Real estate firm rides on Briton’s marketing prowess to drive sales

PHOTO | JACOB OWITI Mr Luke Murfitt.

What you need to know:

  • A career marketer, Luke Murfitt saw the untapped potential in Kenya’s real estate sector and has gone ahead to profit from it

It is not unusual for citizens from low-income countries to grab available opportunities to work in developed nations due to the allure of better pay.

Most of those who go to work in such countries have a financial turnaround, with some being able to invest back home.

It is, however, different for Luke Murfitt, a Briton who pays his bills from a real estate firm he co-founded in Kenya six years ago.

A passionate marketer by profession, Mr Murfitt worked across Europe for various global brands before turning his international experience to help Kenyan’s in the diaspora safely invest in their motherland.

“I have been working as a marketer since the age of 12, including stacking supermarket shelves after school for half the pay other employees were asking for,” he says.

He would then use his pay to buy sweets at the supermarket and sell them to fellow pupils at double the price, effectively earning more than he would have been paid.

Mr Murfitt first came to Kenya at the age of 18 in 1999 attached to an international charitable organisation working with street children in Kisumu.
His six-month stint with the destitute exposed him to the untapped opportunities in Kenya, especially in real estate. He also met his wife. When the United Nations declared Kisumu a millennium city in 2006 with a 15-year development plan, Mr Murfitt knew there would be rapid infrastructural growth and a property boom in the lakeside city.

“I anticipated the property boom in Kisumu with the prices of land, so my wife and I thought of investing in land,” he says.

It is this desire to buy land in Kisumu while in London that was to culminate in Kisumu Real Estates, one of the leading property firms in the region. He introduced his partner and co-founder, Wycliffe Abok, to property deals, using him as the contact person to actualise his dreams.

“He is my brother-in-law. So, naturally, I trusted him to push the deal through on my behalf,” he says.

Mr Abok was then working as a researcher at a medical institution, a job he decided to quit and venture into real estate full-time.

“When the deal went through, I felt that this was the right opportunity to quit my job to venture into self-employment,” says Mr Abok.

He helped a few close contacts to buy land and the network kept growing. Mr Abok used his vast knowledge of Kisumu town to close land deals on behalf of customers living outside Kisumu.

He then teamed up with Mr Murfitt to register Kisumu Real Estates in late 2006, armed with an old laptop and without a physical office to operate from. Mr Murfitt had built a formidable website through which most business deals streamed in.

“Most firms had not embraced ICT and that became part of our strength to rapidly create a brand in the industry,” explains Mr Abok.

From his office desk in London, Mr Murfitt would refer clients in the diaspora or their local contact persons to Mr Abok, who would close the deals. These referrals would later create a chain through social media, to the advantage of the firm. Indeed, the firm has invested heavily in online advertising through Google, Facebook, and Twitter, with a number of active blogs. By the company’s estimation, it gets reviews from over 500 cities in the world and records over 4,000 visits a month to its website.

“Luke is a brilliant IT and marketing specialist and has ensured that our company stays on top of the competition,” says Mr Abok.

With 10 permanent employees and five casuals spread around their Kisumu, Kakamega, and Nairobi offices in less than six years of operation, Kisumu Real Estates has shifted gears from simply buying and selling land to what it describes as providing affordable housing.

Although the bosses are coy about revealing the firm’s net worth, its rapid rise and the mega projects under its stewardship indicates how well the firm is doing financially.

Recently, the firm pioneered a Sh6 billion gated community housing project that offers prospective buyers the opportunity to acquire plots and build houses approximately 10 kilometres from the Kisumu city centre.

The partners say the firm is focused on adding value to land by selling it complete with a title deed as well as the plan of the house suitable for the area as the company insists on controlled development.