Millennials opt for apartment living in thriving CBDs

Previous generations might have grown up longing for a family home in the suburbs complete with white picket fence, rolling lawn, and swimming pool, but today’s 30-something’s have very different aspirations. When it comes to choosing where and how to live, millennials are motivated less by the need for privacy and permanency, and more by the need for freedom and flexibility. They want to be able to follow their hearts and pursue their dreams; to travel, and explore the world; to upsize, or downsize, depending on their circumstances; to semigrate, or even emigrate, to further their careers.

To accommodate the fast-paced mobility of their lives, these spirited individuals prefer low-maintenance, no-strings-attached, lock-up-and-go accommodation close to the city centre. For them, apartment living, particularly in vibrant mixed-use precincts, ticks all the boxes.

Affordability
Apartments are simply more affordable than larger freestanding homes. Purchase price, conveyancing fees, insurance, and utility bills will all be significantly lower, and you won’t need to fork out further on garden and pool maintenance, security fencing, and armed response.

Added security
While this largely depends on the complex you invest or rent in, apartments generally come with a few extra layers of security – from electronic access control and CCTV surveillance to manned security and on-site parking. Living in fairly close proximity to your neighbours can also add to your peace of mind, particularly if you live alone.

Convenience
Apartments in mixed-use developments provide easy access to restaurants, retail stores, hotels and office space, which makes socialising, shopping, and working close to home a breeze. Think of the hours – and Rands – you’ll save each year thanks to your short commute – hours that you could spend seeing friends, playing sport or investing in your hobbies.

On-site amenities
Even more convenient is that many apartments offer on-site amenities like communal pools, gyms, spas and relaxation areas, landscaped gardens, running and cycling tracks, and shared green spaces so that residents can enjoy the outdoors.

Green living
For millennials, bigger isn’t necessarily better. They’d sooner live in a compact apartment in the City, than a large carbon-emitting house in the suburbs. Apartments are cost and energy efficient by nature, requiring less energy to build, clean, heat, and light. Newer apartment buildings often use sustainable building methods and materials, and offer energy-efficient lighting and appliances, centralised air cooling, water harvesting, recycling, solar power, back-up generator power, and more.

Community spirit
When you live in an apartment, you tend to get to know your neighbours, whether through body corporate meetings or by bumping into each other in the lift or at the communal pool – and this helps to foster a sense of community spirit and creates plenty of opportunities for new friendships to develop.

If you’re looking for a cosmopolitan, connected, convenient lock-up-and-go lifestyle in a vibrant 24hour urban precinct, Harbour Arch may be the ideal fit. The completed development will dominate Cape Town’s Foreshore, with six towers located alongside landscaped public spaces bustling with shops, showrooms, restaurants, cafes, cocktail bars, international hotels, gyms, offices, a glittering Galleria and urban park at street level, and the largest selection of residential apartments in the CBD.

Rentals priced from R12 500. We also have apartments for sale from R2.1million.mily and friends.