---
title: "How much deposit do you need to buy a house in South Africa?"
description: "Banks set the deposit; 100% bonds exist. What 10% or 20% down does to repayments on a R1 500 000 home, the transfer costs on top, and who holds the deposit."
url: "https://privately.co.za/guides/house-deposit-south-africa"
country: "South Africa"
updated: "2026-10-20"
published: "2026-08-16"
author: "Chandre Niemand"
source: "Privately"
---

# How much deposit do you need to buy a house in South Africa?

*Chandre Niemand, Founder, Privately. Published: 2026-08-16.*

## Summary

It depends on your bank. Banks set the deposit they ask for, and 100% bonds exist, so a lender may finance the full price. In ooba's first quarter 2026 figures buyers put down 12.8% on average, and first-time buyers 8.2%. On a R1 500 000 home at prime of 10.75% from 25 September 2026, 10% down lowers the 20-year repayment from about R15 228 to about R13 706 a month. Transfer duty and attorney fees come on top.

## Do you need a deposit at all?

It depends on the bank. A bank decides how much it will lend against a property, so the deposit that counts is the one your bank asks for. 100% bonds exist: the loan covers the full purchase price and you put down nothing, at the lender's discretion. We have not had an attorney confirm whether any rule of law also sets a minimum deposit, so we do not say there is none.

When buyers do put money down, what is usual? ooba, a bond originator, writes that in most cases the deposit comes to between 10% and 20% of the home price, with 10% the standard amount. That is a convention, not a rule that binds a bank.

How common is it to ask for none? ooba's oobarometer for the first quarter of 2026 (January to March) reports that applications for 100% bonds made up 60.2% of the first-time buyer applications it received and 55.8% of the repeat buyer applications. Each is a share of that segment's own applications. Those are applications, a measure of how many buyers ask for no deposit, not of how many banks approve.

On approvals, ooba's article on zero-deposit loans reports that its approval rate for 100% bond applications was 80.9% for first-time buyers from January to April 2026 and 87.5% for repeat buyers in early 2026, and says a strong credit score of 661 or more is needed to be considered. That is ooba's data about its own customers. It is not a promise that your bank will approve a 100% bond for you.

A bank looks at your income, your credit record and your existing debt, and values the property, before it says yes to any bond, including a 100% bond. Finding out what a bank is likely to lend before you make an offer is what [bond pre-approval](/guides/bond-pre-approval-south-africa) is for.

## What a deposit does to your repayment

A deposit's main effect is arithmetic: it reduces the amount you borrow, so it reduces what you repay every month. Take a R1 500 000 purchase, financed over 20 years at [prime](/guides/prime-rate-south-africa), which is the repo rate of 7.25% plus 3.5 points, 10.75% from 25 September 2026. Banks price each person individually, so this is a round-number starting point, and the figures leave out the bank's own monthly fees and insurance.

- Putting down 10% instead of nothing saves about R1 522 a month on this example, and about R215 000 in interest over the 20 years, because you borrow less for the whole term.
- A deposit may also help with the rate, but no lender has to price it that way. Lenders set their own pricing, and a smaller loan against the same property is less risk for the lender, so ask each lender what a bigger deposit would change. Rates do differ between buyers: ooba reports that interest rate concessions averaged prime less 0.67% in the first quarter of 2026. That is ooba's average for its customers, not what a deposit earns, and the oobarometer does not tie it to deposit size.
- What income you need to carry that instalment is a separate question. It is covered in [how much you must earn](/guides/first-time-home-buyer-guide-south-africa).

**Deposit vs monthly instalment on a R1 500 000 purchase, 20-year bond at prime (10.75%)**

| Deposit | Deposit amount | Bond amount | Monthly instalment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 0% (100% bond) | R0 | R1 500 000 | R15 228 |
| 10% | R150 000 | R1 350 000 | R13 706 |
| 20% | R300 000 | R1 200 000 | R12 183 |

## The cash you need besides the deposit

A deposit is optional in the sense that a bank may lend the full price. The cost of getting the property registered in your name is not optional. The transfer is paid for in separate bills: [transfer duty](/guides/transfer-duty-and-transfer-costs) to SARS, the transferring attorney's fee, the bond attorney's fee if you are borrowing, and the Deeds Office fees for registering the transfer and the bond. The table prices them on the R1 500 000 example with 10% down.

- Transfer duty is a tax the buyer pays SARS, charged in bands that can change each tax year, and there is none at all up to R1 210 000. The 2026/27 table is in the [transfer duty guide](/guides/transfer-duty-and-transfer-costs).
- The attorney fees follow the Law Society's guideline of 1 July 2026, which is non-binding, so an attorney may charge more or less. VAT of 15% is added. The Deeds Office fees are set by regulation and have applied since 27 March 2026.
- Not in the table: your bank's bond initiation fee, which your bank sets and which falls due at registration, and disbursements, which attorneys charge on top. The totals above are therefore not the whole bill. Ask your bank for its initiation fee and ask each attorney for a written quote.
- With no deposit the five costs come to about R87 340, a little more than with 10% down, because the bond fees rise with the loan. Run your own price through the [bond and transfer calculator](/calculators) to see the same costs at your figures.

