06/05/2026
What is your take on this?
Buying land in Kenya is not an investment. It is an emotional decision dressed up in a title deed.
I know this will offend a lot of people. Read it anyway.
We have been raised to believe land is the safest place to put money. Our parents said it. Our pastors said it. Every uncle at every funeral has said it while pointing at a shamba nobody has visited in eleven years.
But sit down with the numbers.
A plot you bought in Kitengela in 2015 for 800,000 shillings is worth maybe 1.5 million today. Sounds like growth. Now subtract the land rates you paid every year. The fencing that got vandalised twice. The caretaker you sent fare for nine years. The legal fees when a neighbour shifted the beacons. The opportunity cost of that 800,000 sitting idle while inflation ate 60 percent of its real value.
That same money in a well chosen money market fund or treasury bond would have nearly tripled. Liquid. No drama. No middlemen with three different title deeds for the same plot.
So why do we still rush to buy land?
Because land makes us feel like we have arrived. It is something we can show our parents. Something we can point to. Something that proves we are no longer the broke version of ourselves.
That is not investing. That is therapy with a title deed attached.
Buy land if you will use it. Otherwise, put your money where it will actually work for you.
— Elvis W.
