Durban has the most benign tropical climate in Africa. At the height of summer — during the English winter — it does get a bit humid and sticky, but that is when you head to the Drakensberg Mountains for some trout fishing or visit the big-game farms just two hours’ drive away or simply lie on one of Durban’s golden beaches.

And in August, the depths of Durban winter, you can still sit outside in shirt sleeves at midnight after a day of cloudless blue skies, a swim in the Indian Ocean and dinner on the terrace.

The British have been fond of Durban since the 1830s — it was named after a British governor called Benjamin D’Urban and has always been more English than Afrikaans — but in the past few years many expatriates have been seduced by the charm of Cape Town. Cape Town is a great place to spend Christmas, but the sea is always cold.

In contrast, Durban — South Africa’s third largest city — offers a sublime climate, the Indian Ocean with its sandy beaches and warm water, and countless good golf courses where the most you will pay for a round is £20. Even the national dish is the same as Britain’s. And Durban is a true city of the “rainbow nation”, as the centre of Asian culture in South Africa: many Durbanites enjoy an Indian curry after an evening in the pub.

House prices in Durban have tended to be lower than either Cape Town’s or Johannesburg’s but they are catching up fast: up by almost 40% in the past two years, spurred by a number of developments on the waterfront and the resolution of local political problems.

Kim Macllwaine, who runs Unilever’s business in southern Africa and has been based in Durban for eight years, says it is a fantastic place to live.

“There is an easy lifestyle in Durban, a very good climate, healthy outdoor living and the Indian Ocean to play in,” he says. “The only downside is that there are no direct international flights from London to Durban.”

There are plans to change this, with a new airport in north Durban scheduled for completion before the 2010 football World Cup. This has spurred Macllwaine to buy a house with four bedrooms near the beach, for which he is paying £180,000.

His golfing partner, Vinnie O’Dowd, came to Durban in 1997 when he married a South African woman, Frances. After selling his four-bedroom house in Cheshire, he bought a property in north Durban in 2000, paying £40,500 for a four-bedroom house with a swimming pool. He has just sold it for £130,000.

“It was on the market for two days,” he says. “It was a hell of a good investment.”

He is just finalising the purchase of another house for £150,000, also with four bedrooms and a swimming pool, but on the edge of a nature reserve.

“I think this will also be a great investment. Some of the locals are saying that the main boom is over, but there is still a lot of demand from overseas.”

Buying in Africa is always going to be more risky than buying in America or Europe. In addition, the rand, which looked to be getting inexorably weaker and weaker in 2001, hit R20 to the pound and then lingered in the high teens, has strengthened to closer to R11. Anybody who bought a couple of years ago has doubled their money not only due to rising prices, but also due to the rise in the currency. But the rand is one of the most traded currencies in the world and most observers think its real value is closer to R15 to £1 — so it could be a good bet for sterling buyers to wait until it weakens further.

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