
Datamining a Flat in Munich - ilovefood
http://funnybretzel.svbtle.com/datamining-a-flat-in-munich
======
petercooper
_The conclusion from this little study, is that a girl with an italian name,
gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets,
1% answer rate. The master of all, is the young munich guy who is around 25_

Sadly, this doesn't surprise me.

Across Europe, numerous anti-discrimination laws have been (rightfully)
enacted, but it just pushes any inclination to discriminate that might exist
into private. Oh, we "didn't receive" your e-mail, or oh, I "didn't see" your
résumé.. This is why some people got upset about Google+ demanding real names
and similar "use your real name" policies elsewhere, as even a name alone can
be a huge trigger for discriminatory behavior.

~~~
sauere
Anti-discrimination laws do not solve any problems, they make them worse. If
someone is not willing to hire a person because of their
ethnicity/color/sex/age/whatever, a law will not make him do it. Finding an
excuse is too easy and it is basically impossible to prove such things in
court. I recommend watching
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzXXvUjg8Fo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzXXvUjg8Fo)

~~~
lafar6502
Isn't it a basic right of an owner to rent his property to anyone he likes
without explaining the decision (even if the decision is based on racial
prejudice)?

~~~
tzmudzin
Not quite, as long as we as a society want to protect the minorities. Either
you force equal treatment, or things can escalate quite quickly:

\- basic right of owner to rent property to anyone he likes without explaining
the decision (and not to rent to anyone else...)

\- basic right of hotel owner to accept anyone he choses (and deny access to
anyone else)

\- basic right of restarant manager to accept anyone he chooses (and deny
service to anyone else)

\- basic right of transportation owner to accept anyone he chooses (and deny
service to anyone else)

\- basic right of hospital operator to accept anyone he chooses (and deny
service to anyone else)

Now pick your minority: it might have been Jews or the Slavic for the Nazis,
it might have been the blacks in South Africa -- or the US, or homosexuals in
Russia. Or the red-headed, the fat, the old, ...

Once you step onto this path, it's hard to put hard stop someplace

~~~
hippich
I wonder why economic laws does not work here? I.e. if certain categories of
people comes with certain risk in the eyes of landlords, this should be
reflected in price, and who don't want to have to deal with adjusting price
for risks should loose to once who are more flexible?

~~~
sgift
High demand, low supply. A landlord in Munich can ask - more or less -
whatever he wants and still find people who are desperate to get a flat. Any
flat. For any price.

~~~
lafar6502
Of course. Even if all these people were named Hans, age 25, no family and
high paid tech jobs, still half of them wouldn't have a place to live. No laws
can change the numbers.

------
freyfogle
My sympathies, I lived in Munich 15 years ago and it was a nightmare to find a
place even back then. I've heard it's only gotten worse.

We (Nestoria.de) aggregate listings of most of the players in real estate in
Germany (IS24, immowelt, immonet, süddeutsche, others) and offer an API. We
also offer an API of price trends (ie what the avg rent is in an area and if
it's going up or down).

Enjoy: [http://www.nestoria.co.uk/help/api-search-
listings](http://www.nestoria.co.uk/help/api-search-listings)

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Wish I knew it when I was moving to Munich 6 months ago. Sounds like a tough
job, some of those sites aren't structured very well. I thought about
automating it too, but it seemed like too much hassle back then.

I have to say though, when you are a german couple, have a double income with
no children/no pets, its not that hard to find something. I don't envy the
rest though!

~~~
freyfogle
One of our biggest challenges is making the service known. The problem is real
estate is a low frequency category. When you are searching, you care a lot,
when you aren't you couldn't care less. As a result, even if we do a great
job, once you find a place you gone.

We've been doing it for many years and have tried many things, but if anyone
has further suggestions always happy to learn.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
I imagine, real estate keywords are probably very expensive. Also, I have an
ad blocker.

In cities like Munich, speed is very important - is your search real-time or
at least near rt? If so, I'd advertise that. I need to be sure I'm not missing
any offerings, and that they aren't slower to show than when going to the
'real' site.

~~~
freyfogle
Ha! Unfortunately nothing about the real estate industry is real time.

