Nairobi Has Not Been Building the Homes Buyers Want

Kenya's next decade of real estate will be won by whoever builds the right units, in the right places, and plans them to last the test of time, writes Shiv Arora, Founder & Executive Director of Linden Africa, an institutional real estate developer focused on mid-to-high-end residential developments across Africa.

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Two things are true about Nairobi's property market right now, and they should not be able to coexist.

The first is that apartment prices are falling. Hass Consult's Q1’2026 index shows the correction plainly; apartment values in Westlands down 2.8% in a single quarter, Upper Hill down 2.5%, and Upper Hill rents off 5.1% over the year.

Across the city, ten of eighteen suburbs and satellite towns recorded annual declines. KNBS data tells the same story, which is that the average three-bedroom apartment in Eastlands and the satellite belt slid from around KSh 21 million in 2022 to KSh 18 million in 2025. 

The second is that Kenya is desperately short of housing. The deficit is measured in millions of units, with annual demand of roughly 250,000 homes against barely 50,000 delivered.

So which is it? Are we oversupplied, or undersupplied? The answer is both, and the gap between those two truths is the most important thing happening in Kenyan real estate today.

We are not oversupplied with housing. We are oversupplied with one kind of housing.