Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

rentpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 255 posts

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#191

Post by ryanwaggoner »

silverbax88 wrote: post #184
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, don't take it personally, but I've been doing real estate for the last six years and I've spent tons of time talking to other investors and landlords. I also still rent because the returns in SF for buying are so abysmal. So I've had plenty of exposure to the way the real estate industry works. And the customer service is almost uniformly terrible. I read your statement as saying that you didn't want to make i…

Please don't take offense, but you are going to run into tenants eventually who will call you DAILY to fix things or complain. Maybe they feel the bedroom is colder today than yesterday, or they saw a spider in front of the building, or maybe they don't like the shape of the clouds overhead on Thursdays. Until you rent to enough people to start getting these renters, you've been isolated.

Every business has these kinds of customers. Hopefully your only plan for dealing with them is not to make it more difficult for all of your customers to contact you, including the 99% who never bother you.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#192

Post by catshirt »

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…

IANAL, but wouldn't the correct analogy actually be a website placing a "need help?" button on their page? Which is of course common.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#193

Post by DanBlake »

bherms wrote: post #170
DanBlake wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@ryan Sure, There is a line somewhere to be crossed/not crossed. The only example I can give is maybe along the lines of google. There is no support whatsoever, yet people remain happy for the most part when things break. People love google. But you cant call and complain- You have to jump through a few hoops and fill out forms first. Thats all I am saying- If you make things too easy, your costs will go up with no a…

Google may not have an easy support system, but it's unrealistic to expect expert service from free products/utilities. When you're paying anywhere from $500-several thousand dollars a month for something, I think you're entitled to complain as often as you're upset and should be able to expect things to be taken care of.

Adsense doesnt have phone support and significant money changes hands there.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#194

Post by axod »

matwood wrote: post #185
axod wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK Free banking No charges No "convenience fees" Free online banking, setup automated payments, one offs, transfer money to other banks in the UK instantly, etc I assume you're talking about the US?

I have all of those with my credit union in the US. Heck, every bill I pay using online bill pay gives me rewards points typical to what using a CC would do. This includes paying bills where the credit union ends up mailing a physical cashiers check. All of the above with no charges, although they may have a requirement to have direct deposit set up.

That seems like the exception in the US though.

In the UK using cheques for anything is the rare exception. The plan is to phase them out within a few years, but already hardly anyone uses them any more.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#195

Post by stevenp »

I'd like to get more of a sense of why it took you 2 years... is anyone using it yet? A blog post on your process would be great. 2 years seems like a long time (assuming you don't have a bunch of customers already using it).

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#196

Post by theoreticalee »

dimitry wrote: post #120
waterlesscloud wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" This is not a restaurant. We do not depend on referrals, walkins or other methods. Dont apply the restaurant methodology to owning a building because it doesn't work. In a restaurant, you keep everyone happy so they come back again. Spilled something on you? Free meal. Steak was cold? Come back for half off. Just doesn't work like that in renting." It could work like that if there was Yelp For Landlords.

It depends on the rental market. Here in Pittsburgh, more landlords in the city are bad because it's such a heavy student population. What's the incentive to be good or to update apartment features? Every apartment gets rented out anyways.

About 1/3 of our city's population is students as well.

I have heard nightmare stories about 'Turn' taking weeks to complete because of the high turnover rates in our city.. As well as managers being at whits end 1/2 the time because of workload. We really tried to develop our software to ease these tensions. In some of the companies we have studied, we were able to reduce the workload of the company and reduce the stress.

And in doing so, hopefully we make a happier rental env for everyone :)

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#197

Post by solutionyogi »

oojacoboo wrote: post #172
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.

By technical audience, do you mean technical people who are also property owners? If yes, then the headline is great.

Though my guess would be that majority of your customers will be non technical. If the technical audience refers your website to non-technical people, you want your page understandable to them.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#198

Post by Johngibb »

mwarkentin wrote: post #159
axod wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you send it through the post or drive to a office or something? I just can't see how there could possibly be a less efficient way to pay bills. I'd simply go insane if I had to remember to pay bills.

You just give a year's worth of post-dated cheques.

I would shy away from doing this. The bank has no obligation to uphold the post-date that you write. I once sent in a post-dated rent check that was dependent on a deposit clearing, and the landlord (accidentally) brought it in earlier and it was accepted by the bank. Luckily, the bank covered it for me, but I still had to deal with overdraft fees and such. The bank manager explained to me that post-dating is typically honored by a bank.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#199

Post by dhyasama »

Why do I need a website to connect with my tenants? They have my phone number and email. Assuming I signed up because they would prefer to contact me through this service, then if I were the type to ignore them by phone and email, I'd probably ignore them through this as well.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#200

Post by theoreticalee »

btucker wrote: post #49
murry537 wrote: post #2

This looks sweet! I wish my landlord used it.

I think with tools like this, that's a very common reaction. My suggestion to the founders would be to work to leverage that sentiment to get RentPost in front of landlords. A couple ideas: * Allow roommates to collectively pay their rent online without the landlord being a customer of RentPost. You then turn around and cut a cheque which is mailed to the landlord. Included with the cheque is the upsell to subscribe…

Awesome suggestions!

We haven't thought of the 2nd concept at all. I'll have to bring this one up to the guys.

thanks :)

Post reply on HN