What money has bought Kenya’s rich households

Upmarket neighbourhoods spread across seven counties are in a tight race to lay claim to being home to the largest number of the country’s millionaires.

Dotted across a few select constituencies across the country are massive mansions. They were bought in cash, not on loan, and their majesty is only hidden by a blanket of greenery.

The recently released census data, however, offers a glimpse behind the canopy and provides insight into how the country’s wealthy live, and what their preferences are.

And there is no question about it - the wealthy have bought the good life, and among the factors driving their mega spending on housing is a desire to keep up with the demands of modernity.

An analysis by the Financial Standard of the recently released 2019 census data offers a sneak peek into just where the ultra-rich choose to live, and offers up an idea of the details of their opulent lifestyle.

The data paints a picture of the typical wealthy person’s home: it’s a monument of architectural splendour, with an attractive roof of grey shingles that stretches across firm walls made with concrete blocks.

The house itself is in the kind of location where a soothing breeze mingles easily with the sounds of a bubbling stream that snakes through a section of the garden. It is therapeutic.

Betray the power

The parking lot holds a fleet of cars. They may not be extravagant, but they are the kind that betray the power of the owner.

And when you make your way inside the house, beneath your feet, you will be stepping on a well-polished floor made with engineered timber; the kind that traps heat and emits warmth when you need it.

There is a large smart TV on the wall, while smooth jazz wafts from a stand-alone radio to a surround-sound music system. There are laptops on one of the reading tables. And if you make it deep enough inside the house, you’ll come across a jacuzzi; the basic shower just won’t do.

And of course your phone will ping to let you know you can plug into the home’s wireless Internet.

Thirsty? There is a dispenser with branded bottled water. While the home has plenty of running water, its residents prefer to drink the treated kind.

The rich have bought themselves the good life. They have put up shade where it is scorching; made peace where there is chaos; and found purity where there is profanity.

And money has bought, at least for some super rich, a longer time on earth in a Hobbesian world where life is “short, nasty and brutish”.

After crunching the data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), the Financial Standard has drilled down to the 20 constituencies that the wealthy prefer, based on several critical socio-economic indicators, including house ownership.

These 20 constituencies, however, are in just seven counties.

Most of these households are in towns like Eldoret, Nairobi, Kiambu, Kisumu or Athi River, where owning what can be described as a mansion comes at quite the cost.

Extensive care

A good number of the houses in these areas have been built using expensive flooring materials, such as parquet and polished wood. Some, like engineered timber, require extensive care and maintenance, meaning you can’t just mop the floor with water and soap.

The roofing is also done using expensive imported materials, such as porcelain tiles.

Langata Sub-county, with upmarket estates like Karen, comes up as the preferred home for the country’s wealthy.

A quarter of households in Langata, about 15,167 of them, have built homes using expensive roofing materials, including porcelain tiles, decra and shingles. 

Langata is also leading in Internet connection, with six out of 10 households in the constituency able to go online from the comfort of their homes.

The constituency is also ahead of the pack in ownership of cars, with every two households out of five owning a car.

Nairobi’s Westlands area, which is home to upmarket neighbourhoods like Kitisuru and Parklands, is arguably the second in the race to house the country’s wealthy.

It leads in the number of houses whose flooring has been done using parquet or polished wood. Households in Westlands also come second in almost all the household assets, except for drinking bottled water where it falls third behind Mvita in Mombasa and Langata.

Mvita also beats Langata in ownership of refrigerators, which may be explained by the sweltering heat in the area.

In fact, the heat at the Coast has not only created a huge market for refrigerator vendors in the region, but also the manufacturers of bottled water.

On drinking bottled water, Langata comes behind Mvita, Kajiado North and Kericho East.

Other constituencies that feature in the top 20 list include Kikuyu, Kiambu, Ruiru, Juja and Kabete, which are all in Kiambu County.

Due to its proximity to Nairobi, these so-called satellite towns have drawn the attention of lots of property developers. As a result, the area has seen an increasing number of social amenities, such as high-end shopping malls, hospitals and schools, come up.

Other satellite towns that have seen their real estate value grow as the capital city expands and also feature on the top 20 list include Kajiado North and Athi River. In fact, one of the most dominant assets among households in these two areas is a car, most likely due to the distance residents have to cover to and from Nairobi.

Kibra, which is home to one of the country’s sprawling slums, does not feature high up on the list of household assets until it comes to the quality of flooring and roofing materials. However, the constituency ranks poorly when it comes to the share of total households living in homes built using concrete blocks.