Nairobi is one of Africa’s most attractive destinations for business expansion. As the largest economy in East Africa, Kenya accounts for more than 40 percent of the region’s GDP, and Nairobi has become the city where global organisations from the United Nations to companies like Google, IBM, and Microsoft choose to anchor their African operations. The commercial property market in the city is growing to match those ambitions. If your business is coming to Nairobi, you are making a smart move.
But here is what many companies discover only after they have signed a lease: finding space is the easy part. Navigating Nairobi’s commercial property market without the right guide is where things get complicated, expensive, and occasionally, regrettable.
That is exactly what a tenant representative is for. And it is why businesses that use one consistently get better outcomes than those that do it alone.
What Tenant Representation Actually Means
Tenant representation is not a search service. It is a structured advisory engagement where a qualified team works exclusively on your behalf, from the moment you define your requirements to the day you move into your new space, and in most cases, well beyond that.
A landlord’s agent has one job: fill the building at the best possible terms for the landlord. That is entirely appropriate, and those agents do their job well. But it means that when you sit across the table from them, you are negotiating without equivalent expertise on your side. A tenant representative changes that. Our mandate is to find you the right space at the right terms, and our interests are fully aligned with yours from start to finish.
What the Process Looks Like in Practice
When Newpoint takes on a tenant representation mandate, we begin by understanding the business deeply. What is the companies’ strategic plan (short to long)? Who are your customers and how do they access you? Where do your staff come from? What does your supply chain look like? These questions shape everything from the location recommendation to the size and configuration of the space you need.
Once we understand your requirement, we go to market on your behalf. We reach out to every relevant agent and landlord within your requirement location fit with a clear brief. We build a scored matrix of available properties, filter them against your criteria, and reduce a long list to a shortlist of spaces worth your time.
You view only the properties that have already passed our filter. No wasted mornings. No properties that were clearly unsuitable the moment you walked in.
From there, we handle the negotiations. Rent levels in Nairobi are rarely fixed. Fit-out contributions, rent-free periods, lease break clauses, exit clauses, and escalation rates are all negotiable, but only if you know what to ask for and how to frame the ask. We know. We do this every day.
Finally, we coordinate with legal teams to ensure the lease you sign protects your interests over the full term, which in Kenya is typically a six-year period. We also model the full occupancy cost over that period so you enter the commitment with complete financial clarity, not just the headline rent figure but for the entire lease period.
Seeing it in Action
When Givaudan, a Swiss-headquartered flavour and fragrance company with over 167 locations across the globe decided to establish a presence in Kenya, they needed more than a search service. They needed a partner who could translate a complex corporate brief into the right space in an unfamiliar market. That is exactly what Newpoint delivered. We began by mapping their requirements in full: workforce, operations, client access, and growth trajectory. From that brief, we built a scored property matrix, systematically filtering the market from a long list down to a curated shortlist of options that genuinely matched their needs. We managed the negotiations, securing lease terms that reflected their commercial standing and long-term commitment to the Nairobi market. And because moving in is only the beginning, we went further to connect Givaudan with a panel of pre-qualified fit-out suppliers to ensure their space was ready to operate from day one. From initial brief to signed lease to a fitted workspace, Givaudan’s entry into their new space was end-to-end, seamless, and entirely guided by Newpoint.
The Nairobi Market Is Nuanced, and That Matters
Nairobi is not one property market. It is several, layered on top of each other and shaped by infrastructure, planning decisions, traffic patterns, and industry clustering that is not always obvious from outside the city.
Prime office occupancy in Nairobi climbed from 77.7 percent in June 2025 to 81.6 percent by December 2025, with demand largely driven by multinational tenants moving into quality developments. That improvement is real, but it is concentrated. The best-performing nodes for commercial office space remain Westlands, Riverside, Upperhill, Gigiri and Kilimani, which continue to outperform the broader market on both occupancy and yield.
Westlands and Riverside Drive attract professional services firms and NGOs. The Eastern Bypass corridor is growing fast for light industrial and logistics. Ngong Road remains a strong mid-market office node. Karen and the surrounding areas carry a premium that is driven partly by lifestyle and partly by proximity to international schools and certain diplomatic missions.
Understanding which node is right for your business is not something you can figure out from a property listing portal. It comes from knowing the market day by day, deal by deal. That knowledge is what you access when you work with a tenant representative who operates in Nairobi full time.
Who Should Be Having This Conversation
If you are a business opening its first office or retail location in Nairobi, expanding your existing footprint, relocating to a larger or more strategic space, or entering Kenya from another country, tenant representation is not an optional extra. It is the most cost-effective decision you can make at the start of that process.
Our commercial team at Newpoint has completed tenant representation mandates across retail, office, warehousing, and industrial sectors. We know the landlords. We know the agents. And we know how to structure a deal that works for you.
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