Dennis Kioko

A survey done by yours truly has found that 2 bedrooms are the most popular units in Nairobi. Of 43 respondents to my survey, just about half of them at 48.8% were renting 2 bedroom units. The story, however, is in 3 bedroom rentals. While these come third in terms of preference at 18.6% after self contained 1 bedrooms at 30%, there indeed is a shortage of 3 bedrooms in the city. Rather, there is a mismatch of demand of 3 bedrooms and supply of the same. The devil in the details is in the people leasing 2 bedrooms. A separate survey shows that while 71.4% of people leasing 2 bedrooms were interested in 2 bedrooms, 33.3%, or about an entire third settled on 2 bedrooms out of lack of their preferred units. Of the 33.3% that settled on 2 bedrooms, 72.7% were interested in 3 bedrooms while the rest were equally interested in the rest of the units. What my survey shows is that there is a 21% shortfall in the supply of 3 bedrooms - in simple language, 1 in 5 people leasing a...