Buying property in Kenya guide- How to invest in superior Condominiums

Condo or condominium is a housing option that looks like an apartment complex. Condo ownership lets the owner to own the condo only not the land. Condo owners have to pay monthly fee for maintaining common areas. 

Generally the association of property owners manages condominiums. Owners of condominium can do anything inside their unit but not the outside. You’ve to clear all related points that what you can do or not inside the condominium at the time of signing the contract. You should check that whether it satisfies your requirements or not. 

Condominium buying is just like purchasing single-family homes. Condominium offers a joint ownership of real estate and partners can use common recreational areas. Condo buying is the cheaper option as compared to real estate market. It offers great living opportunity in United States. It is the great option for the people who travel a lot. Several owners of real property offer condos with kitchens and private bedroom that enables residents of condominium to cook their food. They can save money by cooking their meal own. 

Condo buying offers ownership without maintenance harassment, repairs and security concerns. Condos are usually luxurious and cheap housing options and you can spend your holidays at beautiful locations. Before any type of purchase check parking spaces, bathrooms, fireplace, condos’ area, and amenities such as pool, health club etc., area costs, and security arrangement.

Condos’ buying is an important financial investment. Before purchasing unique condominium answer yourself for some general questions like:

Which area of the city is best suitable to your lifestyle?

What type of condo do you want? 

How much you can pay for it?

How do you make purchase of condominium?

You should research for the builders’ reputation on Internet or personally before any type of agreement. Read purchase and sale agreement carefully and check all terms and conditions that will apply on the transaction. Be sure about all details of condo homeowner association that includes costs of monthly maintenance fee. The decision of buying condo should be based on social, legal and financial understanding. You should check whether the property is right for you and your family for a long period. Important documents such as the declaration, operating budget, management agreement and regulatory agreement should be reviewed at the time of buying a condominium. 

Condo buying is not the best option for all. People who don’t want to share certain areas, like pool etc, with other condos owner should go for single home ownership instead of condominium. Sometimes total price of condo is lower than single-unit home. Condos’ residents should be aware of condominium settings. They can share their problems in monthly meeting with the association. It is compulsory to attend meetings and discussions. You should be active in community events while living in condominium.

You can talk to several professionals online to get all useful information about a particular area. They will provide significant information to make an easy condo buying. You should make your condos buying with complete understanding and awareness. 

Go to www.kenyan-real-estate.com for more clues on real estate world.

Accommodation in Kenya: Considerations for a Landlord before Proceeding to Evict a Tenant

There comes a time when every landlord finds himself / herself in a difficult position of having his rental property occupied by a tenant who is not paying rent, or is making a nuisance of himself and causing problems for other tenants, or is causing immense damage to the rental unit, or his / her conduct makes it impossible to continue with a landlord / tenant relationship. Though, state laws governing eviction vary significantly, the following are a few tips to help landlords finding themselves in the unpleasantly messy situation of evicting a tenant.

As the owner of a significant number of residential units, it will be to your benefit to engage a lawyer to advice you on eviction issues, as well as, for handling legal actions. An established relationship with a lawyer is useful as he will carry out various legal tasks charging a flat fee only, whereas, hiring a lawyer on a case to case basis can result in much higher legal fees.

Evicting a Tenant for Non-payment of Rent

The eviction process involves serving a formal notice, informing the tenant the rent is overdue, and he / she faces possible eviction, if they do not pay on time. If a landlord is not knowledgeable about the legal terms of a notice, there are per-printed forms which fulfill all legal requirements for a proper notice. In case, the rent arrearage has not been paid after the legally defined period i.e. usually, about a week, a landlord can begin eviction proceedings on the basis of non-payment of rent.

Bear in mind, if the tenant makes a partial payment during the eviction process, in most jurisdictions the acceptance of any payment of rent, even a small amount, can result in dismissal of the eviction lawsuit for non-payment.

Lease Violation

When a tenant does not comply with the terms of the lease he / she signed, a landlord must provide a written warning, referring to the lease clause being violated, and allow him / her time to remedy the problem. This is so the tenant cannot later claim ignorance that he / she did not know, they were in violation of the lease, or they received no notice of the violation. The judge will be in favor of the landlord if it is established the tenant ignored a prior notice and the deadline.

Health and Safety Issues

Certain tenants may pose a health or safety problem for other tenants or for the property, in general. In many jurisdictions, it is permissible for the landlord to evict tenants whose conduct is hazardous to the health of other tenants or can damage the property. First of all, a landlord should serve the tenant with a fixed period of time notice (a week) to remedy or repair the problem, or else move out. If no corrective action is taken, a landlord can proceed with the eviction proceedings.

Even if a tenant resolves the issue, but you still want him / her out, serve them a notice on eviction on health or safety grounds, as well as, a notice stating their tenancy is being terminated.

Bankruptcy

In the event a tenant files for bankruptcy, an automatic stay prevents a landlord from continuing with the eviction proceedings until the bankruptcy is resolved, or the bankruptcy court permits eviction proceedings to continue by lifting the stay. This may require a motion to be brought before the bankruptcy court, asking for the stay to be lifted.

Tenant Counter-Claims

When a landlord begins eviction proceedings, some tenant may bring counter-claims against the landlord, such as, inadequate maintenance of property or violation of the lease, and may ask the court to stop eviction proceedings or else for a substantial rent decrease in arrearage owed.

This is why it is good practice to keep written records of any complaints received from tenants about the rental unit or common areas, and steps taken by the landlord to resolve them, as also with warnings of tenant misconduct. Remember a landlord’s can preclude a tenant’s claim that despite repeatedly complaining about a problem with their unit, the landlord failed to respond with positive action, as long as the landlord has kept records of all interaction with the tenant and of action taken.

