How does a standard three-bedroom house cost compare with other African countries and parts of the world?

For a normal salaried laborer in Nairobi, to own a house in Nairobi is a dream that is good from far, but only to realize that it is far from good. The property market in Nairobi –Kenya purchasing a 3-bedroom house would cost anything from 7 million you on average within a 20km radius from CBD. 

At www.propertyzote.com a leading online property-listing portal a 3 bedroom on average goes for 9.01 Million and from the recent Hass consult Property Index 2011 Quarter one 2011 report, the average value of a 1-3 bedroom property is currently at 10.77 million.

To buy a house on a mortgage loan of 6 million, cost of borrowing at 13.5 % pa, for 20 years your monthly repayment will be Kshs.72, 442 meaning after 20 years you have paid a total of Kshs.17, 386,080(240 x 72,442).

There seems to be a drop in deposit rates, the main driver of the ongoing aggressive cut in lending rates that are now spreading to the mortgage market. Barclays bank reduced its mortgage to 11.99 per cent will run till the end of September as it seeks to grow its mortgage business.

KCB mortgage rate dropped from 15 to 13.5 percent, while Stanchart reintroduced its 10.9 per cent fixed mortgage offering. Housing Finance currently offers mortgages at 12.5 per cent base mortgage rate and is gearing up for a Sh10 billion corporate bond as it positions itself for long term housing development projects

However, across Africa, Uganda’s mortgage rates remain high compared with Kenya. Uganda’s residential mortgage is at 22.02 per cent while the commercial mortgages stood at 21.81 per cent, according to BoU’s economic survey.

Taking an average of properties in Uganda listed at www.propertyzote.com a 1-3 bedroom house in Uganda would cost you Ksh.12 million. The same house in Dar es Salam Tanzania is going for Ksh.9.8 million. High cost of land, building materials and market speculation by estate agents is fueling this. In South Africa a 3- bedroom at Sonstraal Heights, Durbanville Western Cape goes for Ksh.13.8 million. From www.realeststeweb.co.za the average nominal value of medium-sized homes (141m²-220m²) declined by a marginal 0,1% y/y in April 2011, after rising by only 0,1% y/y in the preceding month. This brought the price of a medium-sized house to about R972 900 (Ksh.11.6) in April. A real price decline of 3,9% y/y occurred in this category of housing in March 2011. South Africa’s mortgage rate is at 11.5%.

A study done by the Institute for Housing America, titled “International Comparison Mortgage Product Offerings” Interest rates are lower than 6% which I believe are very manageable levels, for instance; in Sweden mortgage rates is at 4%, Japan at 3%, UK at 5%, Australia is the highest at close to 7%.

Around the world a 3-bedroom house in a suburb at Waterworks Road, Red Hill Qld-Australia would go for not less than Ksh.70 Million. The same house in the Cornforth Way, Widnes WA8 Liverpool-UK goes for Ksh.25, 145,764 Million.

Looking at this house prices I conclude that property prices in Kenya are still affordable. The Kenyan Government should increase on the basic pay. This explains a lot why Kenyans in diaspora find it very affordable to buy property in Kenya. For them it is more than a bargain.

Check out www.propertyzote.com for properties in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda

How you could develop a community around your company on a social networking site of your choice.

Online community

A business should consider several factors before joining a community, for instance, a community that has a large user base, attracts people who might be interested in its products or services, and accommodates its objectives (optimally goals along multiple stages in its sales cycle). Connecting with customer targets and people who might spread its messages, create content that prospects find engaging, and interact with them frequently are some of the ways to succeed in social media.

There has been tremendous growth of social media usage. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Flickr are among the most popular sites that receive hundreds of thousands of visits everyday and foster lively conversations among users.

Social media is so appealing and business can leverage on their popularity because, if we consider the importance if communities and social media in our daily lives. Friends, family and colleagues are all part of our communities and social media simply relocated communities from the physical to the online world.  Not all random charts on social media however, necessarily create business value. In most instances connecting with and persuading strangers to learn or introduce a new product is challenging.

Utilize their resources.

Though the ultimate goal is to sell a product or service, it is paramount to know that a community does not form around a service, unless a business proves that its service can empower others.  It’s important therefore that a business should take time to engage and cultivate potential customers. This is achieved by not just engaging them but engage with an open mind and humility. Positive feedback is a reflection of the good quality of the company product or service, while negative feedback helps a business understand what aspects of the product or customer service need improvement.

When this is best put into practice, respect improves the company’s online reputation.

Define Objectives

A company must define its objective before deciding to join of form a community on social media.

Is it trying to recruit talents, find partners, or build a brand? If the answer lies in the former two, joining a community related to its industry may be sufficient. If a business wants to build an online brand, however, joining a community should serve as a step instead of a goal. Only forming a community can a business have more control over the topics of discussions and their relevance to its products or services.

A business should also consider the popularity of the community. The more the users a social media site contains the more people a business gains exposure to. A large network empowers viral messaging. The combination of valuable content and large networks creates a buzz around a business brand and helps draw prospects to a company website and thus increase website traffic. A good example is www.rich.co.ke a financial portal for those who participate in the Kenyan Shareholder Revolution and second liberation. Aly-Khan Satchu -@alykhansatchu the owner has more than 11,000 followers on twitter. He constantly engages his followers and gives NSE markets updates.

Communities on social media are valuable not only because they can attract prospects. Online communities help in several parts of sales cycle such as lead generation, post-sales education and customer support. Discussion forums enable interactions with customer and feedback collection. A business needs to define what goals it wants to achieve on social media to maximize the return of time spent on managing its presence.

What to do.

To build an effective community, a business should; Connect, Create and Engage. Connect applies to the people a business wants to invite to its community. It can either find contacts manually or review recommendation automatically generated on most of the commonly used media sites. Though the goal is to focus on potential customers, it is not a bad idea to connect with friends and family, who might not become customers themselves but can refer others to the business.

Create refers to creating content that potential customers might find interesting and helpful. The idea is similar to blogging: the goal is to generate materials in which prospects can find value.

Engage is equivalent to establishing ongoing interactions with prospects. To engage people on social media, a business should not only create useful content but also interact with prospects. On Facebook and LinkedIn, for instance, a business can post comments and answer queries. Twitter, on the other hand, allows a business to share succinct updates. All of the networks on this sites are assets a business can grow to promote valuable blog or a website content.

It takes time to grow a network using social media, but a business can avoid many mistakes by first observing how other businesses have utilized different social media sites.

Some of the social media sites to consider are, LinkedIn, which is more business oriented networking and helps business owners build both personal and business credibility through answering questions and sharing profiles.

Facebook has fan pages that allow businesses to build a community of potential or existing customers and share multi-media content. Lastly Twitter enables succinct and text only interactions that make talent recruitment, business collaborations and information sharing timely and effective.