**Cash needed on a R1 500 000 purchase with 10% down: 2026/27 transfer duty, guideline attorney fees and Deeds Office fees**

| Cost | Paid to | Amount |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Transfer duty | SARS | R8 700 |
| Transferring attorney's fee (Law Society guideline R32 635 plus VAT) | The attorney who transfers the property | R37 530 |
| Bond attorney's fee on the R1 350 000 bond (Law Society guideline R30 515 plus VAT) | The attorney who registers your bond | R35 092 |
| Deeds Office fee to register the transfer, with the lodgement fee | Deeds Office | R1 790 |
| Deeds Office fee to register the bond, with the lodgement fee | Deeds Office | R1 790 |
| **Total of these five costs** |  | **R84 902** |
| Deposit (10%) | Held as your offer says, usually in trust | R150 000 |
| **Deposit plus these five costs** |  | **R234 902** |

## Can costs be added to the bond?

Sometimes, if the lender agrees. The cost table above assumes that none of the costs is added to your loan. If a lender does add some, the cash you need falls and the bond grows by the same amount, so the repayment rises.

ooba describes loans above 100% of the price as cost-inclusive: they cover transaction-related costs as well as the price, without a list of which. It reports that demand for them among first-time buyers rose from 3% in 2021 to nearly 16% in early 2026, and that they account for 2.3% of repeat buyer applications. It adds that banks generally expect repeat buyers to fund their own costs, so lending of this kind to them is done in exceptional cases. For both zero-deposit and cost-inclusive loans, ooba says a strong credit score of 661 or more is needed to be considered.

Those are ooba's figures for its own applications. Each lender decides whether to offer such a loan, on what terms and for which costs, and we have not checked every bank's current policy. Ask your lender, in writing, which costs it would add before you rely on any of them.

## What South African buyers actually put down

ooba's oobarometer for the first quarter of 2026 puts the average deposit at 12.8% of the purchase price, down from 15.4% a year earlier, and at 8.2% for first-time buyers, down from 9.6%. On the R1 500 000 example, that is about R192 000 and about R123 000.

This is industry data, not law, and it describes the buyers ooba handles, not every buyer. A 10% deposit is a common reference point, and the tables above use it, but it is a convention, not a rule. How much to put down is a trade-off between the cash you have now and the interest you pay over the life of the bond. Check the oobarometer for a later quarter before you rely on these figures.

A bigger deposit may also make your offer look safer. A seller choosing between two similar offers may prefer the one that looks less likely to fall over at the bond approval condition, and a buyer with a deposit saved or a pre-approval in hand may look lower risk. That is a judgement each seller makes.

## Who holds your deposit, and when it is released

Your offer to purchase says who holds the deposit and when it is released, so read that clause before you sign. ooba, a bond originator, writes that the deposit is normally paid to the estate agent or the transferring attorney. In a private sale, with no agent, that points to the trust account of the conveyancing attorney who will transfer the property. That is a term of the contract, not a rule that fixes who must hold it.

A trust account is a separate bank account that a law practice must keep for money it holds for other people. As gazetted in 2014 (Government Gazette 38022 of 22 September 2014), section 86(2) of the Legal Practice Act requires a trust account practice to keep a trust account and to deposit money it holds on behalf of any person into it as soon as possible after receipt. The Legal Practitioners' Fidelity Fund's page on trust accounts states the same requirement.

Do not assume a deposit held in trust earns you interest. As gazetted, section 86(5) sends the interest on money held under section 86(2), or invested by the practice of its own accord under section 86(3), to the Fund. Interest goes to the person the money belongs to only where the practice opens a separate interest-bearing account on that person's instructions (section 86(4)), and even then 5% of it goes to the Fund. Ask the attorney whether your deposit will be invested, and on whose instruction.

The Fund exists to protect the public against loss from the misappropriation of trust money. As gazetted, section 55 makes the Fund liable to reimburse a person who suffers pecuniary loss, up to an amount the Minister sets by notice in the Gazette, from theft of money given in trust to a trust account practice, where the theft is committed by an attorney in that practice or a person it employs or supervises. That is narrower than a guarantee that your money is safe: it covers theft from the practice, and it is capped. A payment sent to a fraudster's account was never given to the practice, so the Fund's cover would not obviously reach it. Check the current scope and limit with the Fund or your attorney before you rely on it.

