

YouGotListings (YC W11) looks to provide the best tools for real estate - jetaries
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/yougotlistings-offers-a-broker-tested-rental-listing-management-software/

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a_m_kelly
I found my current apartment on Craigslist through an ad my landlord put up. I
had to spend hours churning through what is essentially spam: brokers listing
apartment or listing that they have listings but not actually giving out much
information on individual places.

Services like this one and Rentjuice are services for brokers to find
landlords and property managers who want to rent their apartments. (unless I
misunderstand what's going on here.) Why are these services uniting landlords
with managers and not with renters? I am tired of dealing with aggressive,
bullshit-talking real estate agents who make money by having what amounts to a
monopoly on rental information. In my experience they've got the incentive to
get me into some apartment, any apartment as quickly as possible, they need me
off their list ASAP, I need to find a place I'm going to spend most of my time
in for at least a year. The general inability to listen to basic requests
further annoys me, an agent has 4 apartments that fit my requirements, but I
get dragged into places that don't meet my price requirements before getting
around to the places I might actually rent.

The situation strikes me as ludicrous and it seems startups should be actively
trying to dismantle this old-school ossified way of doing things. (see: AirBnB
for hotels/temporary lodging as well as that car service one whose name I
don't recall.) Craigslist listings moved us a big step in the correct
direction, but they're still full of spam. It seems to me that real estate
agents receive a lot more money than the value they're delivering. This may
not be true with house purchases which is certainly more complicated and
outside my experience.

"The SaaS allows landlords to post new listings, which get distributed in
real-time to the brokers they’ve selected." Why aren't these being distributed
to the people who need apartments?

Edited to add: "The software also includes tools for syndicate rental listings
to general listing sites like Trulia, Hotpads, Craigslist and others. "

I can't believe I missed this the first time around. Worst case scenario
(which I lean toward) means the above "feature" may as well read "We're going
to ruin other services by helping you to spam them more easily." Sounds like a
step in the wrong direction for renters, who should be the customers at the
center of all of these transactions.

~~~
jetaries
A good alternative is PadMapper.com. Somehow, they are able to cut out a ton
of crap from the over postings. Worth a shot if you are looking for an
apartment.

~~~
mistermann
Padmapper is phenomenal, but craigslist sucks so bad, that it ends up just
being mildly useful. The ability to constantly and repeatedly relist the same
(often fictional) property really depresses me. So easy to fix, and would make
life so much better for users, yet, it will never get fixed. And yet,
craigslist continues to dominate so many markets. Why god, why?

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ericb
I cofounded a startup named RentRunner, in Boston, and spent a year trying to
get a similar sounding system to be used by real estate brokers. We had an
agent on our team, and he was our sales person. We could not find a model that
would get us sales without expensive direct sales. And although direct sales
seemed to work, the possible price points wouldn't support it.

My experience was that real estate brokerages have very little money, and even
less desire to part with it. I'd like to humbly suggest that YouGotListings
mentally prepare to consider a pivot rather early if you find the same. There
is still so much good that can be done in this space.

I have some ideas for pivot directions--email me if you are interested in
hearing more about our experiences.

~~~
jetaries
Thank your for the feedback. I agree with you on your points. I'll ping you
separately for a more in-depth discussion.

~~~
tyrelb
Brokers are inherently lazy, too. That's the other missing piece of the
puzzle. Meaning that no matter what you make for their industry, they're less
likely to use it unless they can use it from bed (while still sleeping) and it
costs them nothing (because the're broke).

