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Datamining a Flat in Munich

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Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#51

Post by lafar6502 »

sauere wrote: post #17
petercooper wrote: post #5

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 pri…

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

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)?

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#52

Post by freyfogle »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #44
freyfogle wrote: post #4

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.…

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!

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.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#53

Post by tzmudzin »

lafar6502 wrote: post #51
sauere wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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)?

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

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#54

Post by ryanjshaw »

freyfogle wrote: post #11
corv wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link, your site is brilliant!

Thanks, you should tell EVERYONE you know. In seriousness though, while we do try our best (not just in Germany, but eight other countries as well), the situation he describes is one that the internet doesn't do a good job of solving. Basically demand way outstrips supply in cities like Munich. As a result, if you have a good flat or house you want to rent out, really all you need to do is tell 5-10 people and via wo…

As somebody unfamiliar with London but considering moving there, it would be great if instead of specifying a geographical radius for the search I could specify a commuting time radius with respect to the City. This would probably be useful even to natives, as I'm sure there are probably many areas where people overestimate commuting times and consequently avoid an area that otherwise should see greater housing demand (thereby levelling out demand and prices, in time, in other areas).

Of course I understand implementing something like this is quite complex, and you'd most likely have to precompute these things and limit it to a few common business centers as destinations, but it would be really preferable to my current strategy of "look for something that seems reasonably priced and then use another site to figure out if it falls within the 1hr commute window I'm looking for".

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#55

Post by tucosan »

freyfogle wrote: post #4

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.…

If I search for appartments to let in germany, the flyout menu only offers to filter for buying prices. See screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/BmUd4bh.png

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#56

Post by kalleth »

ryanjshaw wrote: post #54
freyfogle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, you should tell EVERYONE you know. In seriousness though, while we do try our best (not just in Germany, but eight other countries as well), the situation he describes is one that the internet doesn't do a good job of solving. Basically demand way outstrips supply in cities like Munich. As a result, if you have a good flat or house you want to rent out, really all you need to do is tell 5-10 people and via wo…

As somebody unfamiliar with London but considering moving there, it would be great if instead of specifying a geographical radius for the search I could specify a commuting time radius with respect to the City. This would probably be useful even to natives, as I'm sure there are probably many areas where people overestimate commuting times and consequently avoid an area that otherwise should see greater housing deman…

www.findproperly.co.uk

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#57

Post by lafar6502 »

tzmudzin wrote: post #53
lafar6502 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

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…

Somehow I expected first response to mention Nazis... Anyway, renting a flat is just a contract between two people, not a public service. You need to trust the other person and feel comfortable with giving them access to your property. I dont care about minorities or majorities - its my property and I'm the one who's entitled to do anything with it. Laws won't make me accept _any_ offer if I can choose the best one from a large pool. Just introduce some stupid regulations and I bet you won't find any appartment because nobody will be renting.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#58

Post by probably_wrong »

davidroetzel wrote: post #37

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, b…

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.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#59

Post by jkbyc »

davidroetzel wrote: post #37

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, b…

I can confirm. I discovered this fact very quickly when I was looking for a flat in Munich in 2009. Almost no replies to emails, I got a pretty good response rate when I called or texted the people. I spoke some German so getting a viewing wasn't that complicated but the competition was big - sometimes tens of people queuing to view the apartment when I got there and I could tell they would typically prefer a German person over a Czech guy speaking imperfect German.

Reversing the problem is also a good idea, I know some people had success buying an ad in Sueddeutsche Zeitung. At one point I also put up printed ads in supermarkets in the areas I was considering and while the response rate was very low, I got at least some response.

There are also some agencies that in fact own flats and rent them without requiring the 2.5 x rent fee.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#60

Post by 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.

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