kenya For a Few Dollars More

Once upon a time, when a buoyant economy inflated our housing market, home buyers in the United States beat a path to gated golf communities. Wherever they were built, from sea to shining sea, these communities symbolized the promise of America. They seemed worth the journey.

Today, home buyers in Kenya are following in our footsteps. Kenya is emerging as a nation of high achievers, with young, upwardly executives who wish to live like their counterparts in the United States, Europe, and Asia: behind security gates, with a view of a fairway. They want their own version of the good life, a symbol of their own dreams so happily realized. And I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that the nation’s residential developers are bending over backwards to accommodate them.

A dozen or more golf communities are taking shape in Kenya today. By all accounts, the houses in them are selling like hotcakes. Unfortunately, the home buyers have this in common with the residents of U.S. golf communities: Only a precious few of them -- an estimated 15 to 20 percent -- actually play golf.

This doesn’t bode well for the future of Kenya’s golf business. Sooner or later, Kenya’s golf developers are going to learn the difference between building golf courses and building a sustainable golf industry.

Until then, we can only marvel at what’s happening in a land so far away. One of Kenya’s news agencies recently took a close look at the growth of the nation’s golf communities. Here’s a little of what it had to say:

As I walk towards the gate, a structure resembling a watch tower and painted in green looms large. I’m approaching Thika Greens, a golf estate, one of close to a dozen to come up in Kenya in the last three years.

“A plot will cost you anything between [$52,600] and [$210,000],” Peter Muriuki, surveyor at the project, tells me. 

“The closer you are to the golf course,” Peter continues, his finger skimming over what looks like blue foil to point at a house no larger than the tip of his index, “the higher the price.” . . . 

“Eighty percent of people buying the plots don’t play golf and say they wouldn’t make a purchase with the same amenities but without a golf course,” Lee Karuri tells me. . . . 

Karuri is the developer of Longonot Gate and chairman of Home Afrika, a real estate company that is the majority share holder of Migaa, another golf estate located in Kiambu. “The reason we’re having golf -- and not only in Longonot Gate but in most of the projects that are coming up in Kenya -- is because of a change in lifestyle.” 

“Kenyan lifestyles are changing,” [says] Stephen Wamae Mureithi, the project manager of Buffalo Hills Leisure & Golf Village in Thika. “Majority of young executives are earning good money, and they would also like to live well. In the past, the game of golf was the reserve of the rich, but now you find even in golf clubs we’ve got a lot of young executives. 

“Those people who have actually bought from Buffalo Hills, their age ranges between 25 and 42. We still have people above 50 who have bought, but that number is quite small.” 

The numbers, the developers tell me, show the popularity of the golf estate concept. 

“We’ve already sold 20 percent of the units in a span of three months. I know people who’ve been selling for three years, and they’ve done only 15 percent. I’m actually pleading with people to buy soon, because very soon the prices will go up due to demand,” Wamae says of Buffalo Hills Leisure & Golf Village. . . . 

Location and prestige, those involved in the golf estates seem to agree, drive the popularity of golf estates. 

“When somebody tells you he’s selling you a house where there’s a golf estate, a clubhouse, maybe there’s a retirement village -- the concept which is Migaa -- you feel like you really have to buy it. It belongs to people of that class, of golf,” Pius Mochere, a mortgage advisor with Kenya Commercial Bank, says. . . . 

Sentiments Karuri shares: “A lot of families who are keen to live in golf estates do not necessarily play golf, but they consider it a prestigious sport. They believe that it brings along family prestige. It enhances your social status. So what happens is that only about 15 to 20 percent of those people who are buying in golf estates actually play golf.” . . . 

Even with the cost implications taken into account, Wamae is of the opinion the only way for golf estates to go is up. 

“A majority of Kenyans within the last five years have moved to a very high-end bracket in terms of their salaries and remuneration. As a result, the market is actually demand driven. And it is likely to exist for some time.”