Cytonn Investments has listed seven towns around Nairobi that guarantee the highest returns on land investments.
In a report dubbed Nairobi Metropolitan Area (NMA) Land Report released late last month, Ongata Rongai in Kajiado County recorded the highest capital appreciation at 8.9 per cent for the 2020/2021 financial year.
An acre of land in the town, which retailed for Ksh18 million now goes for Ksh19.8 million, a jump of capital appreciation from 3.8 percent the previous financial year.
Athi River recorded the second highest returns in the serviced land category of satellite towns after its value rose from Ksh12 million to Ksh13.1 million representing an 8.7 per cent positive deviation.
Ruiru came in third with an increase from Ksh24 million to Ksh25.3 million representing a 5.2 per cent deviation in the serviced land sector.
Other towns that performed well in the past financial year were Thika which recorded 3.2 per cent representing a deviation from Ksh10 million to Ksh10.4 million.
Performance in the sector was mainly driven by the relatively affordable selling prices, improving infrastructure and positive demographics.
Additionally, serviced land offers greater investment opportunity attributable to the advantage of easier accessibility to amenities such as water, drainage systems and, electricity among many other amenities, hence performance better when compared to unserviced land performance of similar areas.
In the unserviced land category, Ruiru led the pack with a 6.9 per cent capital appreciation from Ksh22 million to Ksh23.6 million.
It was followed by Juja at 5.5 per cent (from Ksh10 million to Ksh10.6 million), Athi River 5.1 per cent (from Ksh4.0 million to Ksh4.2 million), Utawala at 3.2 per cent (from Ksh12.0 million to Ksh12.4 million and Limuru at 1.0 per cent (from Ksh21 million to Ksh21.2 million.
From the report, Athi River emerged as the cheapest town to buy land at Ksh4.2 million but was among those delivering high returns.
The performance was mainly driven by factors such as affordability when compared to areas such as the low and high rise areas which registered average asking prices of Ksh87.9 million and Ksh115.8 million, respectively, urban sprawl, and improving infrastructure servicing the areas.
In other segments, Upper Hill was the most expensive place to buy land in Kenya with an acre retailing for Ksh487.3 million.
