kenya housing project[photo/matchdeck.com]
Research has shown that the recurrent gap between supply and demand of housing units is in excess of 200,000 units a year.
A careful investment that addresses this shortfall will yield long-term returns.Currently, there are investments in shopping malls and housing units in high-end suburbs that have not been fully sold or let out.
Such investors have, therefore, barely broken even, yet with proper advice, these same investors would have made good returns by addressing the existing deficiencies in the housing market.
Without the right advice, some investors have made bad investments, which now have negative equity or lost all their investments outright. Given the right guidance, a few investors have become overnight millionaires.
There are investments which have doubled or tripled in value within a short time.
This is a good time to invest in property because developing countries like ours are registering exponential growth in real estate.
Prime residential areas in Nairobi border Kiambu and Kajiado counties, especially Karen and Runda, which are high-end suburbs. Still, many people are currently targeting areas out of Nairobi.These are more affordable and less congested, with easy access to infrastructure and amenities. There’s already a surge in real and perceived value of properties in all the metropolitan areas of Nairobi.
A careful investment is likely to yield high and handsome returns.Counties should have a well-thought-out Master Plan, then provide a carefully thought rollout of the entire prerequisite infrastructure to enable the sector to grow.
They should also ease their licensing processes for construction and allied industries to augment rapid growth.The adverse effect of high taxes is to stagnate the sector.
These taxes must be reassessed downwards to increase home ownership and property development, and by extension tax collection by the sheer volumes of a number of investors in the sector. The growth of this sector will also spur growth in allied sectors.