African property market spells opportunities while London is for the long-term, says Knight Frank chief
Rising investments in infrastructure in Africa will augur a rise in property values, according to the consultancy
Knight Frank, one of the world’s leading property consultants, is in the midst of a five-year expansion plan covering 12 target cities and markets: San Francisco, New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Dubai, Mumbai, Nairobi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Sydney.
In Africa, Knight Frank Chairman Alistair Elliott said that Nairobi, Kenya, would be Knight Frank’s “access city” to the continent. “We believe that the African continent in the next decade is only going to develop in one direction, and that is generally more stability, generally more transparency and generally more business confidence.”
He noted that rising investments in infrastructure generally augur a rise in property values. China’s infrastructure investments in Africa are well known. In June 2017, Kenya opened up a new 470-kilometre rail connection between the port city of Mombasa and Nairobi, a US$3.2 billion project funded by China, and in May, the Nigerian government awarded a US$6.7 billion railway project to a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corporation to build a line connecting the capital, Lagos, to Kano, the second largest city.
Yet, Elliott remains optimistic about London’s longer-term prospects.
“The markets have stood up (to Brexit fear) incredibly well. If you roll back the clock two years, people were giving gloomy forecasts; it hasn’t happened. We have the details of Brexit to come [and] I do not believe it will be as aggressive an experience for London real estate markets as people originally thought.”