investment goals carefully when choosing where to invest in an income-generating property,' advises Bendall. 'Work with estate agents in your preferred area to understand the market and demand. Factor all costs, including levies, rates and maintenance in your calculations when estimating a property's likely rental yield.' Considering the two metrics - rental yields and vacancy rates - Bendall recommends the following buy-to-let suburbs by province: Western Cape: TPN reports that the Western Cape recorded its lowest vacancy rate to date in the third quarter of 2024. Vacancy rates dropped to 1.07%, down significantly from the previous low of 1.16% reported in early 2016. 'This low vacancy rate is a combination of high demand and low supply,' explains Bendall. 'A semigration hotspot, many people relocating from other provinces to the Western Cape will rent before they buy.' The PayProp Rental Index reports that the province also boasts the highest average rent in the country at R11,285, with a 9.6% annual increase that is well above the national average. In Cape Town, Woodstock, Observatory, and Salt River are top picks for student and young professional renters seeking proximity to universities and commercial centres. Rental yields in these suburbs range between 8% and 11%, with student accommodation developments like Peak Studios in Observatory reporting occupancy rates as high as 98%. Bellville in Cape Town's northern suburbs is also a strong performer, says Bendall. Popular with young families and young professionals, Bellville enjoys low vacancy rates and rental yields of up to 11%. 'Many of the rental properties in this area are spacious and offer comparative value for money. They are also well-located close to amenities and recreational facilities. Johannesburg: Gauteng consistently ranks as one of the top-performing provinces for rental income. Research by The African Investor indicates gross rental yields of 11% to 16% in the province, with an average rent of just over R9,200 - the third highest in the country. Sandton remains one of the most sought after suburbs in the country, with buyers and tenants drawn to a vibrant, cosmopolitan lifestyle. Located within Gauteng's economic hub, Sandton is conveniently located with easy access to airports and other parts of Gauteng. Sandton's rental market has wide appeal. It attracts young professionals, expatriates and families who want to enjoy the lifestyle it offers. Luxury sectional-title units offering convenience and security are particularly sought after in Sandton and neighbouring Rosebank, notes Bendall. Bedfordview's rental market has remained resilient, with its secure estates reporting rental occupancy rates consistently above 90%. Investors are also interested in Braamfontein, where a strong demand for student accommodation is seeing rental yields of over 10%. Similarly, a need for student accommodation is driving rental demand in Pretoria, notes Bendall. Menlyn, Brooklyn, Hatfield and Arcadia are high-demand areas, especially with students and young professionals. 'The combination of low vacancy rates and relatively high rental yields of between 9 and 11%, make these areas a good option for savvy investors. KwaZulu-Natal: According to TPN's Vacancy Survey Report for Q3 2024, the vacancy rate in KwaZulu-Natal declined to 7.12% by the end of the year, slightly lower than the 7.36% recorded in 2023. In Durban, Umhlanga and Ballito remain sought-after rental hotspots, offering consistently high rental yields and low vacancy rates. These areas are also popular among tourists and business travellers, with developments such as The Pearls of Umhlanga achieving occupancy rates of up to 90%. 'The North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal is experiencing significant growth, with new developments attracting a range of buyers and investors,' says Bendall. The Sibaya Coastal Precinct, by example, offers a dynamic work-live-play lifestyle and a variety of rental properties designed to meet tenants' changing needs. Time to invest With the prime lending rate currently at 10.75%, the climate is favourable for savvy investors looking to secure high-yield rental properties with low vacancy rates. 'A well-located property in areas with strong access to transport, education, and economic opportunities is more likely to deliver solid rental returns and sustained occupancy.' says Bendall. 'Investors would do well to make the most of the current rates environment by investing in property in areas where the demand for rental accommodation is high and sustained.'
