Real Estate Agents in Nairobi: Commission and Vetting

Most owners pick an agent the way they pick a plumber. Somebody knows somebody, a number gets passed along, and a signboard goes up on the wall the following week. That works until it does not, and when it fails it usually fails around money: a deposit that cannot be traced, a commission bill nobody agreed to, or two sets of estate agents in Nairobi both claiming they introduced the same buyer. Almost all of it is avoidable at the point of appointment, in about forty minutes of checking. Real estate agents in Nairobi are regulated, published and searchable, and very few owners take advantage of that.

This is a guide to hiring the agent, not to running the building. If you want a comparison of the firms who collect your rent every month and handle the tenants year round, that is a separate decision, and our property management service page covers how those arrangements are structured. What follows is about the transaction: getting a property let once, or getting it sold.

Start with registration, because nothing else matters if this fails

Estate agency in Kenya is a regulated profession under the Estate Agents Act, Cap 533. Practising as an agent without registration is an offence, and the body that keeps the register is the Estate Agents Registration Board.

Two documents matter, and they are not the same thing. The first is the registration certificate, which says the person or firm has been admitted to the register. The second is the annual practising certificate, which says they are entitled to trade this year. Plenty of people hold the first and have let the second lapse. Ask for both, and look at the year printed on the practising certificate. If it is not the current year, the person in front of you is not authorised to act.

You do not have to take the paperwork on trust. The Board runs a public members directory at estateagentsboard.or.ke, and the register of registered agents and agency firms is also published in the Kenya Gazette. Searching a name costs nothing and takes a minute. The Board can also be reached directly on 0741 088 144 if a name is not coming up and you want a human to confirm.

One caution. Registration attaches to individuals and to firms separately. A large brand name on the signboard does not mean the person handling your file is registered. Ask who specifically will sign the agency agreement, then check that name.

What real estate agents in Nairobi are actually allowed to charge

Kenya is unusual here. Commission is not purely a matter of negotiation, because the Estate Agents (Remuneration) Rules set out published scales. Anyone quoting you a flat percentage plucked from the air is either simplifying or hoping you will not check.

  a) On a sale

The sale scale is banded and regressive. It runs at 10 per cent on the first KES 100,000 of the sale price, 6 per cent on the next KES 900,000, and 3 per cent on everything above KES 1 million.

Work that through on a KES 12 million apartment. You get KES 10,000, then KES 54,000, then 3 per cent of KES 11 million, which is KES 330,000. Total commission KES 394,000, or roughly 3.3 per cent of the price. On a KES 25 million house the same arithmetic gives KES 784,000, closer to 3.1 per cent. The larger the deal, the more the effective rate converges toward 3 per cent.

Two things people forget. If the agent is VAT registered, the 16 per cent is charged on top of the commission, not carved out of it. And if you engage an agent to find and acquire a property for you rather than dispose of one, that is a separate purchase scale, which starts at 5 per cent on the first KES 100,000 and falls away sharply above KES 1 million.

  b) On a letting

Letting agent fees in Kenya are set by lease length and by property type, which is where most confusion in the market comes from.

For residential lettings, a lease of up to one year attracts 7.5 per cent of the yearly rent. A lease running longer than one year attracts one month’s rent. So on a unit at KES 120,000 a month, a twelve month lease produces a fee of about KES 108,000, while a two year lease produces KES 120,000. Very close, but they are calculated differently and you should know which one your agreement is invoking.

For commercial and warehouse space the split is by agency type rather than lease length, and this is the single most useful number in this article. Sole agency is charged at 7.5 per cent of annual gross rent. Open agency is charged at 10 per cent. The rules price exclusivity, and they price it in your favour.

What is genuinely negotiable

The scales function as the professional benchmark rather than a fixed tariff, and in practice there is movement, particularly on portfolios, on repeat instructions, and on stock that is easy to move. What is not negotiable is clarity. Whatever number you land on should appear in writing, with the trigger event spelled out, before any marketing begins.

Push back on anything vague. “Marketing costs” as an open ended line is a warning sign. If photography, listing spend or signage is being charged separately, ask for a capped figure up front.

Sole agency or open agency, and what each one costs you

Owners often assume open agency is the safer bet. More agents, more eyes, faster result. It is not that simple.

Sole agency means one firm holds the instruction for a defined period. You get a lower rate on commercial lettings, you get one point of accountability, and the agent has a reason to spend money on the property because they are not going to lose the fee to whoever happens to walk a buyer through first. The risk is obvious: if the firm is lazy, you are stuck with them until the term ends.

Open agency means several property agents in Nairobi work the same instruction and whoever closes gets paid. It feels competitive. What it actually produces, in a soft market, is a property that appears on six portals at four different asking prices, which tells every serious buyer that the seller is disorganised and probably negotiable. It also produces the classic Kenyan commission fight, where two firms both claim to have introduced the eventual buyer and the owner ends up paying twice or defending a claim.

