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Kenya Student Housing At 300,000 Against Enrollment of 520,900

BY Soko Directory Team · March 9, 2020 11:03 am

All universities in Kenya are experiencing an acute student housing shortage. The existing capacity is limited and new developments have ultimately not kept pace with the growth in enrolment.

According to the Ministry of Education, available student housing in Kenya stands at 300,000 against a university enrolment of 520,900 as of 2018, excluding technical colleges.

According to Cytonn Research, on average, the majority of higher institutions in Kenya, therefore, only cater to approximately 22.6 percent of their student population, having looked at various tertiary institutions, their on-campus hostels capacity against their student enrolment.

Assuming that 10.0 percent live at home, this means private investors are left to cater for at least 67.4 percent which translates to over 350,000-bed spaces.

Similar to affordable housing, the majority of the private student housing stock lacks in quality and amenities that are expected of student accommodation.

There is a huge gap of institutional-grade student housing stock to warrant interest from willing international institutional investors seeking to deploy capital in regions with strong returns

Century Developments and Kuramo’s partnership deal is set to deliver 10,000 Purpose-built units in the next five years, Parallelfour is currently under construction and is set for completion by 2021, while no timeline has been given for Acorn’s pipeline of 50,000 units.

Acorn Holdings, a joint venture between Acorn and UK-based Private Equity firm Helios, is currently the leading purpose-built student accommodation player in the Kenyan market having developed 1,572 rooms with 2,313 beds as at 2020.

In November 2019, the firm issued the first Kenyan green bond on the international Securities Market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) raising 85.0 percent of its 4.3 billion shillings targets, affirming that Kenya is indeed an attractive market for foreign investors.

The medium-term note (MTN) program will be used to finance the construction of green-certified student properties, to create quality and affordable accommodation for 5,000 students in Nairobi. Currently, the firm has upcoming student housing projects on Thika Road, Athi River, Kilimani and Waiyaki Way.

Soko Directory is a Financial and Markets digital portal that tracks brands, listed firms on the NSE, SMEs and trend setters in the markets eco-system. Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/SokoDirectory and on Twitter: twitter.com/SokoDirectory

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