Mini Post: Why isn’t house sharing popular in Nairobi?

On this post (Financial mistakes I have made in the last 7 years) Beth suggested that people in their 20s could embrace house sharing, as a way of cutting rental expenses and still have a bit of space. An excellent and very sensible suggestion.

However, I have observed that other than a few exceptions, we (Kenyans) don’t like sharing houses.

A lot of my expatriate friends see house-sharing as normal, and they usually get lovely apartments at a very low cost per person. For us, this has remained a foreign concept, even among family members. For example, at some point my sisters and I all lived within 5-10km of each other, in our individual small houses. If we had opted to rent a common home, we would be living in a much bigger and better house, but it just was not an option. After sharing a room in campus, I guess we all wanted our own space, though if you think about it, the house I lived in at the time was probably smaller than a bedroom in a regular house, so I would have had my space anyways.

Why isn’t house sharing popular in Nairobi?  Have you ever shared a house, and how was the experience for you?