Sophiatown, unlike other townships in South Africa, was a freehold township, which meant that it was one of the rare places in South African urban areas where blacks were allowed to own land. This was land that never belonged to the Johannesburg municipality, and so it never developed the form of municipal "matchbox" houses, built row upon row, with the same uniformity and lack of character. The houses were built according to people's ability to pay, tastes, and cultural background. Some houses were built of brick and had four or more rooms; some were much smaller. Others were built like homes in the rural areas; others still were single room shacks put together with corrugated iron and scrap sheet metal. The majority of the families living in Sophiatown were tenants and sub-tenants. Eight or nine people lived in a single room and the houses hid backyards full of shanties built of cardboard and flattened kerosene cans, since many Black property owners in Sophiatown were poor. In order to pay back the mortgages on their properties, they had to take in paying tenants.