Notes on land, development economics and the Kenyan property market — written for landowners, investors and buyers rather than for search engines.
A development partnership is only as good as the agreement behind it. Before signing anything, a landowner should understand how the site is being valued, how costs and proceeds will be split, what happens if the project is delayed, and who is accountable for what at each stage.
Buying land and betting on appreciation is a different exercise from funding a development. The latter introduces construction, approval, financing and sales risk on top of whatever the underlying land is worth — which is why development returns and land-speculation returns shouldn't be compared directly.
Buying property from abroad removes the option of visiting a site in person before committing. Title verification, approval status, and a developer's track record on previous projects become more important, not less, when the buyer can't easily inspect the ground themselves.
A well-located plot can still fail as a development if the numbers don't work — access, zoning, construction cost and achievable sale price all have to line up together, not just the address.