Shelter Afrique chief executive Andrew Chimphondah. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Pan African housing lender Shelter Afrique has challenged
realtors to concentrate on mass housing
projects across Kenya to address the deficit in urban areas.
projects across Kenya to address the deficit in urban areas.
Shelter Afrique chief
executive Andrew Chimphondah said local developers should shun their
appetite for high-end clients in favour of low cost housing that will
improve quality of living spaces for most Kenyan families.
“Most
developers tend to add higher margins to the units they develop, which
in the long-run make such units rather expensive and out of reach for
low income earners. This partly explains why there is a glut in the
high-end property market despite the reported housing shortage in
Kenya,” said CEO Chimphondah.
Shelter Afrique said
while land contributed about 40 percent to the total construction costs,
developers stand to benefit by taking part in the government-fronted
Affordable Housing Programme (AHP).
Some 7,000 acres
have been identified and assigned to AHP projects across the 47 counties
where private developers have been invited to inject capital, develop
the properties and be paid besides allocation of 30 percent share of the
land for their own use.
No comments :
Post a Comment