Trials

Before going to court, a landlord must ensure all his documentation in relation to the case is in order and there is nothing missing. Unless a landlord is conversant with the rental laws of his state and has had enough experience in eviction cases, it is also advisable to engage a lawyer, well versed in property law of the state a landlord’s rental property resides in.

The above should provide you with enough knowledge of what is required for a successful eviction. 

For more visit www.kenyan-real-estate.com

Real Estate in Nairobi Kenya – First Impressions Count When Selling Your Home

People selling their homes via real estate brokers get lots of coaching. People selling their own homes as FSBOs need the same. One of the most important topics on which FSBOs can benefit from coaching is “curb appeal.” How does your home look when a potential buyer drives up to the curb and takes that all important first look?

Be Sure It Looks Great

Single family residences require the most work. The FSBO seller of a single family home also has the most control of what is seen from the curb, so let’s start there. Make sure grass is cut, leaves are raked, sidewalks swept and edged, and planting beds are freshly mulched. That’s just the beginning.

Narrow walks leading to front doors are not inviting. If you can afford to have the walk replaced with a wider one, do it. A walk with some curve to it is often appealing. One which is wider where it meets the public walk and wider as it reaches the front steps can look particularly inviting. If two men can approach your front door side by side without jostling each other, your walk is sufficiently wide.

What if you have a narrow walk and a small budget? You can improvise with brick, stone, or concrete pavers from Lowes or Home Depot if you’re handy and healthy.  Choose whichever material is most compatible with your house. Dig out the grass on either side of your walk and lay a line of the chosen paving materials parallel along each side of your walk. Fill in with mulch (not the colored type, just good earth toned natural stuff, please), sand, or river gravel. Make sure there’s a crisp edge where the grass starts.

Large, overgrown shrubs that crowd the house and cover windows are a negative. Prune them back. If there is a narrow planting bed along the front of the house, widen it. Have the bed swoop in a curve around to the side of the house. Depending on the size and scale of the house, plant something like a dogwood, a butterfly bush or a holly in the curve at the corner of the house. Make sure it will not be so close or so large as to overwhelm the house in a few years. Fill in with smaller plants at the front of the widened bed. Mulch.  Mulch. Mulch. But the mulch should be only two or three inches deep. Don’t let it pile up on the trunks of trees.

Plant colorful flowers in containers on either side of the front door if the season is conducive. Geraniums work well in sunny spots. Impatiens are good in shade. Make sure the containers are of natural materials. Most plastic containers look tacky and cheap.  Advertisements for luxury cars show them near expensive houses and beautifully dressed people for a reason. Association. You want the things seen on the way to your front door to be in good taste and of excellent quality. 

Fortunately, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be expensive. Clay pots are good. Old iron urns are great with traditional homes. Oak barrels can look wonderful with rustic homes. The addition of a bit of trailing ivy or sweet potato vines can be attractive. It’s possible to achieve a miniature garden by combining several sorts of plants in larger containers.

Make sure the front door is clean and the paint is in good condition. Be sure it swings on its hinges well. It needs to open and close well and firmly. The doorknob should work well and not have any “bobble” motion when it’s used.  Exterior light fixtures should be clean and free of rust.  Front windows should be clean and shining.

When preparing to sell your house, make sure you get everything in order. As superficial as it may sound, curb appeal is a dominant factor in getting sales. 

For more educative hints on real estate sector, kindly view www.kenyan-real-estate.com

Kenyan Real Estate Mortgage, best way to invest

Kenyan Real Estate investing is being fueled by baby boomers purchase of significant number of real estate properties.  Additionally, home selling is also experiencing growth because prices of real estate properties are now soaring.  People thus want to take advantage of this booming industry.

Sellers are thus enjoying profit that enables them to trade up and cash in on the appreciation trend.

Kenyan Real Estate Mortgage on the other hand is being given a good boost by all these developments.  Kenya bankers and mortgage companies are thus taking on the challenge of designing variety in their Kenya mortgage programs.

This is being done to take advantage of the growing number of interest buyers and sellers of Kenyan Real Estate properties.

Kenya mortgage programs are now as varied as the population seeking the exciting life in this state.

If you want to take advantage of these wonderful developments in the Kenya real estate arena, you may need to check out your financial condition if really you can afford real estate investing at this time.

Write down your income from all sources and on another column write down your expenses, normal or otherwise.  The balance is the free money you can use for acquiring real estate properties or paying mortgage loans.

You may however need to make sure that this is sufficient and in fact less than the requirement of at least one-third of your total household income.  Ensuring you will be able to keep up with the mortgage payments will avoid frustration and loosing money in real estate investing.

You may also need to consider if you are expecting a handsome amount to come in at a later time.  This possibility may be advantageous for a balloon payment so that you will only need to do interest only mortgage payments in your new Kenya property.

It may help to realize that should you not expect any fat money coming in later, you need not despair.

Kenya mortgage programs will still ensure you can take advantage of the home value appreciations currently on an upward trend in this state.

Various Kenya mortgage types are available such as:

• Fixed Rate Mortgage (FRM)
• Fixed Rate Balloon Mortgage
• Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM)
• Intermediate ARM
• Second mortgages
• Equity Lines

To help you decide which of options you can take and to help you assess your financial condition, you may get in touch with a mortgage counselor.  You can find experienced and reliable mortgage counselors on net.  The counselors are one of the best you can find in Kenya can be easily come in contact through online.

They will give you all the necessary information and will work with you until you are comfortable with your decision. 

This is because the counselors understand that investing is such a hard task to tackle and that you will need all the help you can get, so grab that phone and call them.

To give you an edge and a clearer understanding of what to offer, you may visit our website at www.kenyan-real-estate.com