Real estate Investors are being urged to look at other areas besides Nairobi Upperhill, Kilimani and Westlands areas for office space as the said areas are already over saturated.
While announcing the thirds quarter property index, Hass Consult’s Head of Development Consulting and Research Sakina Hassanali said, ‘’When it comes to commercial offices, we are ahead of demand which means we are oversupplied for a couple of years. What that means is when you build a commercial building it takes two to three years to completely fill up.’’
‘’You are going to have empty office buildings in an oversupplied area, I wouldn’t say it cuts across the market, so Upperhill Kilimani and now Westlands are seeming to be oversupplied but there are some areas that have an undersupply of commercial buildings where that can still be viable.’’ She said.
She further added that the move to make every area high density, over crowds the city and its services.
‘’Initially, you had zoning of an area so there was medium density, low density and high density if you move to make everything high density you then perhaps overcrowding the city and its services. There may not be enough infrastructure to actually support that amount of development, which makes it a bit difficult, it is very hard to go back on something like that.’’ She said regarding the proposal by Nairobi county assembly members, who had previously sort to do away with zoning earlier in the year.
The MCAs had argued that with the fast-growing population, it can no longer allow controlled development in some estates, given the huge demand for housing.