Where an estate agent is involved, the Property Practitioners Act (Government Gazette 42746 of 3 October 2019) requires a property practitioner to open a separate trust account and immediately deposit all trust money it holds or receives into it (section 54(1)), and to keep that money there until it is lawfully entitled to it or is lawfully instructed in writing to pay it to someone (section 54(3)). So the deposit may be held in the agency's trust account instead of the attorney's. The offer to purchase will say which, so do not assume the attorney always holds it.

In a private sale, when the deposit is released is again set by your offer to purchase. A common arrangement is that it stays in trust until the transfer registers at the Deeds Office and then goes towards the purchase price, but your contract decides. These sections are quoted as gazetted. The Acts may have been amended since, so check the current text or ask your conveyancing attorney.

## Never pay a deposit to a seller directly

If you are dealing directly with a seller rather than through an agent, there is no agency trust account in the picture. The deposit should go to the trust account of the attorney named in the offer to purchase. A seller who asks you to pay a deposit, or any part of the purchase price, into their own personal account is asking you to give up the trust account protection described above. Treat it as a red flag, and speak to a conveyancing attorney before you pay anything.

The same caution applies to any email that claims the attorney's trust account details have changed shortly before a payment is due. Verify it by phone, on a number you looked up independently, before you move any money. The Law Society of South Africa published a notice on 22 December 2015 about a conveyancing trust account scam of this kind: a client who was suspicious of an email phoned the firm to check it was genuine, and the firm now follows each email that gives account details with a phone call. The notice is old, but the check it describes still applies. See [is it safe to sell privately](/guides/is-it-safe-to-sell-your-house-privately) for the fuller picture on staying safe when there is no agent in the middle of the transaction.

## If the sale falls through

What happens to your deposit when a sale fails depends on the wording of your offer to purchase, so read its deposit and breach clauses before you sign. The [subject to bond guide](/guides/suspensive-conditions-subject-to-bond) covers what happens when bond approval is not granted in time.

## Work out your own deposit

In the [bond and transfer calculator](/calculators), the Monthly repayment tab takes your purchase price and a Deposit amount, and shows the deposit as a percentage of the price beside the box. It then shows the monthly repayment, the loan amount, the total interest and the total repayment. Set the interest rate to prime, or to the rate you have been quoted, and try a deposit of nothing, 10% and 20% of your price to see the comparison in the table above at your figures. The Full cost breakdown tab uses the same deposit and adds transfer duty, attorney fees and Deeds Office fees.

If you have a [brief](/brief) with a budget range, it shows a "What your budget buys" card. For homes in that range at prime, it shows a 10% deposit, the transfer duty, the monthly bond repayment and the gross monthly income a bank usually looks for. It is a starting point, and the rate a bank offers you may be different. To find out what banks might lend you, see the [bond originators](/bond-originators) page.

## Frequently asked questions

### How much deposit do I need to buy a house in South Africa?

It depends on the bank, which sets the deposit it asks for. 100% bonds exist, so a lender may finance the full price. ooba, a bond originator, writes that a deposit usually comes to 10% to 20% of the price, and its first quarter 2026 data puts the average at 12.8% of the purchase price, and 8.2% for first-time buyers. On R1 500 000, 10% is R150 000.

### Can I buy a house with no deposit in South Africa?

Sometimes. A 100% bond finances the full purchase price, at the lender's discretion. ooba reports that applications for 100% bonds made up 60.2% of its first-time buyer applications and 55.8% of its repeat buyer applications in the first quarter of 2026. Those are applications, not approvals. Its own approval rate for them was 80.9% for first-time buyers (January to April 2026) and 87.5% for repeat buyers (early 2026), and it says a credit score of 661 or more is needed. That is ooba's data about its customers, not a promise from your bank. You still need cash for the transfer costs: about R87 340 on the R1 500 000 example with a 100% bond, before the bank's initiation fee and disbursements.

### What is a 100% home loan?

A 100% home loan, or 100% bond, is a bond for the full purchase price, so you put down no deposit. The bank decides whether to offer one and on what terms, after it has assessed what you can afford. ooba says a strong credit score of 661 or more is needed to be considered. Some lenders also offer loans above 100% that add some costs to the loan. Otherwise transfer duty, attorney fees and Deeds Office fees are paid in cash, and whether a lender adds any of them varies.

### Who do you pay the deposit to when buying a house?

Your offer to purchase says. ooba, a bond originator, writes that the deposit is normally paid to the estate agent or the transferring attorney. In a private sale that points to the transferring attorney's trust account. Do not pay it into the seller's personal account. Where an estate agent is involved, the Property Practitioners Act requires property practitioners to keep trust money in a trust account, so the agency may hold it instead. Check before you pay.

