Questions about housing in Nairobi

Dear Skehl,
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Yes, you could be scammed by not the landlords but those pretending to be owners but I assure you that if you have somebody here in our country it would be better to use them to view the apartment on your behalf.
Anthony

yes you can get good appartment bt depending of where you want to stay in Kenya

I think that you should look for longer term accommodation once you arrive, and go and view them in person.  That way you will understand the layout of the city and where it is best to live.  A lot of properties are let out by agents, so you would be dealing with them, rather than the landlords.  The advantage of an agent is that they will have an assortment of places that you can view. 

You need to look at area, security arrangements, reliable water supply, any service charges and how much these are (common for apartments, to pay to maintain the compound, communal areas and security.   Without knowing more about where you will be working, it is difficult to advise you on areas, but Lavington, Westlands, Riverside, Kileleshwa & Kilimani are all good.  Traffic in Nairobi is very heavy and if you live too far from your place of work, you will spend a lot of time commuting - mainly sitting in queues of traffic.

For the immediate future there are serviced apartments that do shorter term lets.  You probably need to be looking to book though, otherwise you will be looking for hotel accommodation.

If you google 'serviced apartments Nairobi', you get quite a list and a map indicating their location.

I agree with Longonot62.

First get here and settle into temporary accommodation then start looking. That way you can see exactly what you are getting rather than chatting to some online or over the phone.

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Thank you very much for the advice. I will be interning at the UN, and I have heard that Westlands is a good neighborhood that is nearby.

Hi,first book in a hotel and  look for a place to volunteer and from there you  can get genuine information on housing after all some  of the volunteer companies organise accomodation at a reasonable fee.