Nairobi suburbs outpace satellite towns in land price growth

A survey covering 18 suburbs of Nairobi City has revealed that land price growth edged down marginally to 5.92 per cent in 2025.

The report, undertaken by HassConsult, further indicates that the capital recorded a surge in land prices of at least 1.32 per cent during the fourth quarter of the 2025 financial year, despite maintaining long-term highs in 2024, marking a major shift over the past decade.

In a signed press statement, HassConsult Co-CEO Sakina Hassanali said the results record six years of annual growth of less than 3 per cent before the land price index took a negative trajectory from the second quarter of 2024, rising to 5 per cent by the close of 2025.

Meanwhile, the three-year surge in satellite town land prices, which peaked in the third quarter of 2024 at 12.58 per cent, slowed far more rapidly, returning to decade-average levels of 6.21 per cent at the end of 2025, on quarterly growth of 1.59 per cent.

“2024 and 2025 land price growth has been the strongest we have experienced in Nairobi in a decade, driven by a chase for high-end locations for development,” Hassanali confirmed in the press statement.

This saw ongoing growth concentrated in some of the city’s wealthiest suburbs in the fourth quarter. Prices continued to surge in Karen, Kilimani, Kitisuru, Gigiri, Riverside and Runda, with a 3 per cent rise in Karen — the largest for the quarter — lifting its annual growth to 10.2 per cent.

However, other 2025 hotspots such as Spring Valley, Loresho and Upper Hill slowed sharply, leading to a general weakening in headline growth.

In Spring Valley, Hassanali said annual growth of 10.4 per cent reflected hefty rises earlier in the year, but in the fourth quarter prices rose by just 0.5 per cent.

According to the Co-CEO, Ridgeways was the only one of Nairobi’s 18 monitored suburbs to record a land price decline in 2025, at 0.1 per cent. However, prices continued to recover in the final quarter from falls earlier in the year, with a further 0.6 per cent rise from September to December.

“Only Muthangari, Muthaiga and Westlands reported price falls in the final quarter of 2025, all of less than 1 per cent, with the biggest decline in Muthangari at 0.8 per cent,” she disclosed.

In the satellite towns, the final quarter saw a levelling out of growth, with hotspots slowing while the weakest performers picked up.

Growth was more subdued in the fourth quarter in the year’s most heated towns — Juja, Limuru and Kiserian — all of which experienced land price growth of more than 12 per cent for the year, but 3 per cent or less in the final quarter.

Of these, Hassanali said Juja remained the most buoyant, while Kiserian slowed the most at year end, with prices rising just 1.3 per cent from September to December.

On the other hand, she added that prices continued to accelerate in Ruiru, jumping a further 3.4 per cent in the last three months of the year and pushing annual growth to 10.7 per cent.

She also reported that growth picked up in Thika, Ruaka, Ongata Rongai and Kiambu, with only Kiambu recording a price fall for the year, at 1.5 per cent, before stabilising in the final quarter with a 0.3 per cent rise.