Anyone who has tried to use the immensely popular ‘housing’ section of Craigslist to do some apartment hunting is well aware of its limitations: aside from breaking listings into basic neighborhoods, for the most part they lack any structure, which can make them a pain to browse through, especially when you’re trying to compare more than one apartment.
Y Combinator startup RentHop is looking to offer an alternative, featuring thousands of structured housing listings that are much easier to search though and compare. Of course, there are plenty of other sites that offer comprehensive housing listings, so RentHop is also looking to differentiate itself by eliminating housing broker fees.
For the time being RentHop is only available in New York City, largely because of the way apartment hunting is set up there. For those who aren’t familiar with the situation, most of the time when you’re looking to find an apartment in New York City, you’re forced to work through a broker who will charge a fee of 15% of your first year of rent (which works out to around $3,000 based on NYC’s average rent).
So why not just skip the brokers and go straight through Craigslist, which offers a broker-free ‘no fee’ section? RentHop co-founder Lee Lin says that oftentimes brokers will spam this section with fake listings, hoping to seduce viewers into calling them at which point they can say “Oh, that one is taken, but we’ve still got this one available…” and so on. Because NYC apartment listings rarely include an actual address, these are very easy to fake.
RentHop solves this problem by going to major landlords, some of which own many buildings in New York City, and getting the listings straight from them. Each listing on RentHop has a valid address, which means that they’re harder to fake, and the site can also plot them on a map to give you an idea of where the apartment actually is. Lin says that landlords have an incentive to offer apartments through the site, because their inventory will move more quickly when potential tenants don’t have to pay a large broker fee.
While the site originally launched back in Febraury, Lin says that most of the features have been added since then, and the site has changed its business model. RentHop now looks to generate revenue by offering a set of ‘Pro’ features to large major landlords, who can have hundreds (or more) of apartments to manage at once.
I just moved to the Seattle area and had the same problem with Craigslist. Many apartments / condos weren’t even open yet (months away) and they were advertising on Craigslist. Also, the same apartment would usually make 1-3 postings daily. I ended up finding an apartment, but it was surely a chore.
This site could work, but Landlords may think brokers are more reliable because they bring in financially stable clients and run background checks. Some places have exclusive brokers and don’t want to jeopardize those relationships. The internet is great and cheaper, but it means people such as real estate brokers are losing their jobs and livelihood. The landlords can also just do the renting and background checks themselves if they had time.
An unnecessary intermediary is just that, unnecessary. Not my problem if they lose their job as a result.
If they provide added value, I’m more than happy to pay. For example, back when there were simply no good apartments in NYC, a broker was a fantastic resource to find unlisted vacancies and were well worth the money.
If apartments are sitting on the open market, there’s no reason for a broker. Landlords can handle paperwork and background checks easily, and can get market directly to prospective tenants (which is what this site is trying to help with). It’s a good thing.
Alison is right.
the consumer is not stupid, and they will go to where the value is, regardless of who loses their job.
Cutting out the middle men for some people is great sites like this and http://www.freeltor.com do just that and give more power to the consumer. we need more FREEdom in Real Estate
I dunno. I got my West LA apt on Craiglist and it’s fscking sweet. Fancy underground garage, gated, new carpets, fireplace and everything. I’ve been here about a year, and I would never have found this place w/o CL.
CL has brand recognition and trust when it comes to job and apt listings. I don’t think they can build that very quickly.
Craigslist is an important tool for finding a rental only because it is still the default standard for brokers because of its massive traffic levels.
The rental market (speaking solely for NYC) is an absolute mess, not to mention highly competitive. This space is wide open for a service like Renthop to bring some real value to potential tenants. Monitoring, filtering, managing communication with upwards of 10 brokers at a time is currently something that has to be done with Craigslist. I am experiencing all of these pains first hand right now.
God bless innovation in the rental web app space.
PS: If anyone knows a good broker in Brooklyn hit me up on Twitter!
excellent
Great Idea. I suspect you will be do most of your marketing in NYC. I will be starting a local business startup too. I am curious to learn how you market in the city.
PS I added the site to http://appusefu.../app/n/Rent-hop AppUseful. People can rate and review it there.
Former NYC resident. Just spent a few minutes checking the site out…impressive.