So my advice is, take your revenue assumptions and divide by 100, then
multiply your expenses by 5 and triple your timeline for adoption.

~~~
jetaries
On a serious note. Brokers are very hardworking. They may not be the most tech
savvy people, but they most certainly are not lazy.

They do not have it easy, and technology is changing so fast, I think they'll
have to as well.

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jetaries
We are looking for our help too! If you are a developer and looking for work,
or want to join a start up. Email us, and join us as the 1st employee, and
perhaps more. We are pretty open minded.

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erreon
Being a Real Estate agent in Texas I'll be the first to say most "solutions"
for agents suck. We've completely destroyed our reputation as agents (if there
was much of one anyway) on Craigslist by flooding the different areas. Many
agents lie or use old listings or data to do bait and switch type ads.

I haven't used this solution, but I hope it helps to thin out some of the crap
that gets posted to craigslist. Something that'd be awesome is to have the
software ping the IDX to make sure the property being posted is still
available. If it's not then maybe have an extra dialog to be SURE the person
wants to post the property.

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cletus
I come from Australia, have lived in the UK, Germany and Switzerland and now
live in the US.

What I find really interesting is just how badly real estate works online in
the US. To quote Bart Simpson, it achieves what was previously thought
physically impossible: it sucks and blows at the same time.

In Australia there are basically two online sites for both rentals and sales:
realestate.com.au and domain.com. They have a lot of crossover and you could
honestly find somewhere to live or buy just by looking at one. Estate agents
have their own sites too but I really don't know why. Anything they post gets
cross-posted to one of these two sites.

In the UK, it's basically the same story with findaproperty.co.uk and 1-2
others I'm now forgetting.

In Switzerland it's even more centralized where you will find everything on
homegate.ch.

In the US? It's a disaster. There are so many sites and nothing centralized
has really taken off. Even when you boil it down to one city.

As a buyer or renter I want to go to a handful of sites and find up-to-date
listings. Ideally I'd like that site to tell me how to contact the agent, when
the open house is (if there is one), the location (even if only down to cross-
street) and photos of the property. Oh and the date it was listed (which
should be specified by the site, not the person writing the listing).

Online real estate in the US reminds me a lot of recruitment in the UK (both
are fragmented disasters).

Typically sites will charge for a listing and that listing will stay there
until whoever posted it removes it. It's important to have the right
incentives here. Charge the advertiser by the amount of time it's shown so
brokers and agents don't keep up listings to act like honeypots (much like UK
recruiters do with jobs, both fake and real).

I feel that some government regulation is required here to stamp down on the
misrepresentation that is both possible and actual (in both markets).

Even the fact that brokers exist is a sign of market inefficiency. Why do I
need an intermediary to find an apartment? In NYC (where I now live) using a
broker is almost a must (if you want a non-crappy apartment, which is taking
money out of the pocket of the renter and the landlord, in the form of a below
market rent). In Manhattan these brokers typically charge 15% (of the annual
rent). In Brooklyn and Queens it could well be 1 month or lease.

So when I see software that helps brokers and landlords find each other, I see
a business model that is perpetuation a market efficiency that I believe is
ultimately doomed.

Also, $50/month for 1 user but $100/month for unlimited? Big mistake. I
seriously suggest you read Joel [1] on this one:

> Bad Idea #1: Site Licenses.

> The opposite of segmentation, really. I have certain competitors that do
> this: they charge small customers per-user but then there's a "unlimited"
> license at a fixed price. This is nutty, because you're giving the biggest
> price break precisely to the largest customers, the ones who would be
> willing to pay you the most money. Do you really want IBM to buy your
> software for their 400,000 employees and pay you $2000? Hmm?

> As soon as you have an "unlimited" price, you are instantly giving a
> gigantic gift of consumer surplus to the least price-sensitive customers who
> should have been the cash cows of your business.

Not that I have the answers on how to fix the situation in America but cities
(possibly even states) could (and IMHO should) regulate rental practices. In
the larger cities, it clearly seems to be required.

[1]:
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html)

~~~
shawnee_
_There are so many sites and nothing centralized has really taken off. Even
when you boil it down to one city._

Wrong. There IS something centralized: it's called the Multiple Listing
Service, and ONLY Brokers and Realtors have "access" to it. They are
salespeople, and salespeople compete only with each other. That 6 percent
commission is the unwavering aspect of their model -- they built it to ensure
that it always gets dropped into their shark tank. Consumers do not benefit
from this system, ever, and every single entity in the real estate industry
wants to keep it that way.

 _Even the fact that brokers exist is a sign of market inefficiency. Why do I
need an intermediary to find an apartment?_

You don't. However, brokers are not the intermediaries; they are at the top of
the pyramid scheme. After studying this industry from every possible angle, my
conclusion is that purveyors of the current system are rotten to the core.
Their lobbying group (the National Association of Realtors:
<http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s>) is about as rotten as
a swimming pool of maggot-covered dead skunks that's been sitting in the sun
for a week.

The pecking order is as such:

    
    
      Broker Realtors + Mortgage Brokers  
      Agent Realtors  + Mortgage Loan Agents (Bankers)
      Leasing Agents (Realtors)
      Property Management Companies AKA "Landlords"
       

And all of them, working together, have only one incentive, and that is
insanely high rents (yes, _rents_ ). As long as rents are high, the rest of
their system is safe, and home ownership remains an unattainable pipe dream
for most people. Which it really is, unless you're one of them. Realtors with
their glossy booklets and shiny websites sell the _illusion_ of ownership, and
it works! Poof, and all of a sudden, it becomes so "necessary" to have a
Realtor to help people navigate the scary world of shopping for a home. (See
also: the housing boom of 2006.)

