NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 16 – The handing over of the 160 houses from the Park Road low-cost housing project last month will enhance Kenyans’ confidence in the affordable housing programme.
This is according to analysts from Cytonn Real Estate who say the move will also encourage more potential homeowners to join the government’s boma yangu platform.
The national government floated to the public the first lot of 488 completed units at the Park Road project, which has so far been inspected and handed over to the government with the sale having taken a one-week period.
The new tenants are expected to move into the houses in February, becoming the first owners of the ongoing Sh5 billion Pangani Estate renewal project.
According to the firm, for one to move into the house, they’ll need to have paid 12.5 percent of the house value as a deposit, and outline how they intend to pay the balance in cash or mortgage.
The project consists of eight blocks of 30 SQM 1-bed, 40 SQM 2-bed and 60 SQM 3-bed social housing units selling at Sh1 million, Sh2 million, and Sh3 million, respectively, which translates to Sh52,083 per SQM.
On completion, the project will have a total of 1,562 affordable and market housing units.
However, given the negligible number of units delivered compared to existing demand, the analysts expect the housing deficit to expand even further driven by the relatively high population growth of 2.2 percent per annum, compared to the global average of 1.9 percent according to World Bank.
The analysts recommend a raft of measures, among them investing in urban planning to enhance sustainability and in infrastructure around the satellite towns to open them up.
“Therefore, to accelerate the supply of housing units, the government must embark on resolving the above challenges in addition to investing in urban planning to enhance sustainability and also invest in infrastructure around the satellite towns to open them up.”