Author: A4KENYA

Development of Flats at Ngong. Return on Investment in Sale vs Rental options.

Cost Item	Kshs	%
Land	2,500,000.00	2.945889894
Preliminary/council approvals	294,000.00	0.346436652
Construction	63,000,000.00	74.23642534
External Works	3,150,000.00	3.711821267
Contingency	1,260,000.00	1.484728507
Professional fees. 4%	2,520,000.00	2.969457014
Project Management fees. 1%	630,000.00	0.742364253
Marketing	170,000.00	0.200320513
Financial Charges. 18% p.a interest	11,340,000.00	13.36255656
Total	84,864,000.00	100
Financing Plan	Kshs	%
Developer	21,864,000.00	25.76357466
Debt Finance	63,000,000.00	74.23642534
Presales	12,000,000.00	14.14027149
Total	84,864,000.00	114.1402715
PROFIT
SALE OPTION
TOTAL SALES FOR 30 UNITS	120,000,000.00
TOTAL EXPENDITURE	84,864,000.00
NET PROFIT	35,136,000.00
% Profit Margin	41.40271493
Take home ammount.	37,636,000.00
RENT OPTION
Rent per unit	18,000.00
No. of Units	30.00
Rent for 30 units monthly	540,000.00
Annual rent	6,480,000.00
Return on Investment. Years.	13.10

Conclusion.

If the project is sold at 100%, the Returns are quite high. If the project is rented out, returns will be in 13 years which is within the 15 year period hence a viable option.

The project can have 50% of units for sale to cater for the high interest rates cost of financing then the 50% of the units that remain are rented out.

This way, the high cost of finance/borrowing is mitigated by sale of units and the client remains with 15 units from which to collect rent from.

Francis Gichuhi Kamau, Architect.

This year’s wordpress word camp event was held last weekend at Sportsman’s arms hotel in Nanyuki.

This is an annual meeting held by wordpress bloggers and coders.

I presented on how i use wordpress to enable many Kenyans afford accessible housing through crowd sourcing . Using a wordpress plugin called bbpress, this enables creation of a forum whereby various participants can meet and discuss on where to settle on buying land for construction.
With the rising cost of land, potential home owners can get a 1/8th acre and decide to share it amongst 12 people then build bedsitters which can be increased vertically into several storeys as time progresses.
Someone can create the initial bedsitter then add other bedrooms vertically on top in future developments.
This enables the barrier created by high land prices be broken into acquiring land and housing.
Whive.

Mr John Karanja of Whive presented on how he enables people tap into crowdsourcing and moving new projects from initial concept stage into actual reality on the ground.
We are in talks to team up a4architct.com and  so as to move the real estate crowd sourcing to tap into a largest market. This will enable more and more Kenyans be able to access housing at affordable rates.

Dukapress.

The founder of Dukapress also presented an exciting way of using mobile money such as Orange money and mpesa to connect to wordpress front end for record keeping purposes.
A4architect.com will in future team up with him so as to enable contributors into the real estate crowdsourcing be able to top up their contributions using mobile money/mpesa.
The beauty of this is that the interphase allows for the info to be publicly viewed hence accountability for the people contributing to purchase land and construct houses at the a4architect.com forum.

Orange Telkom.
Orange Telkom was the main sponsors of this event.
Their involvement and encouraging of innovation into the IT sector is great.
Having personally used Orange internet through their dongle, I can testify that they offer one of the fastest internet speeds. Watching YouTube videos and streaming tv online is very smooth with no breakages and at very low costs compared to others in the market.
With such speeds, this enables people working on wordpress or watching YouTube movies and online tv a much better and comfortable working atmosphere.
Francis Gichuhi Kamau, Architect.
info@a4architect.com

This year’s wordpress word camp event was held last weekend at Sportsman’s arms hotel in Nanyuki.

This is an annual meeting held by wordpress bloggers and coders.

I presented on how i use wordpress to enable many Kenyans afford accessible housing through crowd sourcing . Using a wordpress plugin called bbpress, this enables creation of a forum whereby various participants can meet and discuss on where to settle on buying land for construction.
With the rising cost of land, potential home owners can get a 1/8th acre and decide to share it amongst 12 people then build bedsitters which can be increased vertically into several storeys as time progresses.
Someone can create the initial bedsitter then add other bedrooms vertically on top in future developments.
This enables the barrier created by high land prices be broken into acquiring land and housing.
More of this can be seen her www.a4architect.com/discuss

Whive.
http://whive.org/

Mr John Karanja of Whive.com presented on how he enables people tap into crowdsourcing and moving new projects from initial concept stage into actual reality on the ground.
We are in talks to tam up a4architct.com and whive.com so as to move the real estate crowd sourcing to tap into a largest market. This will enable more and more Kenyans be able to access housing at affordable rates.

