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If you are dreaming of living in plush Runda estate in Nairobi, then prepare your pocket to part with around Sh250,000 for a standard house to Sh850, 000 for a double-storey ambassadorial pad.
This is what The Nairobian found out while surfing houses through Jumia House, the online site.
If you still think the elections affected the economy and therefore hakuna pesa, just know that it’s you who has no dough.
Jumia House tells us that the Sh850, 000 rental house boasts of a compound with a walking track and a party area, besides a garage that can fit four top-of-the-range fuel guzzlers.
For the above amount that can buy you a three-quarter acre plot along Kangundo Road, your family will have access to six bedrooms with cubicle bathrooms, and a master bedroom with a Jacuzzi and a walk-in closet.
The house also has an intercom system, an alarm system and a high perimeter wall with an electric fence.
But the ambassadorial digs is not even the most expensive quarter in this leafy part of Nairobi where ‘Tear Gas Mondays’ are a remote pastime reserved for bottom drawers.
Consider the five-bedroom crib that will set you back Sh1 million in monthly rent. Or Sh12 million annually, minus advance ‘deposit’ and service charge.
The 10,000-square foot home has a swimming pool, a gym, sauna and ample garage space. Its 12 rooms comprise two kitchens, two dining rooms, a study room and a media room…what some middle class social climbers call ‘entertainment room,’ yet it only has a home theatre.
The family room upstairs has a balcony overlooking the garden. Each of the five bedrooms has its own bathroom.
The house has double-glazed and soundproof windows with a lounge and in-built fireplace. There is a large gazebo outside, too, in case the rooms get too cramped.
There are internal and external water fountains.
If you have been enticed enough to thinking of making enquiries, pole sana. All the above houses, including the Sh1 million home have been snapped up.
On average, a house which resembles an embassy and bragging of the above amenities only stays in the market for a month or so.
Dan Karua, the MD of Jumia House says their listings attract millions of Kenyans and that “we have seen the number of online home buyers increase exponentially in the past four years.”
He told The Nairobian that, “We now have over five million hits in a year from house hunters.
Online portals like Jumia House have also seen an increase in usage with over 200,000 downloads of housing apps across different brands in Kenya.”
The ultra-high rental figures, Karua says, are due to the quality of the houses, their location, besides cost of construction considering “urban land costs are very high given that developers often have to install the infrastructure for water, sanitation, and roads.
The high cost of providing infrastructure makes serviced land count for as much as 60 per cent of total development costs in Nairobi.”
Daniel Ojijo, a real estate insider and the founder and CEO of Homes Universal, reckons that these houses are meant for the elite as “the people who pay these kinds of rent tend to be expatriates, staff of embassies and international organisations.”
The houses, adds Ojijo, are normally located in Nairobi’s ‘Blue Zone’ areas of Gigiri, Runda, Kitisuru and Karen, where “the houses have high class security” and bodies like the UN sees them “as strategic in terms of the prevalence of crimes and accessibility in case of the need for evacuation.”
The most important thing, however, is the quality of the house, says Ojijo, stressing that, “They must offer good quality. It doesn’t need to offer 20 bedrooms; even if there are only five bedrooms, they must be of the best quality.
The house has to be modern and well-designed, with features like a gym and swimming pool. With all this, a house can easily cost Sh800,000 per month.”
The property owners, says Ojijo, have to recover their investment as they “must spend quite some money for the design, location and finish to price their house in this manner.
At the end of the day, though, it is all about quality and location. You could build a house in Kahawa West with ten rooms and you would not get that kind of money for it.”
The latest project by Jumia House is Larkspur Villas in which buyers will fork out Sh130 million to own a unit.
