Top Dubai developer targets Kenya’s super rich with its Sh22bn property
A general view of Dubai’s fast developing city property. A number of foreign property developers have been wooing Kenyan property tycoons to buy into projects. PHOTO | AFP
Dubai-based real estate firm Deyaar has pitched camp in the country hoping to lure super rich Kenyans to buy into its Sh22.5 billion ($218 million) property development in Dubai.
Deyaar, one of United Arab Emirate’s (UAE’s) largest property development companies, has announced that it will hold a one-day fair in Nairobi on February 25 where buyers can place orders for apartments on the firm’s upcoming Atria project.
Deyaar representatives said the real estate firm is adding an incentive for potential Kenyan buyers in the form of “a guaranteed 14 per cent return over two years” for units at The Atria.
“The Atria is a project containing two towers. One of these will house the 347 serviced apartments, ranging in size from studios to three-bedroom duplexes. The adjoining tower will contain 219 apartments,” said the UAE developer in a notice.
The project is set to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2017, although the firm has yet to disclose the selling price per unit.
Diversifying
Experts said offering a guaranteed return for a specified period, usually up to two years, has become a more widespread selling tool among developers of serviced apartments in Dubai.
Rich Management CEO Aly Khan Satchu said that UAE developers are diversifying in new markets including Kenya. “There has always been an appetite for diversification all over the world. Dubai has embedded itself into the Kenyan psyche and real estate is in Kenya’s DNA. So I think Dubai real estate is playing into those strengths,” said Mr Satchu. “However, investors need to take advice because Dubai is correlated to the Middle East and by all accounts the real estate market there is soft,” he added.
A number of foreign property developers have been wooing Kenyan property tycoons to buy holiday villas, apartments, bungalows and penthouses in locations such as London, Abu Dhabi, Doha, India and South Africa.
In 2013, Emaar Properties, a Dubai-based real estate firm that developed the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, targeted wealthy Kenyans for sale of luxury apartments priced in the range of Sh66 million per one-bedroom unit.
