Why diaspora folks are easy prey for real estate cons

The Battle of the Bulge was one of the deadliest American military battles of all time. It is recorded that 19,000 American soldiers were killed, 70,000 wounded or missing, in just over a month as Nazi Germany made a final push against the Allies.

Part of the reason it was so bloody is because Americans were surprised. And part of the reason they were surprised is that in the rational minds of the US generals, it made no sense for the Germans to attack.

Why didn’t an attack make sense?

There are several things that were against them. For starters, the Germans didn’t have enough troops to mount a successful counterattack, and the few that were left were often children under 18 with no combat experience.

In addition, they didn’t have enough fuel and they were running out of food. Further, the terrain of the Ardennes Forest in Belgium stacked monumental odds against them. Lastly, the weather was objectively atrocious.

The Allies knew all this. And they, rightfully so, reasoned that any rational thinking German commander would not launch a counterattack. So the American lines were left thin and ill-supplied. And then, boom, the Germans attacked.

Historian Stephen Ambrose notes that Eisenhower and General Omar Bradley got all the war planning reasoning and logic right in late 1944 except for one detail – the extent to which Hitler had lost his mind.

What the American generals overlooked was how unhinged Hitler had become. He wasn’t rational. He was living in his own world detached from reality. In fact an aide to General Bradley is quoted saying during the war: “If we were fighting reasonable people they would have surrendered long ago.”

There are similarities between the fatal assumption the Americans made about Hitler and those our diaspora make while investing in real estate back home. It obvious that our diaspora have been any easy pick for the real estate con gamers.

Too many of them have lost millions of shillings while attempting to do the noble thing of investing back home, and many continue to. But why are people who have tasted some of the best working systems of humanity unable to detect a flawed one?

There are indeed many reasons why real estate cons find it easy to manipulate our diaspora. However, the numero uno reason to this draws similarity to the Americans blunder while dealing with the Germans – applying rationality: Assuming that the people they are dealing with obey and follow the laws of being logical and rational. And often, they are caught flat-footed.

I have been privileged to interact with many diaspora people who have been conned in real estate. I say privileged not to in any way take pride in their ordeals, but it is because of the valuable lessons that I drew from these interactions.

These words echo most of diaspora real estate cons conversations: “I assumed that since the project was advertised on TV it was legit; I assumed that since it was recommended by my brother it was okay; I assumed that since the developer had billboards all over Nairobi the project made sense; I assumed that there was no way a registered contractor can do that. Assumptions based on rationale, logic and making sense.

This has been the reason for most our diaspora pain. It is time to realise that you are not dealing with rational and logical people. These are profoundly uncouth and valiantly unhinged people who will never make sense.

It is impossible to fully comprehend some of the real estate cons that we have witnessed in this industry over the last decade or so. Things that would fit fiction movies. They are mind boggling, unreasonable and egregious.

Our diaspora has been an easy target primarily because, like the American generals, they continue to apply logic on unhinged people. I dare say that nearly all real estate con game arsenals are pointed towards the diaspora. It is an easy target.

Our diaspora must make peace with this while dealing in real estate. The people who are going to con you are not rational and are unhinged. Be careful. Trust but verify.

—The writer is Construction and Real Estate Expert