Build an excel spreadsheet that shows how much interest vs principle people
pay on a typical 30-year loan over time. Now figure out how long it'll take to
pay off the commission that your Realtor earns for his 2.5 hours of "work" on
your behalf. Oh, and don't forget to include every penny of your life savings
you've already forked over as the "down payment." (Down payments don't go
toward equity, they go to pay the salespeople!) Pity the people who have been
hoodwinked into thinking that their house payments are actually going to
equity, that that 30-year mortgage means that they're going to own their house
some day. The banks are too smart to let people do that, that's why they
invented refinancing!

As long as the greatest portion of income people earn goes to rent, neither
savings nor long-term equity can be obtained. As long as people are unable to
build equity, they are trapped in a system that essentially forces them into
paying whatever rents are demanded of them. Most people who live in Silicon
Valley know this: 1K for a 0 bedroom apartment? Really?

The solution for consumers is NOT going to come by making it easier for
Brokers and Landlords / Agents to hook up and control prices, that's for sure.
This is a recipe for disaster on a grand scale.

~~~
patio11
This comment would be better if you dialed down the invective a few notches.
As it is I think your passion gets in the way of seeing reality as it actually
is:

 _home ownership remains an unattainable pipe dream for most people_

This is objectively untrue for any sensible definition of "most": 67.4% of
inhabited housing units in the US are inhabited by the owner.

Is home ownership going down? No, by any sensible measurement, it is
increasing, across all races and most income groups. For folks who are often
the have-nots in the US economy, home ownership increased rapidly (did people
think "sub prime mortgages" existed solely to inflate bank revenue numbers?
The flip side of that coin is giving loans to people who would historically
have been classified as too risky for a mortgage _gives houses to people who
historically would have been too risky to qualify for a mortgage_.)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_States)

An addition underappreciated side-effect of financial engineering in the last
twenty years is that, even post-bubble, down payments have gone from "your
life savings" (which, at 20%, they really were) to "optional for many people
and often and achievable in 3~5 years of dedicated work" (norms are in flux
now, but there are a lot of banks which will take 5% as sufficient skin in the
game for a prospective owner with decent credit).

I have no significant disagreement with you regarding the value add by
Realtors and the 6% commission structure, although that is not inviolate,
particularly in the current climate. (5% of something beats 6% of nothing
every day of the week.)

~~~
defen
> This is objectively untrue for any sensible definition of "most": 67.4% of
> inhabited housing units in the US are inhabited by the owner.

Are you sure that 67.4% of inhabited housing units in the US are actually
inhabited by the owner? If I take out a 30 year loan on a house and then move
in, the bank still owns that property. I would expect the number to be
significantly lower than 67.4% when you factor in rentals + people living in
homes with refinancing or otherwise not-fully-paid-off mortgages. But I don't
actually know what the number is or where to find it.

~~~
tptacek
The bank does not own your mortgaged house. They have a claim on it when it
comes time to liquidate. It's easy to see that the homeowner "owns" the house:
they can rent it to anyone else at any rate, raising rates as the market
changes; the bank is stuck with the terms of the 30 year mortgage.

~~~
defen
Good point. But there does seem to me (never owned a home) that there is a
qualitative difference between someone who owns their home in the clear, and
someone who is using their home as collateral for a loan, which I thought the
original poster was getting at. I might be way off though.

~~~
tptacek
Sure there is: one homeowner has a couple hundred thousand dollars of secured
debt, and the other doesn't. In neither case is there any practical difference
vis a vis the house itself. The homeowner who "owns his home free and clear"
can still lose the house owing to any other major debt; there are even states
where you are likely to lose your house in a conventional bankruptcy.

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callmeed
I've never lived in a large metro, so I'm unsure how prevalent brokers are (or
even how they operate). Do you have to deal with rental brokers in all large
cities? Even the Midwest/south like Dallas, Indy, Atlanta, KC, Phoenix, etc?

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kevingao1
Congrats guys!! Def a much needed solution in an inefficient market

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pmorici
Visually it looks like Facebook and LinkedIn for real estate agents.

