Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

Take it from someone who has pounded the pavement doing sales for my previous start-up, selling online lunch ordering service to restaurant owners, there is a lot of merit to what the parent's and grand parent's comments. You would be surprised how much many people despise technology. I think its because many of them were early adopters for various tech services sold to them by slick salesmen in the early days of software, and were then burned by how expensive and complicated it all was. They are now skeptical So yes you would need a stellar sales team, which I'm sure you will get. I love the idea by the way, and I do think there is a lot of scope. Best of luck!

oojacoboo this looks awesome man - congrats! What did you develop it with?

Several years ago, I had an apartment that used a similar online rent payment system, though I can't remember the name of it (payyourrent.com? rentpayment.com? hmm). As a tenant, one of the features I loved most about them was the ability to pay by credit card - so I could earn points through my rent.

I didn't see a mention of being able to accept credit card payments, so if that's not in this version yet, here's a vote for having it in the next version.

Good luck with the property owner sales end of this business too. As a tenant, I love systems like this, so I hope to see it in use someday.

I found the pricing page confusing at first. At a casual glance it looks like most of the plans are exactly the same. Something about the design made me ignore the number of units listed at the top.

It also doesn't state if there are transaction fees, which you mentioned in another comment.

I own with my father a 30 unit building. With that, let me just address the tagline: "Connect with tenants effortlessly, automate rent with online rent collection, organize work orders, and much more!"

-

Connect with tenants effortlessly - Not a good thing, Usually leads to excess work orders, more "asks" and petty squabbles about this and that.

-

Automate rent with online rent collection - Not sure how this is going to work. We have a option for people to pay rent via CC, but most people opt to do it in cash/check. Since only a fraction would use this, I would have to add to my work load to manually enter their transactions in here to have data integrity.

-

organize work orders- Definitely dont want this. If they need something done, they just go the manager and ask. Taking away that element will just create unneeded work orders. We already have a internal system for tracking needed work. I think the last thing we would want is to make it easier for the tenant to complain about things.

-

...tasks, contacts and more! I guess this is cool, but we never really have a need for this. You already have to file their rental application and other work anyways, so its not like you wont have this.

-

I guess I just dont see the appeal. Its cool to have a nice online interface for this, but I know we wouldnt use it and even my friend who runs a 400 unit complex hates moving stuff to tech. Unfortunately, they always add more work then they solve. The last thing ANY land lord needs, is /MORE/ paper trail :)

-

If you get anything from this, get this- I am a technical, HN user that owns a apartment building. I am (what you would assume) your absolute ideal customer.

And with that, I wouldnt use your product without significant changes.

~fin