An empty unit earns nothing and costs everything: service charge, security, and the mortgage that does not pause. A month of vacancy on a KES 60,000 unit is KES 60,000 you will never recover. It is worth being systematic about.
Cause one: the price is wrong
Covered elsewhere, but it remains the most common reason by a distance. Three weeks of viewings with no offer is not bad luck.
Cause two: the photographs
Most rental adverts in Kenya are let down by four dark photographs taken on a phone at six in the evening. It costs nothing to fix:
Shoot in the morning, with every curtain open and every light on Take the room from the doorway, in landscape, standing still Include the kitchen, the bathroom, and the view — the three things people ask about Photograph the compound and the parking, not only the interior
A tenant scrolling twenty adverts is deciding in two seconds which five to enquire about. That decision is made entirely on the first photograph.
Cause three: nobody answered