House hunters ditch expensive agents for WhatsApp groups

“These platforms make it easy to find anything,” he says. He turned to TikTok to search for a decent one-bedroom apartment in three areas: Ngong Road, Waiyaki Way, or Thika Road.

“I thought these three areas would be easy to navigate with public transport. They would provide convenient access points for both my professional and social life.”

His first shock was the city’s exorbitant rent rates, which he says are too expensive for a beginner with a penchant for modernity and style.

“You don’t realise these things until you start paying rent. Some of the quoted amounts would convert me to a rent-paying slave. I’d only be working to pay rent.”

He continued his search, which led him to promising listings from housing agents who, at first, seemed to understand his preferences and had suitable options for his needs.

“I wanted a spacious place with at least one balcony, not too far from a main road, and with reliable amenities like water, power, and internet connectivity. You’d think that’s the norm and not the exception when looking for housing; these shouldn’t be presented as extras or benefits that come with an apartment.”

This, however, did not turn out as smooth as it sounded on the phone: “I found an agent who I think was out to make a killing from me. His “appearance fee” is Sh2,000. This is money he charges for information—fair enough. If you want him to take you physically to the mentioned house, he charges an additional Sh1,500, which he refers to as an inconvenience fee.”

That would set him off with Sh3,500 if he settled on the first house he’d be taken to. Except that’s not the case.

“I believe most of these agents have gone rogue. I’d have no problem paying for a service that is fairly charged. But, the agents deliberately take you to a house pulled so far away from your outlined specifications for them to conveniently offer to take you to another one that is closer to what you want.”

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Frustrated by two agents and the loss of time and money, Mr Momanyi went on TikTok to look further where he found scores of people with a similar problem, who suggested the formation of a WhatsApp group to help one another find accommodation in the city.

“By the time I joined the group, it had 700 members; it kept growing that the groups had to be condensed to a community to accommodate more people."

 Later on, he wrote a series of posts on X to ‘rant’ about his experience. Interactions on the posts led him to find himself on a Telegram Channel where people share house-hunting information and leads freely. It was on these platforms that he connected with a property owner along Thika Road whose apartment, he moved to.

When Esther Njeri wanted to move with her family from Naivasha, she commuted to Nairobi for a whole week, looking for a house that would suit her family’s needs.

After the daily commute—which proved expensive and tiring—she opted to look for a house via an agent. The 28-year-old social media influencer found an agent who promised the exact house she had in mind.

“I was coming from a place of desperation and was pressed for time to move. When I paid the viewing and inconvenience fees, all the houses the agent had shared on Whatsapp suddenly became occupied.”

The false advertising, according to her, is where the menace begins: "I was completely sold out on a chat with an agent with very nice-looking ready-for-occupation apartments.”

She parted with Sh2,500 under the promise that the agency would ensure that she settled upon paying. Unfortunately, the houses they saw were not the same as the advertised ones.

“Upon seeing the frustrations we went through and the little time we had on our hands, my husband challenged me to look for a solution on social media—as an influencer and avid user of TikTok; he opined that maybe there was an answer to our troubles on the internet.”

Ms Njeri made a TikTok post that went viral—tens of thousands commented on it, suggesting the formation of a community to tackle these challenges.

Her first course of action was a single WhatsApp group, and she pasted the invitation link beneath the main post. It was this post that Mr Momanyi saw, leading him to join a group where he met his current landlord. Soon, the agents they had been escaping infiltrated the group, prompting Ms Njeri to shut it down and rethink her strategy.

The need for a platform to crowdsource housing information in the city persisted. So, she returned and created various WhatsApp groups targeting different areas of the city and soon—of the country. This eventually evolved into a WhatsApp community with around 21,000 members.

“This is a free service. Our goal is to address a pain point that has existed in the market for a long time. I don’t know where this goes from here, but it’s satisfying to see people find their desired housing.”

However, this has not been well received by some players in the industry. “I have been threatened with a legal suit by someone I believe is a rogue agent. Nevertheless, this has not dampened my spirit.”

31-year-old Wanjiru Kariuki stumbled upon Ms Njeri’s post on TikTok.

“I was not a follower of Ms Njeri, she just appeared on my for you page (FYP) lamenting about a housing problem I resonated with. I have lost money in house hunting. I paid Sh3,650 for a housing agency to find me a house. I feel like I got played because they kept taking me in circles until one month lapsed, and I was asked to pay more money—think of this as a subscription fee. So, when I saw Ms Njeri’s video, I picked it up and made a video on the same, which went viral,” says the social media and community manager.

The industry is beleaguered by greed, as observed by Ms Wanjiru.

“I had the opportunity to meet a landlord whose property I had been shown by an agent, when I interrogated about the fees I was supposed to pay, the landlord told me that they had already paid the agent for directing potential clients to the property. This means they wanted double pay for the work.”

Ms Wanjiru, through a partnership with a website-building company, is building a platform where landlords can meet potential tenants.

“We will have security measures to verify the authenticity of both the landlord and the tenant to protect both parties.”

The three believe that it is possible to have an industry that is guided by business ethics and call for proper regulation, as it happens with other professional bodies that are set and determined and where unethical conduct is punished.

According to Ribin Ondwari, a real estate legal expert, these challenges prevail for two reasons, “some of these existing regulations were enacted as far back as the 50s. The market has moved way beyond the law, and there is a need for them to be updated. The other reason is that there are individuals who work outside The Estate Agents Act, which means they do not have a code of conduct to adhere to.”

Working outside the purview of the law exposes tenants to abuse and exploitation.

Perhaps it is time we borrowed a leaf from the West.

“With proper regulations, as is the case in the West, we can overcome this challenge. Agents must be duly registered with the Estates Agents Board. This provides a channel within which tenants can raise complaints or cases of exploitation and abuse as envisioned under the law,” Mr Ondwari says.

He says tenants need to be more vigilant when getting into such agreements and should insist on transacting with people who have the authority to get into tenancy agreements.