There’s a particular kind of morning on the Atlantic Seaboard. Mist sitting on Signal Hill, the smell of the ocean comes in before the traffic does, a walk to the coffee shop takes longer than it should because the views keep stopping you.
It’s the reason people have always wanted to live here.
For a long time, this lifestyle came with a compromise: buy an urban apartment and stay close to it all, in something compact. Or buy a home on the hill, freehold, with a garden and space to expand into, and accept that it might sit a little further from the city.
It’s a trade-off Blok has spent the past decade working against. The Cape Town-based property developer has built 22 developments across seven of the city’s neighbourhoods.
They go from Sea Point to the city centre, with a specific focus on urban precincts where architecture, community and daily life are designed to work together rather than in competition.
The property transfer data on the Atlantic Seaboard over the past few years tells a story that fits that thinking closely: buyers aren’t choosing between lifestyle and space anymore. They’re finding both.
Freehold homes on the Atlantic Seaboard have become genuinely scarce. The median freehold sale price has climbed from around R11.5m in 2022 to roughly R25m in 2025, doubling in three years.
A large share of the freehold homes that do change hands are going to trusts and companies rather than individual homeowners, which suggests much of that land is being bought to build on, not to live in. There simply isn’t more of it coming.
So, buyers have done something sensible. Rather than give up the lifestyle, they’ve found a new way into it.
Sectional title property on the Atlantic Seaboard has grown considerably. A few years ago, most apartments changing hands were compact, studio layouts and positioned for lock-up-and-go.
That’s no longer where the movement is. Larger apartments, the kind with spacious bedrooms and room to entertain, now make up a far bigger share of the market than they did, and the typical sectional title apartment has nearly doubled in size over the same stretch.
It shows up in the price too. A freehold home on the coast now sits at a median of around R25m. A sectional title apartment, closer to R6m. Same coastline, same mountain, same walk to the water. A very different way in.
This is the world Blok is building for. Take a closer look at the video below:
Blok’s 22nd development THIRTEENONUP sits at 13 Upper Portswood Road in Green Point, a neighbourhood that has never made anyone choose between the city and the surrounds. Thirteenonup was designed on the same principle, and now the market is proving it right.
The Three-bedroom Garden Villas
These are built for the part of life that happens outside. Three-bedroom garden apartments ranging from 161m² to 233m², starting from R18,195,000, with room for a proper Sunday lunch, a dog that needs a bigger space, kids who need somewhere to be kids.
It’s the scale of a home that buyers on the Seaboard are increasingly looking for, with the concierge, the security, and Green Point Park five minutes on foot, still part of the deal.
The Penthouses
THIRTEENONUP offers two penthouses, with the city below them: Penthouse One, at 329m², and Penthouse Two, at 273m².
Each with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, two parking bays, and a terrace that feels less like a balcony and more like the garden a freehold home would once have promised, just with a private rooftop pool, an integrated sauna, and an outdoor rain shower added in.
Glass doors slide away completely, so the lounge and the terrace become one room rather than two. Signal Hill and sunsets hold one side of the view, the city and the Table Bay move quietly on the other.
Freehold on the Atlantic Seaboard isn’t coming back in any real supply. What’s taking its place is apartments built with that same scale and sense of space in mind, just without the price tag the hills now demand.
A lifestyle apartment or a home on the hill was never really the right question. The real one was whether anyone would build both into a single address.
As Blok puts it: honey, you’re home.
To enquire about the penthouses or the three-bedroom garden villa apartments at THIRTEENONUP, contact Blok’s sales team via email on sales@blok.co.za, or call +27 83 280 5586.
This article was sponsored by Blok Living.
