For generations, that call has set the rhythm of daily life. Yet today, beneath its familiar cadence, a quieter and more complicated transformation is underway.
Across Bo-Kaap and much of Cape Town’s inner city, soaring property prices, increasing investor interest, and the surge of short-term rentals are raising fears that one of the city’s oldest continuous communities may gradually be pushed out.
Heritage Under Siege
Local photographer Yasser Booley, 50, an eighth-generation Bo-Kaap resident, has witnessed the transformation firsthand.
“The biggest changes I have seen are the slow choking of my living culture through the accelerated sale of homes to high-net-worth individuals, the majority of whom have no connection to the place or the culture,” he says.
Booley grew up in a neighbourhood where extended families often lived within a few streets of one another, tied together by mosques, schools, and a shared history shaped by culture, colonial rule, and apartheid.
Now, he observes, that social fabric is under strain. Bo-Kaap’s growing popularity with tourists and investors is reshaping everyday life—from the types of businesses that open to the ways homes are used.
“The changes are not just visible in who lives here, but in how Bo-Kaap is viewed from the outside,” he says.
Across Cape Town’s prime property market, international demand has become increasingly visible. Data from the Seeff Property Group shows foreign buyers accounted for about 2.8 billion rand ($168 million) — roughly a quarter of the 11.3 billion rand ($679 million) in property sales across the Atlantic Seaboard and City Bowl in the past year.
As wealthy buyers enter the market, homes that once housed generations are increasingly sold to investors or converted into short-term rentals such as Airbnb. Younger residents, meanwhile, are finding it increasingly difficult to stay in the neighbourhood their families have called home for decades, sometimes centuries.
“I have seen my generation leave the Bo-Kaap en masse because they can’t afford to live here anymore,” Booley says. “Where young people do happen to have the resources to buy in the area, there seems to be an invisible barrier [to entry].”
For him, the question goes deeper: can the community that built Bo-Kaap afford to stay here at all?
“It is, culturally speaking, a dire state of affairs when the hard-fought battles of our ancestors come to nought,” he says.
Tourism Boom or Housing Squeeze?
Cape Town’s rise as a global tourist destination has quietly transformed the economics of its inner-city housing market. In 2025 alone, the city welcomed about 3.3 million international travellers, according to Airports Company South Africa.
For visitors, neighbourhoods clustered around the City Bowl, such as Bo-Kaap, offer a rare combination: a historic district where culture, architecture, and daily life coexist. But those same qualities have made the area highly desirable as prime real estate.
Short-term rental platforms have accelerated this trend. Data from rental analytics firm AirDNA shows more than 31,000 active short-term rental listings operating across Cape Town, with some of the highest concentrations around the central business district — 26,000 Airbnb listings alone.
The financial incentives for property owners are significant. According to AirDNA, some short-term rentals in central Cape Town generate more than 400,000 rand ($24,000) a year—often far outpacing what traditional long-term rentals bring in. By comparison, a similar apartment rented long-term to a local tenant typically earns between 12,000 and 18,000 rand ($720–$1,080) a month, or about 144,000 to 216,000 rand ($8,640–$13,000) a year.
Tourism is only part of the story. Cape Town has also become a magnet for remote workers and digital nomads—professionals earning salaries in stronger foreign currencies while living in South Africa.
In 2024, the government introduced a digital nomad visa allowing foreign remote workers employed abroad to live in South Africa for extended periods, as part of a push to attract international talent, tourism, and investment.
Drawn by the city’s climate, scenery, and relatively lower cost of living, many can afford rents far beyond what most local residents earn.
“Remote workers and international buyers have put affordability beyond the means of locals,” Booley argues.
The gap between local incomes and housing costs is stark. According to South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey, the median monthly salary is roughly 15,000–18,000 rand ($800–$950). By contrast, long-term rentals in central Cape Town frequently exceed 20,000 rand ($1,200) per month, with some properties commanding significantly higher prices during peak tourist seasons.
Housing advocacy organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi says many low- and middle-income workers are increasingly being priced out of the inner city, despite holding full-time jobs. The organisation warns that the widening gap between wages and housing costs is contributing to a growing class of “working homeless”—people who are employed but still unable to secure stable housing.
A Community Under Pressure
For the Bo-Kaap Civic and Ratepayers Association (BKCRA), the effects of the property boom are tangible.
“The community absolutely views the current situation as a form of economic displacement,” says Sheikh Dawood Terblanche, chairperson of the BKCRA.
While residents are not being forcibly removed by law, Terblanche says a subtler form of displacement is under way—driven by rising property prices, escalating municipal rates, and the broader cost of living.
These fears are not new. In 2019, thousands of residents took to Bo-Kaap’s streets to protest against large-scale property developments they believed threatened the historic neighbourhood. The demonstrations drew national attention and led to the area being granted a Heritage Protection Overlay Zone (HPOZ) status—designed to protect its distinctive architecture and streetscape.
But while heritage designation shields Bo-Kaap’s colourful houses from demolition, locals say it does little to protect the people living inside them.
“The pressure is intense and constant,” Terblanche says. “Residents report being frequently approached by agents with high-cash offers, often targeted at elderly homeowners and the vulnerable.”
The Cost of Staying
Rising property values have also driven higher municipal rates, creating new financial pressures. Across Cape Town, property prices have risen by an average of about 10 percent a year over the past two decades, consistently outpacing other major metros, including Johannesburg. In some areas, property prices have climbed by more than 200 percent over the past decade, while municipal rates and charges have surged by nearly 500 percent.
For pensioners in Bo-Kaap, the consequences can be severe. “For those on fixed incomes, the resulting property rates are often higher than their monthly pensions,” Terblanche says. Many are forced to sell because they cannot afford the “tax of living” in their ancestral homes. South Africa’s state old-age pension is about 2,190 rand ($115) a month, leaving little room for rising costs.
For younger generations, entry into the housing market is increasingly prohibitive. One-bedroom homes now regularly sell for 2.5–3 million rand ($135,000–$160,000), compared to roughly 1.6 million rand ($100,000) less than a decade ago. Across Cape Town, research shows more than 90 percent of households cannot afford property in the City Bowl, where prices have risen far faster than wages.
The City’s Perspective
City officials stress that pressures affecting neighbourhoods like Bo-Kaap must be understood within Cape Town’s broader growth.
City spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo notes the city’s population has grown by almost a million residents over the past decade due to internal migration and urbanisation. He cites income inequality and a lack of economic opportunity as key drivers of housing affordability issues.
Tyhalibongo said the city is attempting to expand housing supply and address apartheid-era spatial planning legacies that have left lower-income households far from economic centres, sometimes spending 40 percent of their income on transport. “In the past two years, we’ve released more land for affordable housing than in the last 10 years,” he said.
The national government says policies attracting foreign investment and digital nomads are designed to boost tourism, spending, and economic growth. But for Bo-Kaap residents, the challenge is less about proximity to opportunity than the rising cost of staying in their historic neighbourhood.
What Remains
As demand for inner-city property grows, the tension between heritage protection and living culture becomes ever clearer.
“The living heritage—its people—are not protected,” Terblanche says.
The houses of Bo-Kaap remain, a cascade of colour beneath Table Mountain. Five times a day, the call to prayer rises from the Auwal Masjid, marking the passage of time.
But for Booley, what is disappearing is less tangible.
“The existential loss of the physical environment responsible for the passing on and survival of a unique culture formed in the shadow of Table Mountain,” he says. Then he pauses. “The reality is already here—the culture is under assault.”