If you go sole, protect yourself with three things in the agreement. Cap the term at something short enough to hurt, typically ninety days for a letting and a little longer for a sale. Insert a written performance schedule, meaning what the agent will actually do and how often they will report. And include a clean exit if those obligations are missed.

If you go open, insist on a written introduction protocol. Every agent must notify you in writing when they introduce a named prospect, and the notification must be dated. Without that, you have no way of resolving a competing claim except by paying somebody to make it go away.

There is a third option worth naming. Sole selling rights is stronger than sole agency: it means the fee is payable on any sale during the term, including one you found yourself through a cousin at church. Read carefully for that phrasing, because it is not the same as sole agency and it is occasionally slipped in.

Where your money sits, and why an operating account is a red flag

This is the part of the appointment that owners skip and later regret.

Under the Estate Agents (Accounts) Rules, an agent who receives client money is required to pay it into a client account without delay. The account must be held at a bank or financial institution under the Banking Act, and the title of the account must include the word “client” or “trust”. The agent must keep books showing what is held for each individual client and what the running balance is, and those records have to be preserved for at least seven years.

The point of all this is separation. Your tenant’s deposit and your rent are not the agent’s working capital. If they sit in the firm’s operating account, they are exposed to the firm’s payroll, the firm’s suppliers and the firm’s creditors, and a cash squeeze in November becomes your problem in December.

So ask the question directly, before you sign: which account do deposits and rent go into, is it a designated client account, and can I see the account title. An agent running the arrangement properly will answer without hesitation because they have answered it many times. An agent who deflects, or who explains that it all comes out the same in the end, has told you what you needed to know.

The paperwork a compliant agent produces

Judge an agent by what lands in your inbox, in order:

At appointment, a written agency agreement naming the agency type, the term, the commission basis, the trigger event and who bears marketing costs, together with copies of the registration and current practising certificates.

During marketing, dated viewing reports and named introductions, not a monthly phone call saying there has been interest.

At offer stage, the offer in writing with the prospective tenant or buyer identified, plus the identity and reference checks carried out.

On conclusion, the executed lease or sale agreement, a deposit receipt showing the client account, and a commission invoice that shows the calculation rather than a single round figure. If the invoice cannot be reconciled to the scale, ask why.

How REAL Management sits in this comparison

We should be checked the same way. With 30 years managing property in Nairobi, Real Management Services runs both letting and sales instructions across residential, commercial and warehouse stock, with a team of more than 100 people behind the files. We work on written agency agreements, we hold client funds in a designated client account, and our commission is invoiced against the published scale rather than a round number.

That does not make us the right fit for every owner. If you have a single unit in a satellite estate and a reliable tenant already lined up, a smaller local agent may serve you better and cheaper. If you are moving warehouse space along Mombasa Road, or a block where the tenant mix drives the valuation, the depth matters more. Ask us the same questions you would ask anyone else, including the ones about the client account, and compare the answers. If you also want a property acquired rather than disposed of, the purchase scale applies and we will show you the working.

Reach us on 0735 281 111 or sales@real.co.ke.

Frequently asked questions

Is estate agent commission in Kenya fixed by law? The Estate Agents (Remuneration) Rules under Cap 533 publish scales for sales, purchases, lettings and management. In practice the scales operate as the professional benchmark and there is some room to negotiate, especially on portfolios, but they give you a defensible reference point when a quote looks high.

Who pays the commission on a letting, the landlord or the tenant? The landlord pays, because the landlord is the party who instructed the agent. Any arrangement that pushes the fee onto the incoming tenant should be visible in the tenancy documents and agreed by everyone, not assumed.

How do I check if an agent is registered? Search the Estate Agents Registration Board members directory or the annual Gazette list, then ask the agent for a copy of the current year’s annual practising certificate. Confirm the name on the certificate matches the person signing your agreement.

Can I use more than one agent on the same property? Yes, that is open agency. Expect a higher commercial letting rate and put a written introduction protocol in place so that competing claims to the same buyer can be settled from your own records.

What happens if my agent holds my deposit in the company’s ordinary account? That falls short of the Accounts Rules, which require client money to go into a designated client account without delay. Raise it in writing, and if it is not corrected, treat it as grounds to end the instruction and to complain to the Board.

Sources: [Estate Agents Registration Board](https://estateagentsboard.or.ke/); [The Estate Agents (Remuneration) Rules, Kenya Law](https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/act/ln/1987/36/eng@2022-12-31); [The Estate Agents (Accounts) Rules, Kenya Law](https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/act/ln/1989/20/eng@2022-12-31). Figures current as at July 2026. This article is general information, not legal advice.