Kenya Tops Global Property Markets with Record Returns, Outpacing Nine Leading Economies – HassConsult Report

Kenyan homes are delivering investment returns unequaled globally, according to a Special Report launched by HassConsult, which found the country has further widened its lead in 2025 compared with nine leading property markets globally.

The study of property prices and rental yields – in Kenya, South Africa, the USA, Canada, the UK, France, Switzerland, Singapore, and Australia – found a sharply different growth trajectory for Kenya, driven by the strength of its domestic demand.

Since the year 2000, residential property prices have risen by 201 per cent in the USA, compared with 151 per cent in France, and 122 percent in Singapore. But in Kenya, they have risen by 425 percent.

In 2025, with many global property markets now depressed by high interest rates in heavily debt-leveraged sectors, Kenya has widened this gap further, with its 7.8 per cent increase in property prices in the year to June 2025 representing the highest level of capital appreciation in any of the markets analysed.

Australia reported the second-highest growth, at 4.74 percent.

“A critical factor in the strength of Kenya’s housing market has been its source of finance,” said HassConsult Co-CEO, Sakina Hassanali. Homes in Kenya are fully paid, which makes the market super-resilient. Owners rarely end up grappling with mortgage repayments they can’t meet, preventing the waves of forced sales suffered in other economies.”

Less than 2 per cent of homes in Kenya are mortgage-financed, compared with up to 90 per cent in the international markets analysed.

At the same time, the country’s growth in high earners, notably in education, health, trade, and agriculture, as well as mortgage-financed banking staff, has seen housing demand outstrip GDP growth in the country.

“Multiple factors are driving down property demand in western and eastern economies, not least of which is declining populations, while the value of property in Kenya’s expanding economy and population only keeps growing,” said Sakina.

Rental yields for property owners are the percentage of their original property investment they are earning back in rent each year, meaning that the higher property prices go, the lower rental yields tend to fall. But Kenya’s rental yields also remain above the global average, at 5.5 per cent, delivering a combined return in the year to June 2025 of 13.28 percent.

This return is higher still for the thousands of Kenyans who have bought properties in off-plan developments. The Special Report analysed eight prime off-plan developments in Kenya, reporting an average return on investment in 2025 of 18.06 percent.

“With off-plan now the main point of entry for many Kenyans into property, the discounts and instalment payments are creating gains that are, in reality, over twice the norm in other global markets,” said HassConsult Development Sales Advisor, Ian Mutinda.

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