

Startup rental website takes on Craigslist - drm237
http://www.reuters.com/article/deborahCohen/idUSTRE5972LK20091008

======
joshwa
It always drove me nuts that craigslist's searches didn't have more
structure/parameters to them. Big points for not accepting brokers, too.

A few small interaction notes/feature requests:

    
    
      * why can't I search by square footage?
    
      * need to add lots more parametrized amenities (garden, dogs ok/cats ok, balcony,
        central a/c, furnished, etc)
    
      * need to search on brooklyn neighborhoods! park slope != bed-stuy.
    
      * when I click on a map pin, i'd expect to either get a modal dialog with more
        info, or to be taken directly to the listing page. Just showing me a single
        search result is a little unexpected and not especially useful.
    
      * If I click Browse to go back to search, my last search parameters/results 
        should be retained
    
      * the chat widget on the community page isn't loading for me (FF 3.5/OSX)
    
      * The "Oct Deals" link is really cool, but doesn't really tell me what I'm 
        about to see. Also, at the top of the linked-to page, it says September. 
    
      * Why a different UI for the amenities search-- add button vs. checkboxes?
    

PS need a product manager?

PPS: I really need to submit a patch to the HN code to do list formatting

~~~
joe_the_user
You know, to actually have a feature like search by square footage or some
other quantity _usable_ , you would not only have to have that field but train
_every user_ to enter that field in the form. And _that's_ not going to
happen.

The user will paste in whatever they're written already for the description
and put random stuff in the extra fields. _Especially_ when it's a
Realtor/broker/etc - they want a listing to include the good stuff but not
have to say _anything_ about the bad stuff (including that it's doesn't have
XYZ). The Realtor speak that seems to pollute newspapers and craigslist only
seems like a disaster to us. In reality, it is a finely tuned system combining
communication and non-communication that has arisen over the years.

Craigslist is the victory of "good enough to understand", which is exactly how
human natural language works. The continuous Craigslist complaints here are
about "it should be up to my ideal" are about not getting that "good enough"
is the way that people prefer to communicate - with added ambiguity often
being prized by at least one of the communicators - notice how job search ads
generally work the same work (the number of Palo Alto locations I've gotten
when I've searched for San Francisco on Dice.com isn't any more coincidental
than craigslist's disfunction and Dice.com is _only_ paid ads).

~~~
joshwa
Oh I agree, especially in the context of craigslist. However in RentHop's
situation I view it a little differently--you're not getting 50,000 crazy
brokers fresh from their license exams inputting stuff, instead it comes from
the RE management companies who can be expected to do a slightly better job of
things.

Also, I only asked about it once I saw that 4/5 listings I looked at on
RentHop actually had that field filled in!

------
coglethorpe
My first (only) startup was a rental site. RentHop already has more traction
than I ever did. At the time I knew little about funding or how startups
worked. Heck, I didn't really even know much PHP or CSS, but got a site up and
running. With little to no funding, I decided to close up shop, which was sad,
because we did have real listings coming in, just not enough revenue to cover
costs.

I will say that I learned a LOT about coding, which has helped me on my day
job and a lot about startups which will help me enormously, should I do it
again.

What would I do differently?

\- Try to get more seed money. I was working with about a $100 total. I would
go with one like Shotput Ventures in my current Atlanta home, or YC if I could
swing living in SV for three months. I could use the funds for stuff like the
PR that got them this article. I'd get advice and connections to hopefully get
that next round of funding, if I need it.

\- Take a city-based approach. I tried to to the whole USA at once. It's a lot
of territory to cover.

\- Get a technical co-founder. I partnered with someone who had a little real-
estate experience, but couldn't help out on the tech side. I personally need
someone who could really handle the UI design and make something that looks
pretty and is dead-simple to use.

\- Pick a better name. Seriously. I'm not even going to tell you the name we
picked because it was unmemorable, unpronounceable, difficult to spell, and
lacked even a hint of SEO-keyword-mojo.