### Is a 10% deposit enough?

There is no figure that is enough in every case, because the bank decides. ooba calls 10% the standard deposit, and it is a common reference point. On R1 500 000, a 10% deposit is R150 000 and lowers the 20-year repayment at prime from about R15 228 to about R13 706 a month. ooba's first quarter 2026 data has first-time buyers averaging 8.2%.

### Do I need cash for anything besides the deposit?

Yes. Transfer duty, the transferring attorney's fee, the bond attorney's fee if you borrow, and the Deeds Office fees are separate costs. On R1 500 000 with a R1 350 000 bond they come to about R84 902 on 2026/27 duty rates and the Law Society's guideline fees. That total leaves out the bank's bond initiation fee and disbursements, so it is not the whole bill. Whether a lender adds any of the costs to the loan varies, so ask before you rely on it.

### Is the deposit part of the purchase price?

Usually, yes. A deposit is an upfront part of the agreed purchase price, not a separate fee on top, and it is normally applied to the price when the transfer registers. Your offer to purchase sets the terms, so read it.

### What happens to my deposit if the sale falls through?

It depends on your offer to purchase. If a condition such as bond approval is not met by its deadline, the wording of the offer decides whether the agreement lapses and whether the deposit is refunded. If the sale fails because a party breached the agreement, its breach clause decides. Read the deposit and breach clauses before you sign, and ask your conveyancing attorney if anything is unclear.

## Sources

- [SARS: Transfer Duty (rates and the Transfer Duty Guide), accessed 19 October 2026](https://www.sars.gov.za/tax-rates/transfer-duty/)
- [LSSA: Guideline of Fees, Conveyancing, effective 1 July 2026 (a non-binding guideline for attorney fees), accessed 19 October 2026](https://www.lssa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/CONVEYANCING-FEE-GUIDELINES-2026-FINAL.pdf)
- [Deeds Registries Act schedule of fees, Government Notice 7180, Government Gazette 54225 (Deeds Office fees from 27 March 2026), accessed 19 October 2026](https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202603/54225gon7180.pdf)
- [Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014, sections 55 and 86 (trust accounts, interest and the Fidelity Fund; the gazetted text, Government Gazette 38022 of 22 September 2014), accessed 20 October 2026](https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/3802222-9act28of2014legalpracticeacta.pdf)
- [Property Practitioners Act 22 of 2019, section 54 (a property practitioner's trust account; the gazetted text, Government Gazette 42746 of 3 October 2019), accessed 20 October 2026](https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201910/42746gon1295.pdf)
- [Legal Practitioners' Fidelity Fund: Trust accounts, accessed 20 October 2026](https://www.fidfund.co.za/trust-accounts/)
- [LSSA: Conveyancing trust account year-end scam (notice of 22 December 2015; a dated example of confirming account details by phone), accessed 20 October 2026](https://www.lssa.org.za/news/conveyancing-trust-account-year-end-scam/)
- [SAnews: MPC raises repo rate to 7.25% (the repo rate and the date it applies from; prime is the repo rate plus 3.5 points), accessed 20 October 2026](https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/mpc-raises-repo-rate-725)
- [ooba: oobarometer, first quarter 2026 (deposit averages, 100% bond shares of applications and rate concessions; industry data from ooba's own applications, not law), accessed 20 October 2026](https://www.ooba.co.za/resources/oobarometer/)
- [ooba: Zero-deposit and cost-inclusive home loan demand (approval rates, credit score and loans above 100%, for January to April 2026 or early 2026; industry data, not law), accessed 20 October 2026](https://www.ooba.co.za/resources/zero-deposit-and-cost-inclusive-home-loan-demand/)
- [ooba: How much deposit to buy a house (the usual 10% to 20% range, the standard 10% and who normally receives the deposit; a bond originator's article, not law), accessed 20 October 2026](https://www.ooba.co.za/resources/how-much-deposit-to-buy-house/)

## Related guides

- [Transfer duty and transfer costs in South Africa](https://privately.co.za/guides/transfer-duty-and-transfer-costs)
- [Bond pre-qualification and pre-approval in South Africa](https://privately.co.za/guides/bond-pre-approval-south-africa)
- [First-time home buyer guide for South Africa](https://privately.co.za/guides/first-time-home-buyer-guide-south-africa)
- [Suspensive conditions and 'subject to bond approval'](https://privately.co.za/guides/suspensive-conditions-subject-to-bond)
- [Is it safe to sell your house privately in South Africa?](https://privately.co.za/guides/is-it-safe-to-sell-your-house-privately)
- [The prime rate in South Africa: the current figure, its history and your bond](https://privately.co.za/guides/prime-rate-south-africa)
- [How to buy a house privately in South Africa](https://privately.co.za/guides/how-to-buy-a-house-privately-in-south-africa)

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Figures verified 2026-09-28. General information about South African property practice, not legal or financial advice.

Source: Privately, https://privately.co.za/guides/house-deposit-south-africa