Habida and Joash made a call to me a fortnight ago; the call came from Habida as she was the one I had happened to interact with him in a previous engagement. Joash is the husband to Habida and he happens to work out of the country most of the time. My meeting with Habida was a sheer coincidence where I was involved in the development of luxury apartments for her friend Keziah in the up market area of...
Advice
With skyrocketing prices of building materials, especially sand, cement, iron sheets, bricks and stones, developers are trying to look for the alternative materials to reduce the cost of construction. One such approach is the use of interlocking bricks. Interlocking blocks are slowly gaining acceptance, with sector players saying they bring the cost down by up to 30 per cent, compared to conventional...
Urban population in Kenya is rapidly growing posing a major challenge in housing that has seen majority of urban inhabitants reside in informal settlement commonly known as slums. With a deficit of 250,000 thousand housing units per annum, a new building technology in Kenya known as Expanded Polystyrene Panel EPS technology is expected to turn around construction industry. The technology that uses...
First published in November 2013 There was an investor forum in Nyeri county a while back and some of the dignitaries in the meeting asked the Nyeri county Governor to emulate Dr Alfred Mutua, the Governor of Machakos county. Every one seems to be singing praises of Dr Mutua, myself included, but maybe a critical look into his ambitious plans for Machakos might open our eyes to the harsh reality that he...
So I get this email from a lady from a local bank asking to collaborate with us on projects. She rightly points out that because most projects are killed by lack of financing, we should work together seeing that I am deeply involved in this sector. She goes on to give me snap shot of their success projects done in town, which are quite impressive and are the talk of town. Wait a minute, are banks now...
Qualifying for a mortgage is a process that begins with self. Self evaluation helps to determine ones level of commitment and prepare one psychologically especially on what to expect. This culminates with an interview with a mortgage lender to determine the various options available and it is the first step in risk assessment performed by the lender to determine key fundamentals of lending including...
First published on April 15, 2014 Last Saturday I was speaking to several leaders of various cooperative societies and saccos in Nairobi and its environs. The default thing that these saccos (and am sure this is what your sacco or coop society is doing, raise your right hand if am wrong…) do is buying large parcels of land, they subdivide it and sell it to its members and make a “small profit”. This...
Subdivision is the act of dividing land into pieces that are easier to sell or otherwise develop. This requires control for the following reasons. To ensure that each subplot has adequate access roads, open spaces and social infrastructure. To ensure that the proposed population density can be served by the available services. To ensure planned and coordinated development so as to avoid...
There are several ways and places one can explore while planning to get funding for a real estate project; – Personal saving – Financial institutions – Pre-sales/Off-plan sales – Joint Venture – Contractor financed – Offshore funding Personal saving/Owner funding This...
First published on June 15, 2014 The first time I said this statement in the presence of my wife, she looked at me stunned and she refuted my claim. I went on to explain my point. You see, if you work for a bank, you have many privileges that the rest of us don’t. Take an example of buying a 2 bedroom apartment off Mombasa road or in Ruaka, a few kilometers from Village Market and near Runda Estate...