My name is Joan,33 -year-old Kenyan. I was born in Muranga and raised in Nairobi and would like to inspire upcoming entrepreneurs with my story of how I became a millionaire by starting a real estate company with just Ksh200,000.
It was in 2001 when my father, who was a high school teacher lost his life.At that time, I was working with Kenya Commercial Bank as a teller. I remember my father had not invested enough for us and he didn’t have even a house in our backyard. I was forced to take a loan and buy a house so that he could be buried there.
His death opened eyes for me because, for a long time I thought owning land was next to impossibility. I actually bought 2 acre piece of land, I partitioned it into two. The first half went to my family and the rest remained idle, for me to utilize later.
In 2003 my son was admitted at Alliance High School. To be honest I was broke and all the friends I thought could help me, chickened out. I remained with no option but to sell the land so as to cover the fees.To my surprise, the land that I had bought for Ksh 200,000 fetched Ksh 1.5 million, which made me wonder why I was in an office in the first place.
I used Ksh200, 000 to pay the school fees and remained with Ksh 1.3 million.
For three consecutive months, the money was lying idle in Money Market Fund account, it was earning interest but not impressive. A thought came, telling me that I should use the money to buy some plots in Kitengela,which were going for Ksh40,000 at that time. Imagine I bought 15 plots and waited the price to shoot. Within 3 years I was shocked to realize the each plot was going for Ksh 450,000.I sold all the plots and made a cool 6 million.
Since then I have been buying and selling land in various parts of Kenya. Today my account is worth Ksh80 million and more money is trickling in.Though I lost my father, the experience I got opened my eyes.
What I have come to realize is that you can’t go wrong with business of buying and selling land. Even if you buy land today and sell it tomorrow, you will still make profit.