The Guardian
09-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
From the archive: The death of the department store
We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2022: the closure of John Lewis's store in Sheffield after almost 60 years was a bitter blow. As debate rages over what to do with the huge empty site, the city is becoming a test case for where Britain's urban centres may be heading Written and read by John Harris
Globe and Mail
08-07-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Downtown foot traffic is still far below prepandemic levels, despite push to boost in-office hours
Foot traffic in the downtown cores of major cities across Canada is still approximately half of what it was before the pandemic, despite a growing push from employers for more in-office work days. New data from the Toronto-based analytics company Environics Analytics – provided exclusively to The Globe and Mail – show that since much of the country ended pandemic lockdown restrictions in the spring of 2022, there was a gradual increase in the number of working people populating the central business districts of urban centres. But that growth tapered off in early 2024, and has held steady into the spring of 2025. While foot traffic has been slow to rebound, major employers are now pushing to bring their white-collar work force into the office more frequently. Royal Bank of Canada RY-T, Bank of Montreal BMO-T and Bank of Nova Scotia BNS-T recently announced new rules that ramp up in-office days: All three banks will require staff to work from the office four days a week come September. Tech giants Amazon Inc. AMZN-Q and Dell Technologies Inc. DELL-N began a five-day in-office policy earlier this year, marking a significant change in both companies' years-long hybrid work arrangements. Last month, the Toronto-based investment firm Canaccord Genuity Inc. introduced a full-time in-office policy, after similar moves from other investment banks such as J.P. Morgan and the boutique New York firm Moelis & Co. But whether these more demanding return-to-office mandates spread widely in white-collar industries remains to be seen. And ultimately, those corporate decisions will determine whether downtowns see a full rebound in their 9-to-5 activity. As of April, 2025, foot traffic in Toronto's downtown core is about 43 per cent less than what it was in January, 2020, according to Environics data. That number hovers at approximately 50 per cent for both Montreal and Vancouver. The data from Environics measures movement based on cellphones (stripped of personally identifying information) and estimates the number of office workers entering the central business districts of cities. It does not include residential and retail foot traffic. Foot traffic data often fluctuate by month. Downtown cores tend to be emptier in December and the summer months, when more workers are on vacation. Across Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Ottawa, the data appear to point to a gradual increase in the number of office workers in cities since mid-2022, but little change over the past year. Earlier: In a hybrid work world, Toronto's downtown core faces an existential crisis 'It's a long-term process for the downtown cores of cities to diversify away from office traffic. But my hunch is that the recent return-to-office mandates will push cities to get back to how they used to be before,' said Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. Prof. Chapple runs the Downtown Recovery Project at the University of Toronto, a research initiative that measures the vitality of various downtown cores after lockdowns were lifted across the country. Her own data, which captures all foot traffic, including retail and residential, show an increase in the number of visits to cities over the past year. Compared with February, 2024, downtown Toronto has seen a 10-per-cent increase in the amount of foot traffic. That percentage change is similar for Vancouver. Montreal saw a 15-per-cent increase in foot traffic and Ottawa saw a 19-per-cent increase. The jump in Ottawa is presumably related to the federal government's three-day-in-office mandate for civil servants that took effect in September, 2024. The downtown cores of major cities have yet to return to the bustle of prepandemic times, primarily because a broad swath of the white-collar work force still works in a hybrid fashion, with two to three days in the office, and the rest at home. A March survey from the financial-services company Mercer shows that out of 286 major white-collar employers in Canada, 65 per cent had their staff in office two or three times a week, while just 7 per cent had them on site four days a week. In the same survey, 33 per cent of employers said they had issued a firm return-to-office mandate and expected employees to comply. The rest had no definitive mandate but a broad expectation that employees should come into the office at least a few days a week. But that could quickly change. Beyond the move from three of the Big Five banks to increase in-office days, there are signs that the macroeconomic landscape is shifting in favour of employers. While job vacancies rose dramatically during the pandemic, peaking at almost one million jobs in the second quarter of 2022, they have fallen substantially since. In the first quarter of 2025, there were 524,300 vacancies, a number comparable with the prepandemic average between 2017 and 2019. 'If employees wanted to leave their jobs during the pandemic, they simply had more choice,' said Catherine Connelly, professor of human resources and management at McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business. 'Part of this recent pushback to this office has been driven by the job market. The balance of power has shifted back in favour of the employer because unemployment rates in cities have been trending upwards. Companies can demand that employees come back into the office, and employees will comply,' she added. Allison Griffiths, a partner at Mercer's human-resources consulting division, said that her research suggests employers are still concerned about employee engagement. 'They find that the most engaged employees are the ones in the office 100 per cent and that could be why some employers are moving away from a hybrid policy.' Opinion: If time is money, remote work makes parents rich. It's why I won't be going back into the office According to the job-search website Indeed, the share of job postings that explicitly mention terms related to hybrid, flexible and remote work in Canada started declining in January, 2025, after reaching a peak in January, 2022. Still, Canada's transition away from remote and hybrid work is much slower compared with that of the United States and many countries in Asia and Europe. A February study from Stanford University's Institute of Economic Policy Research found that Canadians worked an average of 1.9 days a week from home, the highest level of 40 countries. Americans worked 1.6 days a week from home. Indeed, some major Canadian employers have doubled down in their approach to flexible work. At Sun Life Financial, which employs 12,000 people across Canada, there is no required number of days that all employees need to come into the office. 'From the perspective of poaching talent, we actually see these return-to-office announcements as a bonus to us,' said Helena Pagano, the chief people and culture officer at Sun Life. The insurance company has a concept called 'common days,' in which some departments mandate that their employees come in a certain day of the week, but the company's approach to work is premised upon the flexibility to 'work where it makes sense.' Ms. Pagano says that Sun Life intends to stick to its current workplace strategy because it has led to greater employee retention. 'We are certainly not losing people to the companies who have the four- or five-day in-office mandate.'