We do the best we can and push our partners to do the same. Over the years it
is getting better, but it is not close to what consumers want.

That said, speed is a much bigger issue in some markets (rentals in cities
like Munich) and much less in others (buying a house out in a village).

------
davidroetzel
I do not know about the situation in Munich, but I spent lots of time looking
for a place in Bonn last year and from my experience the approach from the
article has one serious flaw:

While the real estate websites offer contact forms to send e-mails, many
people hate dealing with e-mails. Landlords and even "professional" real
estate agents often ignore e-mails. Sometimes it is because of the sheer
volume they get, but I suspect often it is just that they never really adapted
to the medium.

Many (most?) ads include a phone number. And I have had far better results by
calling than by sending an e-mail. You should of course be one of the first
people to call...

~~~
probably_wrong
I was going at first to agree with you based on my experience with Berlin:
when the ads there give a particular date in which the apartment will be
shown, those interested have to fill a form right after seeing it. So in this
situation there's no incentive for the owner to check the e-mails.

However, that doesn't explain why both the Italian girl and Hanz from Munich
got over a 90% answer rate - if they didn't check the e-mails, the response
rate should have been lower.

So while I agree about that one flaw, I don't really think it affects the
results that much.

~~~
davidroetzel
Do not get me wrong, I do not disagree with his findings. That is probably
very accurate and that is awful.

But originally he was not out to mine this data. He actually needed a place to
live, and I wanted to point out that he might have approached this the wrong
way.

Personally I prefer e-mail over phone calls. A lot. So this was not obvious to
me up until my experience last year.

------
fiatjaf
I'm in the business of renting out flats. Not in Munich. Sadly, I'm in a
lower-demand market, and I wouldn't rush to classify this as "discrimination".

It is very very difficult to deal with bad tenants. They exist, a lot of them.
And it is very very difficult to know who is a bad tenant through these
websites and Facebook groups. The problem here is an information problem. If
these sites gave the person applying for a flat the chance to give information
to prove they are good enough, that would be a blessing, both for (good)
renters and for landlords.

I am not talking about financial information. I would be pretty happy with
some references that would indicate the person is honest and serious and easy
to deal with, even if they don't have much money; some access to Facebook
profile and posts or other data available at the internet would do the job for
me.

~~~
anvarik
Why the heck shouldn't I classify this as discrimination? He tried Hans, an
Italian female name, and his own, I believe is Karim. And he gets less replies
than any other.

He probably wrote a pretty darn good e-mail saying how educated and well-
behaved he is, bla bla from Paris have degrees etc, but guess what, no
replies. Just because of his name! That is what I call discrimination, and in
Germany it is pretty common.

~~~
neptunus
What if the tenants have had more bad experiences with male arab tenants and
more good experiences with female italians? Could it be called "science"
instead of "discrimination"?

~~~
anvarik
We are not talking about a single tenant here, OP had enough data to mine, we
are talking about whole munich.

Are you telling me that whole munich had arab tenants at least once in their
past?

------
phreeza
I was recently looking for a new flat in Berlin, and I didn't have the same
type of problem the OP had, but once I had an interview, I had to make a
decision on whether I wanted the flat or not quite quickly. So I used a
variant of the optimal strategy of the secretary problem[0]: Decided on a
rough maximal number of flats I wanted to visit N, visit N/e flats without
real intention of renting, to sample the market, and then take the first flat
that is better than all of the previously viewed flats. Worked out remarkably
well for me.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem)

------
dazbradbury
I'm one of the founders at OpenRent (UK rental site [1]), and loved your post.
We face this kind of problem daily, and have tools in place to make sure our
landlords reply to all tenants - even if it's to provide a reason why they're
not suitable.

We're constantly looking at better ways to solve this problem and improve the
tenant experience - and your post will prove an excellent bit of anecdotal
insight for us. Our data is similar, showing even just a name can impact
response rate!

To those suggesting all applicants should provide more data (facebook /
linkedin / credit history), it's not always that simple. Still in the UK many
renters don't have an online "presence". And whilst that may not be a problem
for landlords with "hot" properties, putting off tenants for landlords with
little demand is an absolute no go for us - sure, we want applicants to be of
a high quality, but just because they don't have that information doesn't mean
they aren't suitable.

We think allowing tenants to provide more information, whilst supporting all
application levels is key - but making it clear that the more data you provide
the higher your chances of success and a quick response (even if it's a simple
no) isn't always easy.

[1] - [https://www.openrent.co.uk](https://www.openrent.co.uk)

