Random Thoughts on Housing

It is yet another beautiful Friday. Unlike most Fridays, I didn’t have to struggle with what to write because of the past week’s eventualities of my personal and professional life. I have had to resist a lot of temptation to finally come up with this article on housing.

Some of you who know me personally (unlike achina Robin Sinsamala who only know me as Richie Online) know that I finished college in May 2016 and went on to start my work (clinical internships as some demeanors would call it; shut up) in the month of December in the same year. That was all good and everyone was so happy about it until we remembered about where I was stationed. It was the same sort of thing that happens when the first born in the family gets selected to a national secondary school. People celebrate wildly and then become silent when they begin to think about the source of the fees.

That was a digression.

I am stationed at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and I was, at the time staying with my parents in Lunzu (which I am told is in Blantyre). Due to issues to do with public transport (among others), I was not too keen on extending the 23 year old stay with the parents and I wanted to move out from the word go. Sadly I was out of Blantyre in the period surrounding these transitions from waganyu to a civil servant on probation. On the other hand, I though it was still wise to start my house hunt and being a cyber human, I decided to do the unconventional. While I had one of my guys running on the ground in Blantyre, I decided to complement (someone needs to text me if I got this one right) their efforts by doing my own search. Turns out I was both wrong and right at the same time because neither their search nor mine brought something to point at in the end.

The house hunt began on some Facebook called Blantyre Property Solutions. Some of you know this Facebook. It’s that group where one agent (Isaac Gent, Sestino Simbani, Lusungu Nyondo and the others that I can’t remember now) post about all the nice houses they know to be free. The way it works is that you call them on the numbers they drop and you go to see the house you like, pay them the viewing fee. I am told you have to cough up some extra aloe’s when you finally get the house too and that they also get something from the owner. Clever people, huh?

Someone posted a good picture of a nice house in Zingwangwa and got me excited. It was newly built (yoti ndikaiyambe ndekha), nice design and secure. Above that the rentals were reasonable. I quickly called this agent and told him I was interested. To cut this whole story short, after a long discussion with Agent Impatient I got to realize that the house still had some finishing to do and it was not ready for use for another three weeks at the very least. I had been counting on this fella and all of the sudden he broke the bad news via a phone call when I was in Lilongwe en route to Blantyre from wherever I was that day with the hope of kukalowa nyumba yanyawani. No house for me.

For the first few days of my work I was operating from Mwanza (Lunzu) and it wasn’t that pleasing. I somehow managed to get a room in the house of one good Samaritan called David. That is where I stayed until December 26. I later moved to Chitawira and now Manja where I am living in my lonesome. No agents were involved in both transfers and I found these places through friends of mine.

The long boring story was just about painting a picture of how it is not so easy to find suitable and affordable accommodation in our cities. I might have been lucky to find a place in Chitawira and then Manja in the first place but many who sailed in the same boat with me in college are still struggling with the same issue. We have substandard pieces of accommodation with far-fetched rates.

One would wonder as to why we have this problem of housing in our cities. Well. I have a thought or two on that. The first issue is that we have an exponentially increasing number of young graduates who are coming to work in the cities. You have to understand that these are not just your Blantyre, Lilongwe or Mzuzu guys. They are coming from all corners of the country to the commercial capital or to any other city for work. What they mostly need is this nice piece of self-contained accommodation where they can keep their startup kit and sleep. That has proven to be too difficult to find. If you know much about Blantyre you would know that the sort of houses I am talking about are concentrated in the Chitawira-Nkolokosa area and all of them are full of people who are not planning on leaving anytime soon. The others that are not are currently housing students from the MIJ-Poly-MCA-COM college belt. In other words, there are so many people who need these places in town and the demand is ever growing.

The other side of the same issue of the growing demand is that there is nothing being done on the supply part. We are not building. I am told we have a housing corporation or something of the sort but of late there hasn’t been much to show for it save for the rampant and dubious selling of houses to crooked politicians. I am yet to be notified of new structures constructed by the same in recent years. Their function now is probably that of collecting rentals from clients and selling more houses.
There we are, then. We have an ever growing demand for housing and a stagnated supply. If we continue at the rate we are going, the gap between the two will continue to widen to the dismay of many. The only people who will celebrate this will the agents who get the viewing fees for showing one house to seven hopeful clients, six of who will end up not liking the house with the most desperate one having to top up a ridiculous amount for the rentals and fee for the agent.

Having said that, I think it is high time we did something about this as a nation. I will dismiss you if you are thinking of malata subsidy. This is an issue of urban housing and I am afraid that if we are to sort this out for good we might have to use something that is more focused and a bit less political. I would suggest that we get the MHC to work but that is a statutory corporation. We at Richie Online do not have that much trust in those so this goes back to us. I have a lot of optimistic friends who always talk of thinking solutions and not problems. I also have a lot of friends who like to say that and entrepreneur is that guy who makes money from solving people’s problems. Well. World changers and entrepreneurs, here is your challenge. Isaac Banda is still looking for a house and while you may not help him now, you may help my little bro Andrew when graduates from medical school. Making money while solving problems; isn’t that the deal?

As for the rest of us house hunters, things will remain tough whether we use agents or not. We better get connected in town and up our searching game. Unfortunately I don't have proper tips on this one. Befriend Maradona Kanyenda on Facebook, maybe. I am told he is an honest agent. And probably Matthews Fatty Joe Gomani too. Who knows? They may just come through.

Your thoughts?