National Post
30-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
FIRST READING: Here's just how much money Canada Post is hemorrhaging
Article content Canada Post, meanwhile, cites 62,000 employees, including part-time workers and managers. Article content If the $1.3 billion loss is averaged across all those 62,000 employees, that's $20,967 each. If averaged just across CUPW members, it's $23,636. And if you consider that Canada Post lost $1.3 billion in 2024 while maintaining 25,000 front-line mail carriers, it averages out to $52,000 per carrier. Article content The number of retail post offices in Canada stands at 5,700. This ranges from a post office counter at the back of a Shoppers Drug Mart to an ever-dwindling number of dedicated post offices, mostly in large urban centres. Article content Some of those are more profitable than others, but in 2024 Canada Post lost an average of $228,000 for every one of those retail post offices. Article content You could also average out the loss by the corporation's vehicle fleet of 15,300. The 2024 loss averages out to $85,000 for every truck and postal van. In other words, with the money lost in 2024, Canada Post could have replaced every single one of its vehicle fleet with a luxury EV. Article content Article content The corporation notes multiple times in the report that even as mail delivery becomes increasingly unprofitable, they're having to serve more addresses than ever before. Article content In 2006, there were 14.3 million recognized addresses in Canada. As of the latest count, there are 17.6 million – a total increase of 3.3 million. To put it another way, every day since 2006 has yielded an average of 502 new addresses that have to be serviced by Canada Post. Every three minutes yields another address that Canada Post is legally required to service. Article content If last year's operating loss was shared equally across all of those 17.6 million addresses, Canada Post lost $76 for every single one of them. If averaged out across the 21,800 delivery routes served by the corporation, it's a loss of $60,000 per route. Article content Article content Article content Although the Carney government has controversially planned to not release a budget until the fall, that doesn't mean they won't be spending incredibly high quantities of money in the interim. The just-released main spending estimates show that the Liberals are planning to spend $486.9 billion across the fiscal year. This is 7.75 per cent higher than the expenditures during the last year of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – and he ultimately resigned in part due to criticisms that he was spending too much. The National Post's John Ivison noted that whatever Prime Minister Mark Carney's rhetoric about fiscal prudence, more money is being spent everywhere, and on everything. 'My rough calculation is that 63 departments will see their budgets rise beyond the rate of inflation, compared to the previous year's Main Estimates, and only 14 will have their budgets cut,' he wrote. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content There was a brief flurry of drama in the United States this week that could have saved Canada a lot of trouble. On Wednesday, the United States' Court of International Trade ruled that U.S. President Donald Trump did not have unilateral authority to impose international trade tariffs. If the ruling had held, it would have instantaneously ended the Trump trade war with Canada — as well as its on-again, off-again trade war with basically everyone else. But it didn't hold; the United States Court of Appeals restored Trump's unilateral tariff powers the next day. And this is where we should mention that the U.S. Congress could rescind Trump's tariff-making powers anytime it wants. It just doesn't want to. Article content Article content
