“Uganda, it is time to make money!” That is the rallying cry from real estate developer Janat Kiwanuka, and we sure hope someone is listening.
Kiwanuka was born in Mulago, but moved with her family to the United Kingdom when she was one year old, to very humble diaspora beginnings, but now lives with a determination to change Uganda’s skyline, one building at a time.
“My mum worked as a cleaner, as well as a care worker, to support the family, because my father sadly passed away when I was quite young,” she told The Observer.
Kiwanuka initially set her eyes on a career in law but did not finish her Law degree at university, as destiny clearly had other plans for her, because today, she is living her dream in real estate development. The dream started taking shape after she had moved to study in the USA for a year and had a job at a tech company to work in advertising for technology.
“While I was working for that company – a start-up – I learnt a lot of things, lots about responsibility, lots about ownership, and there were many, many stressful moments, very sad moments, but also really exciting moments. That company is the one that moved me to Singapore, a place I’d never heard of before in my life, and I was like, sure, I’ll go, because why not!”
While she was in Singapore for five years, Kiwanuka joined Google.
“I realised ‘big corporate’ really was not where I was growing and thriving. You don’t get the same amount of exposure, satisfaction and responsibility like you do in a small start-up. So, since I had already started working on these developments – I actually had my first one way back; a really small, old-school kind of rental unit – this is where this [real estate] concept started to grow. It is still kind of an experiment, but I’m very excited for this experiment.”
THE EXPERIMENT
Uganda offers a wealth of opportunities with its young population, a fast-growing economy and an array of investment opportunities, key areas being agribusiness, real estate, technology and innovation, renewable energy, tourism and hospitality, and financial services.
“It used to take hours to get to the airport from Zzana, but now with the Entebbe expressway, it’s so fast. Which is a big difference as that means across all industries, everything can happen faster; people can actually rely on Uganda as an economy to deliver,” Kiwanuka said.
“There is a joke we used to have with my friends in Asia that, ‘if you don’t find a Chinese person in a country, it means that country is not making money’. And so, as soon as I came here and saw Chinese, I was like, “Uganda, it’s time to make money.”
Kiwanuka decided to invest in real estate construction. She buys land, builds housing units and then puts the whole development up for sale once it is fully occupied and making money. Based in London, she hires only Ugandans for the building and management process as a way to give back to the community.
“There are lots of people thinking of getting into real estate and that’s why we are making developments to make it more accessible, so they don’t have to think about the cost of building, plumbers, electricians, landscapers… We make it a full package with return already,” she said.
Aged just 27, Kiwanuka wants to support young people get into an industry currently dominated by older investors set in their ways.
“Our goal is to challenge the market, because it is very much dominated by the same type of people: older men who don’t want to change the way things are.”
So far, she has managed to raise three high- rise structures in Kansanga in the last three years, studio apartments called Emerald Gardens. Working with her siblings and husband – also her co-founders in the real estate business, AfriPearl – these young developers are creating a special dynamic where they can have some honest discussions as family, but also take solid business decisions.
“Business is a conflict sometimes, you know. You can disagree on certain things, yet the key thing is being able to get to a solution with no one getting very emotional about it. And one thing I’ve really learned at Google is, often, especially in a big organisation, we made a lot of decisions that made no sense for the sake of cohesion. And you’ve actually got to be able to push for the thing that makes sense and also have accountability. So, we have a very good dynamic where everyone’s ideas are brought to the table and we’ll try it out. Even if someone doesn’t really believe it.”
The siblings are now even venturing into landscaping, where they were initially sub-contracting that; they have discovered their potential there and plan to do more landscaping on all their future projects. It helps that Kiwanuka has entered the Ugandan real estate market at a time when there is an explosion in construction and architectural innovation; so, her work can only be exciting.
“Every time I come here – and I think I’ve come here three times in the last like six months – something has changed. There is so much new infrastructure and projects that are also ongoing.”
True, former remote villages are regularly being transformed into affluent suburbia as developers move in with modern architecture, accessibility and amenities.
“Before we came here, we made a stop in Nairobi, because I wanted to see another big African city that has been quite successful. They are doing well! They look amazing, and I’m like, why can’t that be Uganda? And then every time I come here now I really see us trying to push ourselves more into the future; so, yeah it is really exciting,” Kiwanuka said.
BLESSINGS FROM THE HORN OF AFRICA
Her Emeralds Gardens located on Pipe road Kansanga was 100 percent occupied within a month of opening, exciting the young group further, and unlike the weariness with which some Ugandans view the burgeoning communities from the Horn of Africa, Kiwanuka has found them to be such a blessing.
“I would definitely say a big factor is the Eritrean diaspora. They have formed their own kind of hubs of community, which is very common when you have immigration. In the UK, Ugandans congregate with other Ugandans when they first move to the there because safety and security are very important,” she said.
The areas of Kabalagala, Kansanga and Ggaba have indeed been taken over by Eritrean immigrants, which has raised the cost of real estate and rent, to the chagrin of indigenous Ugandans and glee of developers and landlords.
The general cost of housing closer to the city is becoming more expensive, especially with the more luxurious high-rise complexes, which has pushed Ugandans further out of the city as Eritrean, Sudanese, South Sudanese and Somali communities move in. In turn, the ‘urban-rural exodus’ has opened up formerly remote places to architectural marvels and development.
Kiwanuka warns young people intending to wade into the real estate industry to keep their eyes open, because of the rampant fraud and risks involved, like in any other business. But she urges them, nonetheless, to dive in.
“It’s really hard to trust people with your money. It is a lot of money. There’s always a risk; the landlord just screwing you over even though you paid this amount of money, the tenants not paying in time and damaging the property… Trusting that people have the rights they do when they sell you these properties. There’s always risk in any investment anyway, right? My husband actually works in investment, and there’s always risk, regardless, because you can never really know the future,” Kiwanuka said.
“But we take risks every single day. I mean, it’s a risk to walk outside and get on a boda boda.”
Regardless the risks involved in the industry she has ventured into, Kiwanuka cannot resist smiling with satisfaction as she looks up at her Emerald Gardens, where the interview took place – quite an accomplishment for someone at 27 years.
It is a feeling she wishes for other Gen Zs like herself; ditch the fear and go all in!
“You can’t allow fear to drive your life, because you can’t predict the future. What if nothing bad happens and you end up with something like this?” she points to her building, exuding great contentment.
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