With its current population nearing the one million ark during the day and 800,000 during the night Kigali city is a hub of various activities business or otherwise that the capital city is slowly getting busier. The busier it gets the smaller the city has become, Bruno Rangira the Director of Communication at Kigali city says the city council is currently in advanced stages of constructing housing units in Btasinda estate, “Early in March, we completed the construction of 250 houses, Batsinda alone will be composed of 1000 low cost houses for urban families to move in.”


Before Rangira’s projects open and solve Kigali’s house searching problems, finding a decent low cost house in the capital city is increasingly becoming a nightmare for Kigali residents. Today, you need more than money to get a house to rent, it is possible that you will be denied a house even you meet financial rent expectations of a prospective land lord.
Finding low cost house in Kigali today has become as elusive as finding a job, even with appropriate education qualification, you can walk the streets for years, not to forget the mockery of interviews.
With the world wide increasing cost of living in agricultural produce, even land lords have caught on like one David Hitimana said; “the prices of everything has increased, food is very expensive in he markets, why do you expect a house to be cheaper? Is food more important than a house?” he asked again.

I met Jean Baptiste outside my gate one day; he was just like any other stranger. When Jean Baptiste heard I was looking for a house to rent, he came close. What followed was a month long partnership looking for a small urban condo that a low income earner like me could afford.


Immediately JP mentioned 7 prospective houses that I could occupy and he was known well with the land lords. I was convinced by the fact the JP was on top of his game, but he could only show me two houses and on both occasions we only stopped at a short distance away from the houses from where JP would go on about the beauty of the rooms inside and the neighbourhood.

Whenever I asked to meet the land lords JP told me he had to talk to them first, I tried to get the phone of one land lord, when he picked up the phone, the land lord denied having a house. That was the first day of our search, the next day I was supposed to meet JP early in the morning, he gave me his number, and the next day his phone was off the network the whole day. I kept calling till he picked up finally after 48 hours later; he took to me one land lord, Gerard. Gerard is the kind of person I would not advise anybody to meet. Apparently Gerard had a house but according to him; “it is very bad shape I don’t want to rent it out in its current state, but after one month it will be on the market.”
Gerard said he would tender his house when it was completed, he would explain the fact that he allowed me to meet me when he fully knew that I was interested in renting his house and now he is saying he does not have one.

I met another broker, who among his proclamations before he even knew my name was to ask for ‘Diporosima’ of Frw 5000. Diporosoma is a specific amount of money that a person in need of a house pays to the house broker before the prospective tenant sees the house, upon getting a house the tenant is required to pay the broker the equivalent of a half month rent charge, say if the house a broker has identified for you is Frw 200,000 per month, you pay the tenant Frw 100,0000.



"The owner of the houses left clear insructions that he only wanted foreignors (Abanyamahanga)"'
I asked the boy why the landlord preferred foreignors to Rwandans; "i dont know," the boy replied.

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