This archive report was first published on 6 July 2021.
Despite the government's Big Four Agenda on Housing, which aims to build 500,000 houses for the lower and middle-income population segments by next year, many Kenyans cannot afford to acquire a house.
According to the 2015/16 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (KIHBS), homeownership in urban areas stood at 26.1%. Simultaneously, 61% of Kenyans were living in informal settlements, according to the World Bank.
Stakeholders of the Focus Realtors Housing Cooperative in Embu County have called on the government to make housing schemes more affordable. The cooperative's chairman, Jamal Runyenje, said that small societies like theirs cannot afford to build the minimum 100 units required to benefit from the government's incentive.
Runyenje asked the government to reduce the minimum units to 10 for their members to benefit from the lower building cost and ultimately have more Kenyans own homes.
He also called for reduced taxation on building materials to empower Kenyans to own property. 'Majority of Kenyans are low and middle-class earners who aspire to own property, but unfortunately the current high cost of building materials bars them from achieving their ambitions,' he said.
Focus Realtors Housing Supervisory Committee Chair Jim Njiru called on the government to cushion Kenyans from unscrupulous housing cooperatives and real estate companies that promise honey and milk but sink with the member's savings.
Njiru attributed the high cost of building materials to challenges of importing them due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He said this can be addressed through government subsidies and regulation of the sellers who might be taking advantage to reap from Kenyans.
