House hunting in Malawi comes with a unique tax. Before you even see the living room, inspect the bedroom, or check whether the taps actually work, the house agent will ask you to pay a viewing fee.
Today, house viewing fees have become so common that many people no longer question them. They are treated as a normal part of the rental process. Yet few people stop to ask how this practice became so widespread and whether it actually serves any useful purpose.
At its core, a viewing fee is supposed to compensate an agent for their time and transport costs. If an agent spends the entire day showing multiple houses to prospective tenants, some form of compensation seems reasonable. After all, work deserves payment.
This is probably how the practice started. In theory, it sounds fair.
As housing demand increased, especially in cities such as Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu, and Zomba, viewing fees evolved into a business model of their own.
For some agents, the commission from successfully renting a house became less important than collecting viewing fees.
The mathematics are simple.
An agent can spend weeks searching for a tenant to earn one commission. Alternatively, they can convince twenty people to pay viewing fees in a single day. This is where the problems begin.
Almost everyone searching for a house has heard stories of houses that mysteriously become unavailable immediately when you push the agent to go see it. Some people are shown houses that were never available in the first place. Others arrive to discover that the house was rented out weeks ago. In some cases, prospective tenants are taken to view houses that do not match the description they were given. A house “near the road” suddenly turns out to be several kilometres away in some Group Village Headman’s farm.
It is now starting to appear that the objective is often not to rent the house but to collect the viewing fee.
The result is a market built on information asymmetry. The agent knows whether the house exists, whether it is available, and whether the details are accurate. The prospective tenant does not.
To be fair, not every agent is dishonest.
Many agents genuinely help tenants find houses. They spend time sourcing properties, arranging viewings, coordinating with landlords, and negotiating agreements. For these agents, viewing fees help cover operational costs.
The problem is not the existence of viewing fees but the absence of standards. This vacuum creates opportunities for abuse.
In my opinion, the deeper issue is that viewing fees are a symptom of a larger problem.
Malawi has a housing shortage in many urban areas. Demand significantly exceeds supply. Whenever demand greatly exceeds supply, information becomes valuable. Those who control information often find ways to monetize it.
House agents are effectively selling access to information. The challenge is ensuring that information is accurate.
Until something changes, thousands of Malawians will continue paying viewing fees for houses they do not like, or worse, for houses that do not even exist.
