University hostels take about a fifth of the students who need them, so most people end up looking privately. Rentor has a search built for that at rentor.co.ke/student-housing — it's Student housing in the header of every public page, and Student on the Rentals | Stays | Student switch on the marketplace and in the app.

Search the way you actually think about it

• Near — pick your campus. Rentor measures the real distance from it, and each result tells you how far it is.
• Within — 1, 2, 5, 10 or 20 km.
• Sharing — a room to yourself, or up to 2, 4 or 6 sharing.
• Room for — anyone, women, or men. Picking women shows you women-only rooms and mixed ones, because both will take you.
• Budget — what you can pay.

Every campus also has its own page, like /student-housing/jkuat-juja, if you would rather browse than filter.

Prices are shown the way you pay them

A hostel bed is advertised per semester, because that is how you pay for it and how you compare it against the campus hostel. Under that figure Rentor shows the monthly equivalent:

KES 18,000 /semester · ≈ KES 4,932/mo

The monthly figure is what the budget filter uses. That is deliberate: it means a bed at KES 18,000 a semester still turns up when you search "under KES 10,000", because month to month that is what it costs. A search that compared the semester price would have hidden the cheapest beds in the city from you.

What "4 beds free" means

Hostel rooms are let one bed at a time. A card saying 4 beds free means four people can still take a bed in that place; a room shown as 4-share means four of you will share it.

On the listing you see rooms, each with how many of its beds are free, what it costs per term, the deposit, and whether it is women-only or men-only.

Save the search

Press Save this search and it keeps everything — the campus, the radius, the sharing limit, who the room is for, and your budget. It reopens exactly as you left it, on the web and in the app. See Saved searches & favourites.

What happens after you take a bed

• The bed is yours on your own agreement. Your invoice, your deposit, your receipts — nothing is shared with whoever else is in the room.
• Your bill says the term's name, not just a month.
• If your landlord set up instalments, your Payments screen shows which one is next and when.
• You can see how many beds in your room are taken. Names are only shown for roommates who chose to share theirs, and yours is only shown if you choose to share it.

If everywhere is full

Hostels fill before term opens. If one you like is full, join its waiting list — you will be told when a bed frees, and the queue is in the order people joined it.