~~~
fiatjaf
It is not really "open" if you have to pay, right?

~~~
dazbradbury
You don't _have_ to pay to use the site, apply for properties, or advertise
properties - the fact that wasn't immediately clear is something we probably
need to work on!

We charge to advertise on _external_ websites only (who charge us), to conduct
referencing (because it costs us), and to set up tenancies (again, because it
costs us) - rental transactions complete daily on our site completely for
free.

~~~
fiatjaf
Sorry for the misunderstanding. Now that you explained it, I think this is a
GREAT business model.

Thank you for existing.

(Does it work great? Do you have a lot of paying customers?)

~~~
dazbradbury
We have over 15k landlords, and let a property on average in less than a week
- so yes, I think it works pretty well. :-)

The more people using our platform, the better it gets, so really we just need
to work on our marketing - starting with making sure people understand our
concept from the word go. Would you mind explaining why you thought there was
a charge, and what pages helped you understand the business better?

~~~
fiatjaf
When you land the website, you see two boxes, one is labeled "TENANTS" and the
other "LANDLORDS". One says "NO FEES", the other "ONLY £29".

It was clear to me that landlords had to pay a fee.

------
dildog
Hanz with a Z? Surely a Bavarian hiphop artist!

------
Kiro
> a girl with an italian name, gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab
> name and is younger than 25 gets, 1% answer rate

Depressing.

------
joyofdata
I pay less than €800 for my 45m² 3 subway stops away from the central station.
And I found it by talking to people within 3 months ... :) Paying more than
€800 for a small room means even by Munich standards just that you are getting
ripped off.

------
valevk
Getting an answer is only the first step. Afterwards you are invited with
around 20-30 other persons to visit the flat. It's like cattle looking for a
new shed.

~~~
brazzy
When I was looking for a flat together with my girlfriend 3 years ago, we got
several viewings of our own together with the agent.

This seems to depend completely on whether the commission is paid by the owner
or the tenant - the only time we had a "crowded" viewing (but still only about
5 other people) was for a flat where the commission was paid by the owner.

Another factor might have been that we were looking in the outskirts of Munich
- if you think you absolutely need to live in Schwabing or Glockenbachviertel,
it's your own damn fault.

------
dbasedow
Two years ago I was in a similar situation. I had 6 weeks to find a fully
furnished apartment in Munich from 800km away. For me the response rate for
furnished apartments was 100%, although some simply said the apartment has
been rented out already.

I also turned to crawling. I regularly crawled IS24's furnished apartment
section and put new entries into a Google Fusion Table. That way I could
filter on fields and see the apartments on a map at the same time. This wasn't
automated as much as the original poster's solution. But my main requirement
was that the apartment be near a subway station of a line that stops at my
place of work, which is not that easy to automate.

After about a week I found an apartment that was rented out by the owner
directly (none of that agent fee nonsense). I was the first to contact the guy
- a few minutes after it was posted. I had to decide if I take it the same
day. Based only on pictures... It was a good deal. Colleagues of mine were
paying MUCH MORE and got MUCH LESS.

------
mironathetin
Cool post.

We want to buy something in Munich and indeed, even if you are prepared to
spend a million or more, it is extremely hard to get an invitation to visit a
place (Even if you are in the right age and your wife is an italian girl, like
mine).

It would be really cool to outwit the real estate dealers in the way you did
it. I keep thinking. Ideas are welcome.

~~~
brazzy
They didn't outwit the dealers, they "outwitted" other people looking for
flats by crowding them out via spamming the dealers.

~~~
rasz_pl
Not really, TLDR says he found his apartment thru friends in the end, so all
this crawling was for nothing.

------
domrdy
> Appartment rental agencies cost roughly 3 times the monthly rent, which
> accounts for around 2000€. No need to say this was a no go for me as I
> prefer keeping that money and making something good out of it.

As far as I know this fee will soon have to be paid by the landlord rather
than the potential tenant (by german law).

