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Datamining a Flat in Munich

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Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#101

Post by senand »

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.…

Wow, good to know! I'm currently looking for a flat in Berlin and will definitely use the site. Let's see if I also write some automation around it as the OP apparently did :)

Question: how does nestoria make money? Do you get some cut from immowelt etc. in case you end up renting/buying?

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#102

Post by philangist »

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…

I've noticed something similar here in NYC as I've been apartment hunting. There are postings that will ask for a link to your facebook/instagram/twitter before they'll even show you the property. I'm not saying that it's always motivated by discriminatory behavior, but if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck...

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#103

Post by philangist »

mhd wrote: post #40
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…

There's certainly a good amount of racism in Munich (it's really best for a lot of people that you can't understand most drunks around here), and realtors generally aren't the creme of the crop of basic goodness anyway. But I think a part of it comes down to a higher chance of young people with Arab names either being students (short-term, prone to be loud and messy no matter where they're from) or more likely to bri…

Well I'm sure that age has something to do with it, but a 1% response rate is so ridiculously low that you can't just explain that away with age. I'm sure that under 25 german males are not getting responses 1% of the time.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#104

Post by rmc »

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)?

No. There are countless laws for landlords. e.g. if you rent it to someone, you can't kick them out whenever you want, you can't enter the property whenever you want.

Likewise, if you own a shop, you cannot refuse entry to your property based on race/ethnicity. You do not have an absolute right to do whatever you want with your property.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#105

Post by freyfogle »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #99
freyfogle wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I imagine, real estate keywords are probably very expensive. Also, I have an ad blocker. In cities like Munich, speed is very important - is your search real-time or at least near rt? If so, I'd advertise that. I need to be sure I'm not missing any offerings, and that they aren't slower to show than when going to the 'real' site.

Ha! Unfortunately nothing about the real estate industry is real time.

We do the best we can and push our partners to do the same. Over the years it is getting better, but it is not close to what consumers want.

That said, speed is a much bigger issue in some markets (rentals in cities like Munich) and much less in others (buying a house out in a village).

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#106

Post by freyfogle »

senand wrote: post #101
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.…

Wow, good to know! I'm currently looking for a flat in Berlin and will definitely use the site. Let's see if I also write some automation around it as the OP apparently did :) Question: how does nestoria make money? Do you get some cut from immowelt etc. in case you end up renting/buying?

We generate leads for our partners, the same model as all search engines.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#107

Post by DigitalJack »

yock wrote: post #95
netcan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike this mentality. I think it's counterproductive, and I hope you change your mind. Laws play their role. Sometimes they walk fine lines between usefulness, uselessness and harmfulness, but they are not unequivocally useless in all such cases. Consider the gay awakening. When I was in high school the world was a qualitatively different place for homosexuals. A worse place. The axis around which culture…

This feels like pie-in-the-sky sort of thinking. Sure, you can make certain kinds of decision making processes illegal, but it doesn't change the hearts and minds of the people making those decisions. As has been said here already, this only pushes those processes out of the public eye and into the private space. Those who would discriminate on illegal grounds will always be able to manufacture plausible deniability,…

I agree with a lot of what you say, but in reality you actually can legislate morality and change hearts and minds. It doesn't happen as fast as creating the legislation, but over time, hearing a message over and over, it becomes embedded and believed.

So while you may not change a particular person's mind, you stand a chance of changing their kid's mind. There was a time, not that long ago, in America where if you were Black and drank from the wrong water fountain our sat at the wrong spot in a restaurant, you would be killed by a mob.

Legislation about segregation changed that for the better. Probably not in those living in the day, but their kids and kid's kids.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#108

Post by rmc »

gambiting wrote: post #73
vertex-four wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Age discrimination is perfectly legal everywhere It's protected alongside the statuses of disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation, to more-or-less the same extent in theory. There are, however, glaring exceptions when it comes to housing (due to how this protection intersects with property rights), as housing agency industry groups, hous…

I think the most glaring omission is car insurance - if you enquire about insurance you will be straight up told that because you are under 25, the premium is going to be 4x of what it would be normally. No-one bats an eyelid at that - statistics prove that young drivers crash more, so it's all fine, right?? Funnily enough, statistically men crash more than women too - but it's illegal to charge men more, because tha…

Funnily enough, statistically men crash more than women too - but it's illegal to charge men more, because that would be gender discrimination.

In the EU this became illegal recently. It also applied to women, who live longer than men, so were being charged higher life assurance. It just shows how anti-sexism laws can, and do, benefit men.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#109

Post by yock »

DigitalJack wrote: post #107
yock wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like pie-in-the-sky sort of thinking. Sure, you can make certain kinds of decision making processes illegal, but it doesn't change the hearts and minds of the people making those decisions. As has been said here already, this only pushes those processes out of the public eye and into the private space. Those who would discriminate on illegal grounds will always be able to manufacture plausible deniability,…

I agree with a lot of what you say, but in reality you actually can legislate morality and change hearts and minds. It doesn't happen as fast as creating the legislation, but over time, hearing a message over and over, it becomes embedded and believed. So while you may not change a particular person's mind, you stand a chance of changing their kid's mind. There was a time, not that long ago, in America where if you w…

Don't you think the act of creating the legislation is itself part of the peoples' changing hearts and minds? To me it seems like you have the cause and effect reversed.

Re: Datamining a Flat in Munich

#110

Post by hessenwolf »

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…

I have been stupid enough to be devastated twice when an Italian named Andrea arrived to the meeting.
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