A tightly knit group of youth with “Hustle and Heart” says 20-hour days, a never-say-die mentality and steely focus are the forces behind a budding real estate “adventure.”
By Eric Obwogi
Many people jump onto the entreneurship bandwagon armed with great ideas and a bucketful of cash believing they are ready to conquer a market that is probably flooded with similar concepts clothed differently. It takes much more to disrupt a market that is saturated with business ideas at different stages of implementation, others in segments that are already in a glut leaving the prospectors with dead stock. For real estate, it can be a pain!
Innovation is key, but a lot of what entrepreneurship is all about is really the hustle that occurs behind the scenes. Being able to see the finished project before you even get started on it, gathering resources, taking action believing it is done by holding the vision and going after it with absolute positive belief and ceaseless importunity. Forming a mastermind alliance to pool strengths would be smart.
For the group at KWEA, it is about finding a niche, a distinct identity in a crowded playing field characterized by cut-throat competition where they intend to announce their arrival with innovative real estate products.
The passion for their hustle is palpable. Carolyne Mcharo, one of the team of young minds daring to try and shake up a market full of industry “big boys” with multibillion shilling behemoths of projects, tells of 20-hour working days, often tampered with frustration and near despair, tight budgets and sheer luck at times, in their quest to see the inaugural project over the line. It indeed is an arduous marathon, not a sprint.
“What we lacked in financial capital we made up for with determination and wits; intellectual capital or sweat equity if you may,” she says.
“We immersed ourselves into KWEA right from inception of the company, leveraging our experiences, relationship-building skills and the need to excel at all costs. Our shared commitment to innovate formed the framework for our business. We sought to change the mindset of real estate investing when we developed our first project Kozi Suites in Syokimau which is currently under construction,” adds Carol.
“We always knew we couldn’t qualify for any loans. All we had was lots of hustle and heart,” she says of the group, all young professionals with a background in the real estate sector.
Ms. Mcharo says the group decided to veer off the oft travelled conventional construction development path with its notoriously high capital outlays but shrinking returns on investment, and embarked on a quest to do extensive research on alternative real estate products that could be more worthwhile to an investor while maintaining a relative ease of onboarding.
“We realized that cash flows needed to be at the center of any sensible real estate investment for the end user,” says Ms. Mcharo. “It is from asking the right questions that Kozi Suites came about. The first two investors bought into literally nothing but the KWEA “hustle and heart,” purchasing the very first units when they were just a dream and drawings on tracing paper,” she discloses.
This enabled the group to acquire land and to lease and fit-out a modest but cozy office at the Nextgen mall office suites.
The KWEA flagship development, KOZI suites is on Chady Road, Syokimau in Nairobi. The location was carefully selected from a myriad of other possible locations within Nairobi and its metropolitan areas as it taps into the short stays market brought about by the major transport nodes around the area namely the airport and SGR terminus among other factors. We are putting up 104 studios and one bedroom units that have been well articulated to satisfy the needs of a guest on a short to medium term stay.
KWEA’s next project in their real estate adventure is the proposed Adana Student Pods, whose flagship development shall be in Rongai. This is another idea through which Wasee wa Kwea intend to excite the market with innovative real estate products that make investment sense.
“To offer a complete solution, we are in discussions with experts in this relatively new segment, so as to plug any knowledge deficit as well as to get partners who would ultimately manage the development on behalf of the investors,” she concludes.
