Fraction ownership

 Holiday homes need not sit idle only to be used a couple of days annually. Homeowners can lease them out the rest of the year, writes JECKONIA OTIENO

Most Kenyans working in urban areas tend to build houses in their rural areas where they spend only just a couple of days during holidays every year.

Unfortunately, when these houses remain unused for prolonged periods they get dilapidated and

The some of the units that Boabob Development Group is putting up in Malindi. [PHOTOS: Maarufu Mohamed/Standard]

may require a dash of paint every time a holiday is around the corner.

However, this could soon change with fractional ownership. With this new trend, homes are built, managed and used as business investments or holiday homes when the owners do not need them. This arrangement is catching up fast at the Coast.

In Malindi, along the Kenyan Coast, investors are putting the concept of fractional ownership into practice and it is slowly picking up prominence especially among the middle class homeowners.

Mwembe Resort in Malindi is one such development where the practice has been tested and found to work.

Nassib Mumbo, the resident manager at the resort, explains that with this arrangement, a developer comes up and builds housing units at a particular place. People then purchase the units with an option of selling them off if they do not need them.

Mumbo says that this ensures that the unit owners are able to dispose off the units in the event they do not need them.

He points out, "In this arrangement, units are bought within a wider estate and the home owner creates a programme of when he or she requires to use the unit and then the rest of the time the owner can have it leased out."

The agreement is such that the management company takes the unit for the number of months that the owner is not using it and puts it into business as the owner gets an agreed amount.

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