Daily Nation
By DAVID OKWEMBAH
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Money from Kenyans living abroad and war profiteering in the region has flooded into the Kenyan property market, leading to a doubling of prices for land and houses and steep increases in rents, real estate experts say.
They attribute this trend in part to demand by non-Kenyans, most of them from war-torn Somalia.
“Somalis have pushed the prices of property to an all-time high in the past three years because price to them is not an issue,” James Katana of Green Leaves Properties, Mombasa, said.
He claimed that Somali nationals have taken control of major estates in Mombasa, like Nyali, Tudor, Old Town and Kizingo.
“They are even demolishing most of the properties they are buying and building flats which they are converting into apartments and budget hotels.”
He said most of the foreigners, mainly Somali nationals, buying properties in prime areas of Mombasa and Nairobi acquire them through proxies.
Findings by the Sunday Nation follow investigations by international security agencies that have discovered that millions of dollars reaped from piracy along the Somali coast and drug trafficking are finding their way into Kenya and other parts of the world through an intricate money-laundering scheme masterminded by international criminal syndicates.
http://www.hiiraan.com/news2/2009/Mar/k ... kings.aspx
