Finding a House

When we got my husband’s job offer, we honestly did not think too much. Of course, we talked, discussed, and I also did my homework: searched the Internet, read books, blogs, magazines,  etc. And that was it! We made our decision and said "yes." Prior to moving to Nairobi, we lived in Istanbul for less than 4 years, and before Istanbul, we lived in US for so long that you get to a point where you are so spoiled that you forget how things work in countries other than the US...

We boarded Turkish Airlines (6 hours flight, not bad:)) on a direct flight to Nairobi. My first visit to Nairobi was in the month of February, 2012. Since we had done our research, we pretty much knew which areas we would look at for a house. Our first option was Karen, then Westlands, and Kileleshwa. But honestly, after reading so much about Karen, which is a very popular suburb among expatriates, I had kind of made up my mind. We stayed in Nairobi for five days for housing and saw many houses. Just a quick note here-- we "saw only gated compounds." A gated compound is a secured place where there are a number of single houses. There are many gated stand-alone homes in and around Nairobi. They are very nice and have huge gardens, staff quarters and so on, but I was never interested seeing one. Personally, I wanted my kids to play outside, safely, with other kids, and live their childhood as freely as possible in todays' high-tech world.

Like in any other country, finding the right house was not easy and quick for us, especially in such a short period of time! You get to talk to so many realtors, call many people, and you want to see as many houses as possible, since the pictures on the Internet can definitely misguide you!!!

Luckily, on our third day, we found our house in Karen. You would probably think it was not that hard at all! But since I had seen many compounds in different areas, I had kind of  gotten an idea of what to expect and what to get for our price range. So still today, I am very happy with my decision:). My priority was to be close to my (by that time, 5 and a half yr old) daughter’s school since road conditions can become a little bit problematic (this will be covered in another blog). And our second priority was to be close to major hospitals or a well-known doctor’s clinic (5 min from us) and, of course, shopping. And please, do not think I forgot the security. A compound has got to be a well-secured place with good and trustworthy security guys (askaris) with good recommendations from people who live there.

In Karen, single houses in gated compounds have half an acre of land, which is pretty good when you compare it with other areas in Nairobi. So here is a little info: In Karen, when you build a housing development, you must have at least half an acre per house. So, these days, there is so much construction going on in Karen that most of these houses are very big and expensive. I even came across an article about it on cnn.com.

So, if you plan to move to Nairobi, make sure to give yourself enough time to find the right house.