Andrew Muthee, the CEO AMG Realtors Ltd recalls how he lost millions of shilling from a fake land deal while he was in the diaspora.
Toegether with his wife, they pooled resources but ended up buying “air”.
Muthee left Kenya in 2006 for New York to work with Proctor and Gamble as a senior sales executive. He worked in New York for one year before he was redeployed in the same capacity to South Africa.
Before leaving Kenya, Muthee had a discussion with his wife and they decided to have an investment back home while abroad. This is how the idea of buying a plot came about.
“When we were leaving with my wife, we had a little bit of savings and, of course, we had been given a little money in the wedding. What had remained, we decided to buy a plot and we actually gave money to one of our friends. That was in 2006,” he recalls in Daring Abroad by Alex Chamwada.
This friend, Muthee recalls, would sell them a piece of land which he is yet to see more than 14 years later.
In his tenure in South Africa, he realized that there was a boom in Africa’s real estate and other sectors. Less than four years later, he resigned from his lustrous job and returned to Kenya in 2011.
He joined his father’s business of selling cars but “failed miserably”.
It is then that a friend who was selling land in Nanyuki told him that if he was able to bring him, customers, he would earn a commission for every plot sold.
In a blink of an eye, he sold 25 acres and this is where the idea to form AMG Realtors was birthed.
Muthee would then buy his first piece of land in his name and did his due diligence to earn a customer base.
It is in his fact-finding that he realized most realtor companies enter into a contractual agreement with the owner of the land to pay him his full amount of money once they (realtors) successfully sell it to their clients.
This, he says, is what causes years of delay when it comes to the processing of title deeds for plots of land bought because the original seller of the land does not transfer its ownership due to incomplete payment of his piece of land.
For AMG, they only sell land which they own and have a title deed for it. It makes it easier for their clients to obtain a title deed for their piece of land once they complete their payment for it.
Muthee adds that AMG Realtors has a money-bank guarantee policy. This means that after 60 days, havig paid fully for the piece of land but you are yet to get a title deed for it; AMG Realtors will refund you the whole amount of money you paid for.
His client base is largely dominated by Kenyans – in Kenya or abroad.
“Diaspora is 80% of our sales today and it’s a growing market. The diaspora wants to invest back home,” he offers.
One of the greatest achievement he has made is winning the trust of Kenyans in the diaspora.