Keep your eyes on the price

Investigating the daily dynamics of property market in Cape Town to understand patterns of social change in South Africa.

French Institute Seminars in Humanities (FISH)
22 June 2015

14:00 – IFAS Conference Room, 62 Juta Street, Braamfontein

Julien Migozzi
Université Grenoble 1/ Pacte/ Géographie-Cités

As the emergence of South Africa unfolds multidimensional change, to be grasped both in the social and economical fields, this research project explores how the residential property market influences the remaking of the city and create dynamics of social change in post-apartheid Cape Town. The strategies, practices and networking of real estate actors, the evolution of housing prices and property values, the access to finance and the journey for homeownership are powerful factors in the structure and segmentation of the housing market. Residential mobilities resulting from real estate transactions reconfigure the neighbourhoods and shape the processes of spatial transformation and segregation at work in the city. From fieldwork research, interviews with estate agents, observations and preliminary quantitative analysis, this presentation provides insights into the evolution of the property market through the daily interactions of its actors, with a focus on the current dynamics at work in Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest township.

Julien Migozzi is a PhD candidate at Grenoble Alpes University and a member of research units UMR Pacte 5194 (Grenoble) and UMR Géographie-Cités 8504 (Paris). Combining quantitative analysis and qualitative approaches, he is preparing a doctoral thesis on the correlations between real estate market dynamics, spatial transformation and patterns of social change within the Cape Town metropolitan area. He holds the agrégation of geography.