House Agents Ripping Tenants Off!

                                      

We all wanted to grow up faster so that we can move out of home into our own space. This was a motivating factor to work harder in school as "work hard and get a good job" didn't make sense since all adults seem rather disappointed with their jobs.

 Many of us had the image of a gated house with garage space and a garden :), now we get to understand that even being able to live in apartment is   a great thing !

I moved to the capital of Kenya a few years ago and lived with relatives and friends for as long as I could remember, regardless of how hard I had worked in school, it takes time to be able to sustain one's self financially unless it is being supported by other people. Which beats the purpose of independence and the people supporting you will always put you on a leash one way or another.

About two years ago I was blessed enough to be able to move out on my own and no matter how many stories I had heard about living alone nothing prepared me for the amount of work it takes, on the flip side the joy of making or not making decisions was amazing it was worth all the bills.

The most disappointing part of moving out in Nairobi is that when starting out you can only afford houses in certain locations , this depends on whether you want to live near work or live slightly further and commute for longer.

I have never been a fan of waking up in the middle of the night to make it to work in time, so I chose the former; this then means you pay more to live near town or business areas. After one year of living near the noise and paying more than I care to , I decided to try something new. Move away from work but closer to serenity , this comes cheaper but means less hours of sleep. I am still trying to come to terms with the idea of taking more than 20 minutes to the office, but I guess the experience away from the noisy town area will be worth it in the end, we'll see.

Did I mention the one year I lived near town, I had foolishly signed a lease that bound me to that house and if I moved out earlier I would be penalized?  True to their fears, I hated the maintenance of the house after a few months, everything was falling apart and I had to fix them, they basically bind you to a lease so that you can repair all their cheap fixtures.

Every other month someone was moving out because they did not see value for the money they were paying, some were willing to forgo the deposit , others  just didn't pay rent until they were kicked out.

One year has never been so long for me, the day I handed in my notice to vacate   was one of the happiest for me this year, I even paid rent before the other month started. Yes , you cannot live on your deposit either! Such nonsense, 

The houses away from town are in abundance and better in quality it just depends on how much distance one is willing to put between them and the city center. Usually it would be the most distance possible, however in Kenya , the transport system does not support living far from the business district  and the roads are not built for the amount of traffic we have.

For this reason I chose a place that can give me serenity but not too far from the office, 7 kilometres is far enough so I think. When I went house hunting, I was more open to living farther from the road and looked at quite a few houses, I found one that blew me away from the rest, it was just smaller than I had hoped. Other than that it would suffice until I found a bigger one with better qualities.

I decided to pay for it the next week as great houses depending on what your definition of great it, are taken very fast. Not all landlords use quality material to finish off their houses , this is rare and is only found very far away from the business district, in place like Syokimau, Thika and the like , place that would take over 45 minutes to get to town.

When I went to the agency's office to pay for the house, I was armed with questions after my bad experience with the current agency. To my shock the agency was very laissez- faire  about things , the ladies sitting at the reception had a to go into an office to verify the answer to literally each and every question I had. This was very annoying especially when we started talking if I can paint the house and payment terms. Because I would like to add some color to the house and not have white walls I need to pay another month's deposit. As for paying deposit for the house, I was being told I have to pay the next month's rent yet I was going to occupy the premises 3 weeks from the day in question. They were adamant that they cannot take half the money and take the other half a week later. 

To top it all up, once I finished the discussion one hour later, I requested the account details as they initially said I can issue a cheque then changed their minds that they don't do that for first time clients, they told me to go bring the money to their office or a bankers cheque . I was so furious, they seemed like legitimate business people , however their backward behavior made me storm out of there and lose interest in an amazing house.

The agency's incompetence and refusal to embrace technology made me wonder if landlords know how much business they are losing due to ignorance and unprofessionalism of agents. My heart broke for landlords because a day has come when people who are willing to live far away from town will not began agent despite how beautiful their houses are. It is one thing to be thorough about who you lease a house to , it’s a totally different thing to frustrate someone’s life  by making up superficial rules like you cannot pay rent via standing orders, or Mpesa because it is not a physical paper!

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