Cape Town - For some people, having a roof over their heads and a place to call home means living in a shack.
Building your own shack has become a long-term investment for dwellers in some neighbourhoods around Cape Town.
To own a shack, one either has to buy building material and start from scratch or buy a ready-made structure and erect it on a piece of land.
This can cost anything from R3 000 to more than R7 000.
But these days, some owners have either found a new place to stay or they sell their shacks for large sums of money.
Most sellers advertise their shacks, some which go for over R20 000, on Facebook and there are even dedicated pages for shack sellers on the social media page.
Some owners say the reason for the prices are that shacks have either been built on their own plots, have an electricity box, have a parking space or have been renovated to look good, inside and out.
Walking inside some of the shacks, one would not be blamed for thinking they are the interiors of formal structures, due to the beautiful decorations.
To put up a structure can take anything from a few hours or half a day, depending how big and how many people are putting it up.
Siyabonga Stemele is asking R27 000 for his three-room shack in Endlovini in Khayelitsha.
The shack is made up of a kitchen, a bedroom and a living room.
“I bought my own material when I built the shack. On top of that, it has its own electricity box and parking space for a buyer that owns a car,” he said.
Despite its steep price, he said the person will still have to share the communal taps and toilets that were provided for them.
Stemele said it has not been long since he started advertising his property, and, using Facebook has given him a wide range of potential buyers.
“A lot of people have shown interest in buying because you get a lot of responses on the advert, even though it is yet to be sold but I hope someone will come forward soon,” he said.
The change of ownership when the property is sold, is done in the presence of community leaders who act as witnesses with some documents being signed, since there are no title deeds involved.
Some of the shacks are built in backyards of formal structures while some are on land that was occupied illegally – until the authorities could not move the people and were forced to provide basic services.
Along Govan Mbeki Road, some individuals build shacks and sell them for lower prices.
The structures, built on the pavement, are hard to miss. They are either made of shiny corrugated iron or painted bright red or green.
Siyambukela Tyawana, who makes the structures, said people buy from them and put them up wherever they want and can sell whenever and to whomever they want.
He said they do know that people buy from them at lower prices and when they sell they do so at high prices.
He said they build different sizes for different prices.
“We build four sizes which is a 6m x 4m at R7 000, 5m x 3m at R5 500; 4m x 2.7m at R4 500; and 3m x 2.7m at R3 900. All our prices are inclusive of delivery and putting up the structure,” he said.
He said customers have two payment options, one of which is to pay cash or to pay a deposit and pay off the entire amount within two months.
Tyawana said it takes them just an hour to build the structure if the people building it “know what they are doing”.
He said since the land grabs began their business saw a spike in sales because many people wanted to secure land and to do that they needed shacks. However since lockdown, business has plummeted.
He said even though there is a standard price for which the structures are sold, there is competition.
“Like any other business we also do fight over customers, because a customer will come to you today promising to come back the following day and then they do they get poached,” he said.
Weekend Argus