Elijah Ntongai, a journalist at TUKO.co.ke, has more than three years of financial, business, and technology research and reporting expertise, providing insights into Kenyan and global trends.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) published the Kenya Housing Survey report following a comprehensive survey exercise in 2024.

According to the survey, Kenyan tenants exhibited a strong reluctance to purchase ready-built houses and apartments, with a majority favouring self-construction or avoiding ownership altogether.

The survey revealed that 76.9% of tenants are unwilling to purchase their current dwelling units, highlighting a general disinterest in ready-built housing. Only 23.1% of tenants expressed a willingness to buy their existing homes.

More than half of the surveyed tenants (55.5%) indicated a preference to build their own homes rather than purchase ready-built units.

Meanwhile, 12.5% favoured buying and 32.0% preferred neither option. Over half (52.8%) of Kenyan homes were built through one-off construction projects, while 27.0% were constructed incrementally and only 2.5% of homes were purchased as completed units, underscoring the low preference for ready-built properties.

The findings suggest a cultural and economic preference for building over buying, which raises concerns about the uptake of the housing units under construction by the government of Kenya.

In June 2024, the Auditor General revealed that the National Housing Corporation (NHC) had been unable to sell hundreds of houses valued at approximately KSh 1.3 billion.

Mwenda Thuranira, a seasoned entrepreneur and business leader who is the founder and CEO of Myspace Properties, noted that one of the main hindrances to the uptake of affordable housing units as well as mortgages is the high price and lack of access to financing.

Thuranira opined that considering the low preference for ready-built houses among Kenyans, the government has to change tact and prioritise public sensitisation.

He also recommended several policy adaptations to ensure the affordable housing serves the underprivileged's need for housing. They include:

Thuranira noted that the government has to balance the cost of affordable housing and the requirements to access them to address the homeownership crisis in the country.

He noted that instead of competing with the private sector the government should encourage private-public partnerships and mortgage uptake.

"What the government needs to do is to encourage private-public partnerships more by allowing private developers to locate, conceptualize and implement AHP as opposed to the government competing with private developers.

Also to effectively address the house crisis, the govt needs to effectively bridge the gap on mortgages in Kenya and it's affordability through KMRC. The parastatal needs to be fully funded to allow private developers to concentrate on delivery as the govt provide an avenue for more absorption of the housing through mortgage affordability. Govt subsidies should play a role," Thuranira said.

In other news, the Kenya Housing Survey revealed that 52% of Kenyan tenants consider affordable rent the most important factor when choosing a location to rent a house.

Proximity to work was ranked as the second most important factor, with 17.8% of tenants prioritising living near their workplaces.

Other key considerations for tenants include proximity to basic amenities (8.9%), adequate security (7.2%), and the appeal of well-designed houses (6.5%).

Flats and apartments emerged as the most preferred rental units among tenants, accounting for 56.3%, while two-bedroom houses were the most popular choice for room size, preferred by 33.9% of tenants.

Source: TUKO.co.ke