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Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

rentpost.com

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Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#171

Post by rue »

Lewisham wrote: post #115
axod wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offtopic, but why the hell are people still using cash/check to pay bills in this day and age? What country are you in? Do they not have modern banking?

My wife doesn't trust automated debit systems. "If they take too much of your money, then what do you do?!" I pay everything by CC, but she writes a lot of checks. She's not what I would call a luddite, she just doesn't trust other people with her money.

An electronic transaction can be customer-initiated, as well. In the EU most billpaying has been through direct account transfers for a long, long time now. Nowadays payments work across the union, too.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#172

Post by oojacoboo »

solutionyogi wrote: post #71

Website looks great but the copy needs some serious work. The main phrase: Start Simplifying Rent™ in the RentPost Cloud If you make the lady at my leasing office read this, she will be like 'What????' Connect with tenants effortlessly I don't think the landlord wants to connect with the tenant. He is interested in collecting rent. "We're just getting warmed up; get on the bandwagon." Why should I care that you are w…

we are targeting a more technical audience right now while we get our feet in the door. We feel this is the best audience to help us get going. If we start to see issues with traction (it's been great so far), we will pivot as needed.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#173

Post by aces »

i like the idea.I've thought about doing something like this before and wish every place would take credit card for rent. It would be great to be able to get credit card points for my largest monthly expense and also not have to worry about cutting a check every month. Its a great product from the tenants perspective.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#174

Post by oojacoboo »

troymc wrote: post #85
vaksel wrote: post #5

the problem is that most property owners aren't tech savvy. Most of them don't even have a webpage. And I'm not talking about the 1-2 unit owners...I'm talking about multi building companies with $600K in yearly revenue who haven't even bothered to setup a 1 page site with their phone # and hours of operation. If you are going to take on this market, you are going to need a direct on the ground sales team.

Property owners are a diverse group. They range from boneheads with no high school education to college professors. This service is clearly intended for those who like to use web services, which is still a big group (and growing).

bingo, you nailed it. At least that's how we see it ;)

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#175

Post by Retric »

lrm242 wrote: post #97
oojacoboo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also how your units end up with leaking sinks and tens of thousands of dollars in repair costs. It depends on how you want to run your business. Many companies WANT work orders, and with the system you can read over them, prioritize and determine if you need to address or dismiss. You also don't have to take the call or deal with any of that, they just come into your feed.

You're getting pretty defensive in the face of a potential customer. If I were you I'd take the opportunity to try to understand what WOULD make the OP's life easier. There is, often times, some easy ways to turn an initial detractor into a proponent. At the minimum it won't be the last time you hear feedback like this, so use it as an opportunity to understand the REASONS the OP feels the way he does. That way you c…

Here is a landlord feature:

Track the maintenance cycles associated with each apartment.

Here is a tenet feature:

Track work orders to fix a broken appliance.

They might cover the same area, but guess who is buying your product.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#176

Post by oojacoboo »

biot wrote: post #155
oojacoboo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll review this, thanks for the input!

Also check out how it looks on the iPad or simulate this by resizing your browser width so that it's at the smallest possible size without having a horizontal scrollbar. The content is right up against the browser edge with no space. You should add some padding on each side to avoid this.

ouch, I knew about this, forgot to put in a fix... thanks for reminding me!

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#177

Post by rm445 »

kleinsch wrote: post #114
axod wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offtopic, but why the hell are people still using cash/check to pay bills in this day and age? What country are you in? Do they not have modern banking?

Banks charge 1-2% as a credit card fee, but no fees for using checks. In my building, they pass the fee along to me (the tenant), so it's in my best interest to pay by check.

You've gone straight from "why the hell are people still using cash/check to pay bills in this day and age?" to "it's in my best interest to pay by check", via the assumption that the only alternative is credit card.

Why not, say, just log into your online banking and arrange an electronic transfer to the landlord's account on a set day of each month?

I think this was parent poster's point - that in some countries (even those less advanced than America in other ways) the banking system allows much greater convenience. Most people in Western Europe have the option of paying their rent electronically without writing a cheque and without incurring extra fees.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#179

Post by mdemare »

thasmin wrote: post #137
JacobAldridge wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the customer service issues in the real estate industry (especially property management) as being created by two issues (and disclosure: I've worked in real estate for the past 11 years, from the front desk to franchise ops manager to consulting back to the industry): * High staff turnover * Procedures that suck staff time, instead of supporting them Being a property manager is, for the most part, an awful job.…

Rocket surgeon. Great mixed metaphor. :-)

But not a new one: "Rocket Surgery Made Easy", by Steve Krug, http://amzn.com/0321657292

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#180

Post by pavel_lishin »

DanBlake wrote: post #107
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to attack you personally, but your response is typical of the real estate industry, and exactly why there's a hole in the market worth billions. For whatever reason, customer service is almost uniformly bad in the real estate industry. It's so bad, people don't even realize how bad it is, because they've never had anything else to choose from. For example, this kind of attitude makes me really sad: I t…

How did you come off saying that our customer service is bad? Thats a pretty big jump without knowing me or our business. Dont assume that because we dont want to induce more work orders / complaints that we have bad service. What you are saying is "bad" is akin to me asking why sites dont have a "Dissatisfied? Click here for a refund" button on every page. Providing absolute ultimate customer service will cause you…

It may not be bad, but it sounds like there's zero accountability. If I ask my building manager to fix a leaky faucet, there's no paperwork, and if he ignores me for two months, what's my recourse - assuming that my property owners aren't as on the ball as you and your dad?
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