All those lessons, and the tech skills I picked up will help me greatly If I
try this again. You know I wouldn't be here if I wasn't thinking about it. ;-)

If PG is reading, what made you/YC decide to fund yet another rental listing
site? I'm kind of surprised to be honest. It's been done and has the biggest
competitor out there.

~~~
look_lookatme
I appreciate what RentHop is doing and I really hope they succeed, but there
is going to come a point where ad QA is going to become a concern and then
they will really start to feel the pain of building a rental site, especially
in NYC.

~~~
coglethorpe
Heh, I knew my site was on the map when spammers found it. :-)

I learned about scams that hit renters and landlords, but thankfully I got rid
of them fast.

Also, people posting would either not capitalize _anything_ or leave the CAPS
LOCK key on. Spell checking their own ads was just too much to ask. That
struck me as very odd, because I thought they would try their best to make it
right to get a unit rented. I just let them post what they wanted as long as
it seemed like a legit listing.

~~~
JacobAldridge
_I thought they would try their best to make it right_

I'm a real estate addict (worked in the industry 9+ years, just about to buy
my third house / first investment) - nothing surprises me any more.

I've seen agent-taken and client-approved photos that include nude glamour
shots on the wall, sex toys on display etc. Formatting and spelling in ads
drives me to distraction - I had an agent when I sold my first place actually
mis-spell the suburb it was in!

------
byrneseyeview
They're still missing a huge opportunity: RentHop actually ranks better on
Google for less targeted searches. For example:

    
    
        Search Query                    Ranking
        new york no fee listings        26
        nyc apartment search            30
        new york apartment map          14
        east village apartments         69
        west village no fee listings    53
        apartments in chelsea           not in top 200    
    

You can be pretty sure that someone who looks for "apartments in New York" is
less ready to buy than someone who looks for no-fee listings in the West
Village.

Part of the problem is that the search page is dynamically generated;
neighborhood-specific landing pages would help capture those more targeted
queries.

~~~
coglethorpe
> Part of the problem is that the search page is dynamically generated;
> neighborhood-specific landing pages would help capture those more targeted
> queries.

Yes, yes and yes. SEO matters for almost every site, but it is a really big
deal for this kind of site. I tweaked the internal SEO of my site to highlight
and description (One Bedroom Apartment in Newark, New Jersey) of the listing
and it paid off for those "long tail" searches.

------
databus
"RentHop is free to browse and to post listings, but landlords are charged
half a month's rent for every signed lease the website helps bring in."

Anyone know how you would enforce this? Seems like it would be easy for
landlords/renters to circumvent the charging process.

~~~
bk
I'm also really curious how renthop works in that regard.

I've thought about similar businesses, and avoiding being cut out always seems
like a hard-to-solve problem.

I would really appreciate if you guys could give an explanation without me
having to rent a place to test-drive the process. :)

------
ryanfitz
The manhattan neighborhoods need to be broken up more, I immediately noticed
these missing soho, lower east side, chinatown, nolita, greenwich village, and
hells kitchen.

~~~
leelin
Interesting feedback. Did you try the "search map" mode?

We've struggled with a good middle ground between having all the different
sub-neighborhoods vs. simply allowing people to go to where they want to live
by browsing on a map.

~~~
ryanfitz
In new york different neighborhoods vary greatly and most people have a very
specific neighborhood they are interested in looking. I personally love living
in soho and would not be interested in looking at a different area to live,
even greenwich village which is just 3blocks from me I would not be interested
in. I know I'm not alone in this as most of my friends all have a specific
neighborhood that they want to live in. I think being able to break down the
results to more neighborhoods is a needed feature.

------
drp
Seems like a rather sensationalist headline. Craigslist is not the competitor,
these guys: <http://www.google.com/search?q=no+fee+rentals+nyc> are.

~~~
coglethorpe
First of all, yes, it's another link bait headline.

Initially, those are the competitors for sure. But They are already on the
first page for the query you listed, so they've go that going for them.

------
fjabre
Really nice app.. Anybody know what tech this was implemented in..?

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bravura
How does RentHop ensure that they get their half-month rent from the landlord?
i.e. how do they make sure that they know if they successfully connected a
renter and a landlord to sign a lease?

------
awt
I would really like to see some serious craigslist competitors. There are
basic things that craigslist refuses to allow users to do, like keep a list of
things they're interested in.

