Kenyan investors earned higher income from property ownership compared to their global counterparts, a new report by HassConsult shows.
The special report shows that property prices in six months of the year to June 2025, increased by 7.8pc compared to other markets such as South Africa 3.5pc, US 2.4pc, UK 2.8pc, Singapore 4.2pc and Australia 4.7pc.
The firm attributes the growth to rising population and ballooning number of high income earners in key sectors which continue to provide demand for housing needs in Kenya
“There are a couple of drivers of the Kenyan market performance and stability. One of them is that we have a huge young population coming into adulthood. 60pc of our adult population is under the age of 24 whereas other economies have a declining population and so our economy is in a stage of growth,” said Sakina Hassanali, HassConsult co-chief executive officer.
Official data shows the number of high income earners with monthly earnings above Ksh 100,000 have continued to rise within the last nine years.
According to Hassanali, this supported access to property purchases using offplan developments, with discounts and instalment payments.
“We have had a huge spike in high income earners since 2016 and these people are coming mainly from agriculture, health, education and the trade sectors which have really influenced how much demand we are seeing for housing,” she stated.
Nonetheless, high mortgage rates in Kenya continue to curtail uptake. Hassanali said cash purchases remain the dominant form of property acquisition a factor which continues to create resilience in Kenya’s land and housing market.
“Pproperty market is backed by cash purchasing and so only 2pc of our property purchases are backed by mortgage financing whereas globally its anything between 60-90pc in larger economies. What that means is we have a lot more resilience to down cycles because people are not often going to discount the properties and sell them because they are wholly owned,” she added.
The report shows that detached houses attracted the highest price increase with 10.9pc, semi-detached houses 2.8pc and apartments 0.7pc.
Despite property price gains, rental yields in Kenya remained suppressed in the first half of the year when compared to other markets, though above global average at 5.5pc.
