No money to build a house yet? Try farming

With house sales not doing well,  some developers have resorted to community farming, where they manage greenhouse farms on behalf of land owners. 

“Currently, not many people are interested in buying homes due to financial constraints,” says Mr Ibrahim Muriithi, the general manager of Property Reality Company (PRC), which manages several such farms.

In community farming, you pay a certain amount of money that caters for the value of the land, greenhouses, planting and crop management until harvest time. Thereafter, you earn from the greenhouses after every harvest.

“It costs a lot to manage a greenhouse as an individual because the premium markets we sell  to look for quality, consistency and quantity, which an individual smallholder  cannot guarantee,” says Mr Muriithi.

An eighth of an acre costs now Sh1.2 million, up from Sh95,000 due to value additions such as water connection and road construction.

PRC has established  farms in Mbuni Estate in Isinya, Kajiado County, the Bassai Plains in Laikipia and in Kitengela.

LAND BANKING

Mr Nitzan Bauer, the integrated project manager at Mbuni Estate, says they are taking farming to new heights using modern technologies.

“For us it’s not just about putting up greenhouses; we use pump and drip irrigation as well as fertigation so that we can irrigate 30 greenhouses at ago,” said the Israeli consultant.

They grow tomatoes and capisicum in the greenhouses.

Dr Odhiambo Oundo, a real estate expert, says the shift to gated community farming has been prompted by the expansion of urban areas, adding that the areas where the farms are located are not ready for property development, so people invest in land and earn from it instead of letting it lie idle.

“Gated farming community is a form of land banking. That explains why many people are putting their money into it,” he says. 

The real estate expert echoes Mr Muriithi’s sentiments, cautioning buyers to undertake due diligence before putting their money into any property investment.

“Find out whether the dealers are registered by the Estate Agents Registration Board (EARB), which  is the regulatory body for estate agency practice, and other bodies such as the Board of Registration of Architects and Quantity Surveyors,”  says  Dr Oundo. 

“We install greenhouses in bunches of 50, and not individually, as some might assume,” he said, adding that the have planted capsicum in 25 greenhouses and tomatoes in the other 25 greenhouses of the first 50 greenhouses they have already installed.

Mr Muriithi says that the PRC gated farms will not be converted into homes in the future.