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Q & A: Linking Kenyans With Low-Cost Rental Houses

Q & A: Linking Kenyans With Low-Cost Rental Houses

After graduating from a Kenyan university in August, classmates Piero Muguna Mbaabu, Kelvin Githuka Kihiu and Joshua Mutua Nzuki couldn’t find reasonably priced rental homes in Nairobi.

Apart from the time and cost involved in house hunting, the trio found that online property classified ads catered only to high-end clientele.

So they founded KejaHunt, a Nairobi-based company that lists classified ads for rental apartments with rents starting as low as $62 per month.

Keja is slang in Swahili for “house” and is derived from the word for “cage.”

More Africans are accessing the Internet today than ever. Entrepreneurs in turn are developing applications targeting users — most of them, youth.

 AFKInsider caught up with the founders of KejaHunt — all recent graduates of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

Mbaabu, 23, has a bachelor’s degree in business information technology. He’s passionate about creating software solutions and is KejaHunt’s lead marketer.

Kihiu, 23, has a bachelor’s degree in business information technology and is passionate about creating business solutions. He is KejaHunt’s business leader.

Nzuki, 22, is the youngest founder of KejaHunt. He also has a bachelor’s degree in business information technology and is devoted to usability and user experience. He is KejaHunt’s top developer.

AFKI: How did KejaHunt come to be?

KejaHunt: Fresh from college in August of 2013 we felt the need to find apartments to move into. That proved to be a daunting task. Finding a good rental pad being let out at a comfortable rate for fresh college graduates was close to impossible. It required a lot of time view the different houses and a great expense paying fares and viewing fees to real estate agents.

As a last resort we checked out the existing online property listing platforms which only added to our frustrations. They all catered for the high-end market.

We realized a huge gap that we could take advantage of. According to our research we realized that a large percentage – close to 49 percent actually – of the total Kenyan population, comprising youth, faces that same problem.  They mostly fall in the low- and middle-income earners’ bracket.

This population makes up 80 percent of the housing demand in Kenya today and so with this realized, the idea of providing an online property-listing platform catering for this larger population was born.

AFKI: What is KejaHunt’s business model and how does it fit in the region’s housing market?

KejaHunt: We do not charge the house hunters to access the properties listed on our platform. Having being heartbroken house hunters at one point, we realize that that would only add to clients’ frustrations in finding their ideal rentals.

We however charge property owners a flat rate of KES 500 ($6) per listing on the platform. This is our main revenue stream. According to a survey we carried out, most of the property owners desist from listing on online platforms because they are expensive. With this information we offered the property owners a better deal which is the ($6) flat rate per listing.

There are also packages for advertising on the platform. We have weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annual and annual charges for the advertisements featured on our site.

Our business model works well for the region as our pricing is fair and takes into consideration that we are a developing region.

AFKI: How viable is the market for low-cost rental houses that have rents from as low as KES 5,000 ($60) per month?

KejaHunt: Our target market is the 49 percent of potential tenants that fit into the low-income bracket and are considered youth. They can’t afford to rent the houses listed on other property listing platforms.

Our market research indicates high viability since we do not compete for the high-end market meaning we are catering for an overlooked and “neglected” portion.

There are many property owners with houses targeting this market but they lack an adequate channel to get the word out.  We happen to provide them with an efficient channel and at a very reasonable price.

AFKI: One feature of KejaHunt is that it allows users to look for roommates and uses Facebook as a reference tool. Tell us more about this.

KejaHunt: Wanting to help users to cut on costs and most of them being pooled from the youth bracket, the roommate feature was born.

Using social graph to integrate the system with Facebook helps people seeking roommates run background checks on them using the mutual friends. We also realized that people are more comfortable staying with someone from their social circles. It is easier to trust the other party knowing that in case of any eventuality you can reach out to the mutual friends.

AFKI: How difficult is it for African startups to get funding?

KejaHunt: Most investors in Africa are yet to warm up to budding companies, preferring instead to jump in when the business has a good track record, as opposed to incubating startups. But business incubators like NaiLab where we are incubated are working hard to even these odds.

AFKI: What is the next step for KejaHunt?

KejaHunt: Kejahunt is working towards covering the whole of East Africa in the next two years. Kenya has been a great launchpad for the company — with a fair share of challenges — and we believe if we can make it here we can make it in greater East Africa.

AFKI: How have you been able to strike a balance between your business and personal friendships?

KejaHunt: Yes we are friends but when it comes to business matters we all give our all and push each other to ensure that the goals are met. We keep our relationship professional when it comes to matters concerning KejaHunt.