~~~
freyfogle
But surely they will just pass the fee to the tenant in the form of higher
rent?

~~~
srg0
... in the form of higher _and recurring_ rent.

------
lultimouomo
I was very surprised to find Caracas at #9 in the linked article of most
expensive cities in the world; Venezuela having a pro capita GDP of around
$13K I would have expected the cost of life to be quite low.

Does anyone have first hand experience of that, or an explanation of why it is
so?

~~~
pjc50
Inequality?

It's an oil country. I'd not be surprised to find it's full of million-dollar
apartments driving the average up. Maybe the low wage workers live beyond the
city boundary, or in favelas that are excluded from the average.

[http://www.architonic.com/ntsht/over-site-how-caracas-s-
new-...](http://www.architonic.com/ntsht/over-site-how-caracas-s-new-cable-
car-system-is-making-the-city-s-favelas-more-visible/7000511)

------
NicoJuicy
And what about politicians demanding 40% is female, while only 10% of the
candidates are female... That is actually one silly law (i'm not trying to
discriminate, but it's kinda unfair for finding the best candidates).

------
wxm
I've just finished doing the same for Edinburgh, UK and share many of the OP's
frustrations. The monopoly that many letting agencies have in that they are
also managing apartments adds to the shortage of accommodation in Europe's
largest cities. Unlike in previous years, besides a worsening of the
availability of accommodation I have also noticed an increase in scammers this
year (i.e. people copying pictures from other city's agencies and trying to
convince people to pay pre-deposits or application/administrative fees to
'secure keys').

------
lordbusiness
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point, identifies people like this
author as "mavens". :-)

The world is better off for having them.

~~~
erikb
Maybe you could say some more about it, to make it useful for people who
haven't read that book?

~~~
lordbusiness
It's a significant portion of the book so to summarize in a tiny comment will
likely not do justice to the concept. However, I'll try. :-)

In essence, maven comes from Yiddish, and it means "one who accumulates
knowledge". Economists spend a lot of time studying mavens and their habits.

Mavens are the people who will analyze every big screen TV on the market,
pouring over data, correcting consumer report articles on minutia, and looking
for the best deal. They're also the ones who analyze flight itineraries
looking for the best combination of layovers and low fare, and they are the
tiny fraction of people who actually read the prices on goods in a supermarket
and will complain when the supermarket writes "special offer" on something
without actually lowering the price, thus holding the market to account.

The interesting thing about mavens is that they not only pour over this data
for their own purposes, but they actively share it with the world (even if
'world' only means 'other people they talk to directly') at large in order to
help others, consciously or unconsciously.

The work of the few obsessors benefits everyone because markets don't "get
away" with conning us.

~~~
tomek_zemla
You just made me want to read this book... Thank you.

~~~
lordbusiness
You won't regret it!

------
jonalmeida
What was your dataset of people who were applying? If a girl with an Italian
name gets 90% and a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets 1%, what
about the in-between?

I'd be curious to know where I stand..

------
qwerta
> This was pretty easy as there is absolutely no captcha system used by that
> time, on those websites

Captcha is not really a problem if you are willing to spend a few cents.

------
Kurtz79
"Reasonnable means that the rent doesn’t exceed 800€ for a 15m² flat"

Is living in 15 m² reasonable ?

I live in a studio of about 30 m² and I find it claustrophobic at times.

~~~
erikb
He can't afford more than a 15m² flat but even these are sometimes too
expensive. That's not what he says literally, but it's probably his idea,
considering that nobody would like to live in just 15 m² but many people have
an upper limit on what they can pay.

~~~
Kurtz79
I was wondering if you can actually find flats that small.

While I was looking here in Madrid, the least I could find were 20/25 m2
flats.

Regardless, as someone that has shared the author's pains multiple times,
kudos to him for the creativity of his method.

------
gimboland
Brilliant punchline.

