A property survey in 18 suburbs of Nairobi City has revealed that land price movement edged down marginally by 5.92 per cent for the year 2025 on the back on thinning demand.

The survey by HassConsult’s further indicates that Kenya’s capital city recorded a surge in land prices by at least 1.32 per cent during the last quarter of 2025 financial year despite maintaining long-term highs in 2024, marking a major shift over a decade.

HassConsult Co-CEO Sakina Hassanali in a signed press statement says the results show six years of annual growth at less than 3 per cent before the land index results rates took a negative trajectory from the second quarter of the year 2024 shooting to 5 per cent by the close of 2025.

Meanwhile, the three-year surge in satellite towns land prices, which peaked in third quarter of 2024 at 12.58 per cent, slowed far more rapidly, returning to normal levels of the decade at 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,” confirmed HassConsult Co-CEO Sakina Hassanali in a 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 down 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 see a land price decline in 2025, at 0.1 per cent but its prices continued to bounce back 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 and the worst performers picking 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 over 12 per cent for the year but of 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, the Co-CEO added that prices continued to accelerate in Ruiru, jumping a further 3.4 per cent in the last three months of the year and taking annual growth to 10.7 per cent.

She reported that growth also picked up in Thika, Ruaka, Ongata Rongai and Kiambu, with only Kiambu delivering a price fall for the year, of 1.5 per cent, stabilized further in the final quarter by a 0.3 per cent rise.

• A Tell Media / KNA report / By Michael Omondi