With prices like these people are still touting real estate as the best investment?! 1.25 million dollars should buy you a mansion in the Hamptons, not an apartment block in Lavington! Surely there must be some better underpriced assets in this Kenya

@Tonystark funny that you mention Nyari. I live on a 5 acre plot in there and this place was built earlier this decade with WAAAY less than what you've quoted. Iko kitu with these recent land and housing prices. I'd advise jasonhill to hold out for 2012 to do real estate investment

@VituVingiSana, thanks for the advice. Can you tell me what goods stand out in your mind that are more expensive or are of an unusable quality? Maybe we'll get together one day and find a way to import better goods at cheaper prices. 99.999% of goods sold in the USA are made in China. There must be a fair amount of "rebadging" going on for Kenyans to think that US products are of a higher quality. I don't see why we can't cut out the middle man and import direct from China. The only thing that the USA and UK companies do is make Chinese companies refund their (and thus the customer's) money for shoddy items and offer warranties to customers. The warranty simply means that they will send a bad item back to China and China sends out a new, working item. Labor is too expensive in the US and UK to repair most things- cheaper to replace. That said, I don't understand what seems to me to be a Kenyan affinity for US and UK goods, and an aversion to Chinese goods. All the US and UK do is quality-assess and inspect the goods, and demand the better quality yields, and better specifications of the same products from the same factories in China. If we enforce such wholesale quality and spec demands of China from Kenya, we will be able to offer good products for cheaper and make a fortune. What I don't know about, not having done business in Kenya, is import duties and getting stuff through the port of Mombasa... paperwork gets stalled... that's my biggest concern. I can't have that. I'll pay kitu kidogo, if I have to. In the US, kitu kidogo is called "consulting fees" and "union scale" or some other catchy term. There is no difference, except once it is paid things move very, very quickly. I just can't ever have business waiting- ever. That would put us at a tactical disadvantage. On the other hand, I don't want to have to commute to Mombasa every other day to make sure my stuff gets offloaded and into trucks. Other than that, there's billions of Shillings in retail if we cut out the middleman, in my view, and I look to my fellow Wazuans to "show me the ropes".

@X13united, thanks for the comment. I love the fact that it seems that Kenya is at the point where a great deal of money can be made in international business by being flexible and adapting to changing market conditions and needs. I'm open to any legit business that I can understand that isn't a pyramid scheme, and that I have a direct, on-the-ground hand in directing and contributing to. That's my issue with stocks- if I'm not on the board of directors, I have a problem, because I lack the influence to move the stock- unless I buy a controlling interest in it in which case I'd install myself as COO.

@jmbada, I agree totally. In the US, having house helps is out of the question unless you make around 80,000,000Ksh+ a year. Labor is very, very expensive and regulated. That's the greatest luxury to me: multiple personal assistants. In the US I have a work-only secretary. I need a personal one (or two). Every other luxury item, besides very fast internet and maybe a decent Italian suit or two, I can do without. I'm as comfortable in a Changaa joint with a giant straw as in the Sarova for lunch drinking Mtembezi Blue.

Power and water are indeed a concern of mine; I have baked in plans for extra generators, flywheel UPSs and water tanks into all commercial and residential projects that I have in mind. I was considering building a datacenter, but I think I will wait until the telecom wars are over and internet access prices even out, all the fiber is laid, and AccessKenya has spent all its cash on fiber, and maybe buy them out and restructure their debt ;)

As far as the downsides like traffic, bribes, power outages, bad cars, street boys, etc... sounds like Los Angeles, which is where I'm from. And in true Los Angelino fashion, I'll probably open a record label and recording studio just for fun when I touchdown in Nai. Maybe KenyanLyrics can help with with running that and recruiting talent.

@AliBaba thanks for the tax tip. I hear that you don't mess around with the KRA... you pay them, and on time, so I'll keep that in mind when calculating my returns.

@KenyanLyrics, Fair question. I am a Negro/Colored/Black/African American...Acata Technology Executive. Now if you had asked me my tribe, I would have been offended ;)