How Young Kenyans Are Buying Apartments in UK
Buyers are allowed to invest 25 percent of the amount with a mortgage company or bank paying the rest. An incentive that...
Wale Peter
More Kenyans and business persons in the world continue to show interest in Real Estate as they seek alternative and well-established niches, especially after the Covid-19 hit the world economy.
Kenyan business persons have taken to purchasing mortgage houses in the United Kingdom as an investment program. The lead purchases of such houses have mainly been from the ultra-elite tycoons however, a shift in the purchase market has seen middle-class and upper-middle-class Kenyans cough up to 210,000 Pounds, an equivalent of Ksh 30.7 million for an apartment in Birmingham, Manchester, London, Liverpool, and Leeds.
Mr. Mark Pearson, a Britain-based property investment dealer also the founder of Baron&Cabot firm, confirms that apartments are delivering much higher returns at the moment.
“We are targeting areas that have a big difference between property price and affordability; places where the prices can grow,” he adds.
The low returns on house investments in Kenya have also made buyers look elsewhere. Mr. Pearson retorts that the returns are also pegged on the high incomes of residents in the towns which is also seen as a differentiating factor with investments in the Kenyan market.
Buyers are allowed to invest 25 percent of the amount with a mortgage company or bank paying the rest. The apartments are located in major cities in the UK where the owners can rent them out to locals or foreign Kenyan students studying in the UK.
“One of the challenges that we have seen in the market is that you can have a comparative property price in Mombasa, as you do for instance in Birmingham. However, you have about 10 times more affordability in Britain since your tenant is on average wealthier in somewhere like Birmingham than Mombasa, which allows the rents to continue in the property prices to continue growing,” he says.
The good news for Kenyans is that Investors in the UK get a tax relief of up to 12,500 pounds (Sh1.83 million) on the first investment hence Kenyans should not shun themselves from investing overseas the property.
This trend comes quite timely just some months after a UK property investment company, Baron&Cabot launched their operations in Kenya in a bid to woo potential investors in Africa.
Speaking during the launching of the Kenya and Nigeria base earlier in April, Mr. Pearson expresses his confidence in his company terming it as the ‘fastest-growing. “Our introduction in Kenya and Nigeria will greatly impact property investment and sourcing in the UK, thus creating more options for investors,” he remarked.
If you have a real estate press release or any other information that you would like featured on African Real Estate Blog Post do reach out to us via email at [email protected]
