You are right in the SA-Kenya comparison. Perhaps because SA is a mature economy (now on decline) with structural problems vs Kenya? Mature economies with structural problems always seem to have these type of real estate issues. The SA rainbow nation experiment has clearly flopped, as shown by the emergence of groups like EFF which want economic freedom in their lifetime through forced nationalisation of the mines and banks and Zimbabwe style land grabs by bleks from the
mlungus (their term for mzungus). This makes investing here a very iffy affair hence the mass exodus of the mlungus from there to Australia, UK, Italy and so on to escape the coming racial armageddon there.
They leave behind mansions nobody can afford and the market for those mansions drops like a stone.
Same thing in USA. Another mature economy with structural problems (a fed gone amok, crumbling infastructure that will never be fixed given the national debt, stone age rail system, vicious gang infested ghettos, drugs problem across the board from rich to poor, racial problems, white flight from anywhere bleks and other minorites live, native americans yet to survive from genocide at the country's independence and so on. Same problem with real estate hapo. The huge mansions left behind by the fleeing wealthy in all major cities drop in price like a stone. This is why you can get a 5 room dilapidated mansion in Detroit's gutted streets for a whopping 1 dollar, yes that is
dollar moja tu.
In Kenya we experienced it to a degree at independence. The fleeing beberus who could not stomach the prospect of blek rule caused a collapse in the land and housing price market. The bleks who did not share in their pessimism took advantage to buy up huge tracts and today they are all billionaires. This is the fundamental difference with Kenya and hence the
prices that never come down...
those who live in the country, own the majority of the land and property and control the levers of power have huge confidence in ther country and never want to leave any time soon. Not only that, almost all of their wealth is held without debt attached to it. This stability is priceless! Only a minority countries share in the same. Australia is an example, New Zealand another. Hong Kong (before the riots) was another, Singapore ni kengine, and many more. In all these countries the real estate boom can go to the skies and never come down because the core owners
aint goin nowhere no time soon.
For me I celebrate these high prices in Kiinya, and
Nairobi Metro (DC inclusive of course) in particular which is like heaven for majority of the middle classes in East and Central and parts of West Africa. You should hear the Naijos from Lagos
ooh and aah about how beautiful and posh Nairobi is. Kiir, Garang's family (Mabior garang, now in the cabinet, is more at home in Kenya than in crumbling Juba), half of the South Sudan cabinet, Museveni, Kagame, Kikwete, the entire somali cabinet, the Zambian upper class and the majority of the elite and upper middle class in the region all have mansions and have invested heavily in Nairobi
. That should tell us something. Kenya forever!
In the final analysis, it all boils down to sheer plain old hard work and dogged persistence. Nothing more, nothing less!!