A British podcaster visits Cape Town once, falls in love with the place and spontaneously buys a mansion. He then doubles the price and puts it back on the market.
Some people might call it the classic capital growth that Cape Town property offers. To me, it looks like the looting of one of Cape Town's wealthiest suburbs.
The house in question is on the slopes of Table Mountain. It exposes everything we have not sorted out about how foreign money moves through South African property.
According to the deeds report, Steven Bartlett, the entrepreneur behind The Diary of a CEO, bought a seven-bedroom Bishopscourt estate for roughly R93.3 million in 2024. The last municipal valuation on record is for 2018. The municipality valued the property at R20.3m. That is not a typo. A municipal valuation is a rates figure, not a market price and the roll it sits on runs years behind what buyers are paying.
Pam Golding Properties has the property listed for sale at R189m. That is an eye-watering markup in a short space of time on a home he has, by his own team's account, barely had time to enjoy, given how often he is on a plane.
The three-level, contemporary-style home sits on an erf measuring 7 448m2, with 9.5 bathrooms and 12 parking spaces. According to the live online property listing, some of the amenities include: a padel court, squash court, high-tech gym, heated rim-flow pool, plunge pool, spa room with a pedicure parlour, steam room, jacuzzi, wine cellar, poker room and a cinema.
Many people might recognise the home from its use as a filming location for a German version of The Bachelor TV series or its role as a luxury-brand experience for Land Rover.
What is Range Rover House? Basically, it is a pop-up party that Land Rover throws inside a borrowed mansion. The brand takes over a striking property somewhere in the world for anything from a few days to a few weeks, inviting a small list of influencers, journalists and customers. At the Cape Town event, guests could test-drive the R5.8m Range Rover SV Onyx (one of seven in Africa at the time) and spec a car with a Land Rover designer sitting next to them.
Bartlett's spokesperson has declined to comment on the sale. And I understand why. This was never really a home to him. Perhaps it was more of a quick (albeit pricey) flip, given how extensive his renovations were and how quickly he put it back on the market.
There are about 300 homes in the high-end, exclusive suburb of Bishopscourt. And with what's on offer — privacy, Table Mountain views, the generous size of the plot — one can say this is one of the most expensive residential homes on the South African market and a suburb like this justifies the prices to match.
However, we need to be a bit more sober about what is happening here because the celebrity name is drawing attention away from a much less polished situation. Bishopscourt is one of the most tightly held, heritage-dense suburbs in Cape Town. It is not a growth node or an emerging area where a doubling in value reflects market movement.
We know that Cape Town is hot property and has been for some time. Penthouses are flying off the shelf in the Atlantic Seaboard and breaking record prices in Newlands in the southern suburbs. Developments are selling hundreds of flats on the first day of launch and Nettleton Road (arguably the most expensive street in Africa) is seeing houses worth hundreds of millions sell. When it comes to real estate, capital growth in Cape Town is tangible. But what happens when global wealth collides with a fast-growing luxury property market like Cape Town?
Francois Venter, from Seeff Property Group, says: "Sales data for the first quarter shows that Bishopscourt property is selling for R30m on average, almost three times the average from five years ago, which was around R11m in 2020."
The average price tag in the suburb has jumped by about R19m. The mansion we've been discussing is asking R189m.
If this is a property flip by a buyer with no long-term intention of living in the property, it is money moving through a community, not someone moving into one. The profit leaves with the seller. If his sale price is achieved (the one with an asking price increase of about 103% since purchasing the property almost two years ago), the street will be left with a much higher benchmark valuation and potentially one hell of a rates bill to go with it.
None of this is illegal. I want to be precise about that because the word "flip" often gets thrown around as an accusation when describing a transaction. Buying low and selling high is not a crime; it is the entire premise of property investment and plenty of South Africans would take that multiple in faster than your heart beats while waiting for a Springbok kicker to kick for the posts in the dying minutes of the game — if it were offered to them.
It is not the legal side that bothers me. It is what happens to a neighbourhood's affordability and character when its most expensive stock becomes a plaything for an investor or, in this case, a potential trader, who has no stake in the place beyond the return.
When a single "asking price" moves at that multiple in the suburb, it blurs the perception point for how every valuation, every rates assessment and every negotiation on that street gets judged. I want to emphasise the difference between the "asking price" and the price achieved when a property is sold. The price the property sold for is the true indicator of the market, whereas the asking price could be as high as your egotistical heart desires.
We often talk about Capetonian lifestyle appeal, the Western Cape outperforming the rest of the country on price growth and international buyers choosing the Cape over Cannes. Semigration, South Africans relocating in the country, gets folded into that narrative too, though it plays out differently.
All that demand is legit. But sometimes the upside for "who" is where we need to focus our attention.
Sometimes this is overt. More often it may be quieter: not every rand, or in this case pound, that comes into Cape Town property ends up benefiting the people who live here.
If there is a lesson in this potential Bishopscourt sale, it is this: foreign investment, like semigration, is not one thing to cheer or condemn. Some of it builds, some just passes through, taking the upside with it and leaving the repricing behind. The property industry needs to get better at making the distinction in public, not just in WhatsApp groups where agents say what they think.
I won't be surprised if Bartlett gets his price or close to it. Someone will buy that house. Good luck to them. But the next time a listing agent tells you international interest is, without a doubt, good for the market, ask them exactly who it is good for.
Right now in Bishopscourt, the honest answer is one seller and nobody else.
