Where land costs Sh0.5 billion per acre in Nairobi

NAIROBI, KENYA: Buying an acre of land in Upperhill Nairobi would set you back about half a billion shillings. This is according to a HassConsult report on land price trends for the first quarter of 2017, released on Monday.

Ironically, im what could be a sign of changing times, land in Nairobi is cheapest in Karen at Sh57 million per acre, almost as much as Langata (Sh57.3 million) and behind areas like Donholm (Sh63.9 million).

The report showed that Nairobi suburbs and satellite towns that were big winners of the ongoing infrastructure projects as investors and speculators warm up to expectations of increased connectivity and accessibility.

Even as asking land prices within satellite towns rose by an average of 3.4 per cent in the quarter, the four satellite towns posting the highest land price gains were in the vicinity of infrastructure projects that are either on-going or set for commissioning.

"Tigoni, which had witnessed a period of stalled land pricing over two years saw the highest increases in land prices over the first quarter of 2017 – we expect in relation to the recent upgrade of the Ruaka-Banana-Limuru Road that was for so long an access bottleneck to the suburb. Ruiru and Juja posted similar increases. Nearby infrastructure upgrades make the area ripe for land speculation,"' said Sakina Hassanali, Head of Development Consulting and Research at HassConsult.


However, suburbs that witnessed high land price inflation on the back of infrastructure projects did not witness a correlating increase in property prices. Donholm and Langata were both suburbs that witnessed house price falls even as their land prices soared.