Dukapress.
http://dukapress.org/
The founder of Dukapress also presented an exciting way of using mobile money such as Orange money and mpesa to connect to wordpress front end for record keeping purposes.
A4architect.com will in future team up with him so as to enable contributors into the real estate crowdsourcing be able to top up their contributions using mobile money/mpesa.
The beauty of this is that the interphase allows for the info to be publicly viewed hence accountability for the people contributing to purchase land and construct houses at the a4architect.com forum.

Orange Telkom.
Orange Telkom was the main sponsors of this event.
Their involvement and encouraging of innovation into the IT sector is great.
Having personally used Orange internet through their dongle, I can testify that they offer one of the fastest internet speeds. Watching YouTube videos and streaming tv online is very smooth with no breakages and at very low costs compared to others in the market.
With such speeds, this enables people working on wordpress or watching YouTube movies and online tv a much better and comfortable working atmosphere.
Francis Gichuhi Kamau, Architect.
info@a4architect.com

Acreage -1.7766877 Acres (Approx)
Built area (House roof)- 208 sq m
2 Villas each 4 bedrooms
2 Swimming pool Approx 5mx12m
Built in 2005
Approx 600m from the beach
Single title.

Expected rent for short stays 20-30k per villa
Monthy rent 120-160k per month

Price. Offer invited.

From the Tao

Feng Shui Architecture.

The words Feng – Shui literally mean Wind- Water.
Feng Shui originated from China 4,000 years ago. China ushered in therir new year on February 14th ,2010[Valentines Day]. This year is the year of the Tiger. 2010 is Year 4707 in the Chinese Calendar.
Feng Shui aims to assist in locating buildings in the most perfect condition so as to release positive energy known as Qi[chi]. A building that merges well with nature and the environment also produces good Qi.
Coincidentally, Frank Lloyd Wright-June 1857-April 1959, the great American Architect who designed the Falling Waters House used the concept of merging his buildings with the environment. His works became so unique and famous due to this. Maybe he has long seen the benefits of Feng Shui Architecture by then.

Yi Yang.

Feng Shui is made up of 5 elements-Water, Wood, Fire, Earth/Soil and Metal under the concept of Yin –Yang..
Water has more Yin than Wood for example.
Feng Shui aims at balancing the forces of Yin and Yang within a building.

Practical Examples.

A practical example of good Feng shui is whereby the architects avoid to run beams across the living rooms or bedrooms. This creates negative energy in Feng Shui terms. Any decent architect will advice his client that such a beam defines space vertically hence if it’s a large room for example a sitting room that is supposed to be used as one room, the overhead beam that cuts across it makes the occupants feel as if there is something that is dividing the space into 2 parts. This feeling will affect the occupants negatively, reducing the occupant’s optimum performance. This is what the Feng Shui practitioners will call negative Qi.

Qi.

The flow of Qi is the same as the universal order of the Tao. Tao is Chinese meaning ‘way’. It is the flow of the universe, the force that keeps the universe in a natural order. If you have watched the movie ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne, you will definitely get the drift.
According to Feng Shui practitioners, Qi enters the house through the front door. A good architect is trained to articulate the main entrance through use of columns, expensive and attractive wall and floor finishes so as to make the entrance area unique. This is a sub-conscious attempt to bring in positive energy to the house.
Decisions such as putting up a decorated main door will also attract good Qi to the house. Grande Hand-curved Swahili doors are a good example to this even though the Swahili have never heard of Feng Shui. Each and every organized community has its own localized form of Feng Shui.

African Architecture.

Traditional African houses were made of natural material-Earth walls and thatch roof. In Feng Shui terms, these materials give the most positive energy to the occupants.
The planning arrangement of an African traditional homestead was also to a specific order such as the position of the mans house, 1st wifes house, cow pen, granary, sons house e.t.c.
This shows that these houses were designed to unlock positive Qi to the occupants though they had never heard of Feng Shui.

Currently, in the modern world, the natural construction materials are more expensive than the artificial materials.
A floor finish like hard-wood parquet or blocks is very expensive compared to an imitation such as the HDF wood laminate floors. Another example is a solid hardwood door compared to an MDF door. The solid hardwood door is more expensive than the MDF door. MDF glue also contains carcinogens. In roofing, the stone-coated roofing tiles that imitate thatch are the most expensive roofing materials that we have at the moment. A thatch roof will give much more positive energy than the expensive stone coated roof at any given time.
This shows that you get more positive energy when you use more natural materials.

Conclusion.

A well designed house that has been designed to the occupant’s satisfaction will definitely assist in giving him the positive energy required for optimum performance.
Design aspects such as colour of the rooms, orientation of the house, position of doors and windows, finishes and the overall shape of the building should all be considered for each individual by their architect so as to come up with a house that gives the most Qi.

Frank Gichuhi
+254 721 410684
www.a4architect.com