Look @ Nybits.com; same thing – only its been around for years.
Around for years w/o a map in the search results. Pretty useless if you ask me.
You don’t live in NYC; New Yorkers don’t need a “map” to tell them which neighborhoods are decent. NYC is unique in America.
If they can pull it off – excellent. NYC brokers are lying sleazy bastards – the scum of earth in short.
However their timing is awful – with the recessions most brokers are out of business and direct deals are abound and easy to find.
awesome idea.. finding a place to live in NY currently sucks. good thing I don’t like there anymore.
great to have a website to find apartment for me.
How is this any different than tons of other sites doing the same thing. Rent.com or MyNewPlace.com
Rent.com is an eBay company. That’s enough reason to not use it.
“Rent.com is an eBay company. That’s enough reason to not use it.” amen to that! eBay sux in just about every way imaginable..if slap-happy Whitman thinks she can ride into the Guv’s office in CA on her “success” at ebay, she is sadly misguided and more delusional than evident by her silly smile.
Online real estate is online travel a decade ago.
The only way to end this recession (depression) is to have real estate improve. There’s is no question that innovators and outside the box thinkers are sorely needed to resuscitate a critically ill patient.
Since 1999, it’s been a privilege to provide our free FSBO (for sale by owner) real estate posting syndication service. PostYourProperty.com is a free forum for sellers, buyers, and professionals to connect and transact deals through. There are thousands of properties currently in inventory.
The number of savvy online real estate gurus is a drop in the bucket compared to video game developers. As much venture capital pouring into alternative energy today should be equally focussed into online real estate.
Those interested in networking with people with real estate on the brain should attend the eMarketing In Real Estate event on July 28, at the Newport Beach Golf Course.
http://emarketi...eventbrite.com/
This has been done a FEW TIMES in New York City:
Streeteasy.com
NyBits.com
RentDirect.com
…there are a zillion others.
Having built, grown, and sold an apartment-hunting site, I have to agree with this– this has been attempted so many times.
I get what they’re trying to do about Craigslist, but how is RentHop’s approach different from the OTHER “no fee” sites? Rent-Direct, SkipBrokers, NoFeeRentals?
Is the difference that RentHop is free to consumers? Ok, how do you make money? Ads? Ok, what’s their RPM and market size assumptions? Let’s say they get $30 RPM (at best) when you have 1 market (btw, the whole no fee thing doesn’t exist outside NYC and Boston), and uniques of 100k/mo. So we’re talking $30 X 100 = $3,000/mo revenue tops.
Sorry to be harsh, but the problem with these markets isn’t that nobody has created alternative sites to list no fee apartments.
I noticed anyone can post an ad. If they are positioning themselves as “vetted listings”, they should quit that practice. 419 spam is a massive problem and will quickly destroy the value of their service to consumers.
One useful thing they could do would be to focus on being the most spam-free site for NYC no fee listings. Nobody would probably even mind if they copied listings off Craigslist, so long as they vetted every one to make sure it wasn’t some kind of fee-based broker come on. But then the challenge is how do you find, verify, and copy the listings quickly enough that users of your site aren’t at a disadvantage?
Or maybe they could focus on being the place where consumers define what kind of rental they want and spam-free listings get sent to them instantly via Twitter or SMS. So the value prop is all about speed, which can make a big difference in a low vacancy market.
Who did you sell your website to? Did you make a decent profit. These sites are difficult because a broker or someone will always do the legwork. Its just about compensation for that legwork. Otherwise, landlords can just list themselves if they wanted.
Yes, we should all attend your real estate eMarketing seminar…obviously you are very good at it.
Wow. That’s another con for NYC (among many, as I see it). Where I live, you cna just pick your favorite neighborhoods and walk around because people still place signs on the property. Or, if you’re price sensitive, instead you can use craiglist, which works quite well. You do have to ‘pay’ to find out the good fishing holes, however.
I just found a place on craigslist using padmapper.com, definitely recommend checking it out.
streeteasy.com is pretty good too.
Apparently Rent.com doesn’t work for them? Or Apartments.com ?
Congrats gentlemen, the site looks great.
Could definitely use this in SF. Craigslist is archaic.
that sounds great
I’ll stick with streeteasy.
really not that impressive when you compare to streeteasy.com
This is not a new idea in NYC and, like other, will likely fail or exist in relative obscurity. It’s just not so simple. I don’t like the idea of paying brokers, but with so many independently owned apartments, they provide a necessary service beyond sifting through lists and showing apartments. A simple website just doesn’t provide the services required by most apartment owners.
Craigslist definitely could do a better job filtering out spammy postings. I’m not sure why they are not yet. Community flagging is good but not sufficient.
There are lots of takes on improving the Craigslist housing experience, which in it’s raw state is miserable. Mine is http://www.cribq.com .
RentHop does not seem like news (at least not yet). Do all “YC startups” get coverage on TC, is that part of the deal? I forget. If it is, that’s great for them and their stakeholders, but it should be better disclosed. Even if it’s non-contractual, it does seem like TC fluffs for YC, at a minimum, no?
I agree. It would be nice to see TC writers dig up more interesting non-YC companies, instead of relying on YC to filter stories.
There are so many interesting sites TC could cover whose founders don’t have the YC endorsement, and many YC companies are flawed from the start (even if the founders are smart and the idea once seemed strong). TC writers need to find interesting stuff going on (through sources other than Twitter) and contact people on their own accord.
It’s a shame to see so much TC space wasted on repetitive rant-ish articles about trivial events in Twitter/iPhone-dom.
Wow! You guys are really getting more ridiculous every day!
This is news on Techcrunch now? A no-fee apartment listing site? Obviously you don’t know anything about the New York city rental market. As others have said, this is the same as every other no-fee listing site.
Whoa! They stick a google map on there! Oh, the innovation! It’s amazing.
Those of you who feel it neccessary to whine about the state of the market are obviously sorely oblivious to the neccessity of good brokers. They provide a service for both tenants and landlords through their expertise and professionalism. Unfortunately there is low accountablity and a low barrier to entry in this profession, and a few bad apples ruin the bunch. Don’t blame real estate brokers for wanting to earn a living for working every day. Shame on you. Try working for commission in the most competitive market in the world and see how easy It is and clear cut your hatred is after that experience. If all the brokers went away no one would be able to find or rent 70% of the inventory in manhattan. Fact. There is a reason the exist, just like a doctor, lawyer, or any other profession– they have specialized knowledge and deserve to be compensated for their time. Stop being such a tightwad or just move out of NYC.
I can see how this was true 20 years ago– brokers did offer a valuable service worth paying for… aggregating data, computer networks, and databases were expensive. If you moved to NYC, it made sense to pay a specialist who spent all day gathering listing information… by the time you found something, it would be gone.
Have broker commissions come down since then? No.
If you get right down to it, the main value of a broker is to show up at a property and open the door so you can check it out. I’d be willing to pay about $25 per appt for that service. You don’t need someone college educated, just bonded.
So riddle me this brokerman, why is it that brokers (and their fees) don’t exist in other markets? Just because you do a lot of legwork doesn’t mean it was necessary or that it was a particularly valuable service to consumers.
NYC brokers are a cartel that is slowly dying, as all cartels do in the long run.
It’s incredible that people still pay broker fees for apartments
Roomster.com !!
First of all, as everyone else seems to know this no fee apartment listing idea has been around for years making this story look out of tune. Also Rentdirect.com charges a couple of hundred dollars, nofeerentals.com is not a no fee listings website but is one NYC landlord that is known to have apartments that are begging for renovations. In my opinion the best free websites for NYC sales is Streetyeasy.com and for NYC rentals is SkipBrokers.com. I have not used Craigslist in years to find an apartment because of many reasons listed in these comments.
hey folks, you’ve all missed the best one (in my opinion) Landlord Links by Kirby Sommers. What she’s done is removed ALL brokers and connects renters directly to ALL landlords and their listings. What’s more I got two months free by using Landlord Links PLUS I was able to call Kirby’s team and get some guidance. The basic Landlord Links are a mere $35 and she offers a handholding service for a very modest fee. Her website: http://kirbysommers.com
a real NO FEE, no ads, no nonsence approach to renting.
Not a new idea, any New Yorker knows these sites below are all about no fee apartments:
http://www.skipbrokers.com/
http://www.nofeerentals.com/
http://www.rent-direct.com/
it is good to see more people trying to help the cause though.