We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments • Hacker News Board

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#41

Post by dspillett » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

literallycancer wrote: post #33

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption that software can solve this problem is simply wrong. It's the regulation change that needs to happen if you don't want that renter pay the broker "services". For example, a new law in Germany to apply the "who hires pays" principle for brokers in the renting market basically made the renting "broker fee free" for renters. Previously, the landlords would hire a broker that needed to be paid by the rent…

So the landlords just make the rent more expensive to account for having to pay the broker, what changed?

Less admin for the tenant? More up-front pricing (assuming the broker fee was not required to be obviously disclosed) for them too?

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#42

Post by turtlebits » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

Maybe I'm old school, but I like to make sure I meet my tenants face to face during a showing before renting a property out. I guess it depends on if your tenants are all shorter term and you have high turnover.

I don't feel the paperwork part of it is a huge hassle anymore, with screening services and document signing all being online now.

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#43

Post by tcbasche » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

I’ve had this urge lately after dealing with idiotic and incompetent property rental managers to automate their entire industry away. I’m glad I’m not the only one

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#44

Post by handojin » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #36

DoctorNick wrote: post #28

great, now replace landlords.

With what?

communism

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#45

Post by cortesoft » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #32

blakesterz wrote: post #3

This was really well written, such a good read. It somehow made the phrase "Everything that can be automated is automated." less... I don't know... scary I guess. I can't put my finger on it, but giving all this up to some algorithms seems wrong/worrisome for some reason, but seeing exactly how it was done made it less so.

Using the algorithm to eliminate leeching middlemen was one of the promises of the future. Real estate in general is full of middlemen looking for a cut and providing little to no value. The whole industry is overdue for a shakeup.

Sadly, our experience shows that 'the algorithm' becomes very centralized (because of the network effect), and suddenly this new middleman starts extracting fees comparable to the previous middlemen.

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#46

Post by spyspy » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

cde-v wrote: post #6

Would love something like this to kill (or at least severely maim) the broker industry in NYC. 0 value added at the cost of 10-15% of yearly rent.

What's worse is they also employ high pressure sales tactics to get tenants to settle asap. Young professionals and students moving to the city for the first time are their bread and butter, along with people who decided to end their current lease and have 30 short days to find a new spot.

While searching for my current apartment, I was month-to-month on my previous NYC lease and was therefore 1) not a complete noob to the city and 2) could be super picky and I kept getting the sense brokers had no patience for someone like me.

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#47

Post by titzer » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #31

cde-v wrote: post #6

Would love something like this to kill (or at least severely maim) the broker industry in NYC. 0 value added at the cost of 10-15% of yearly rent.

The assumption that software can solve this problem is simply wrong. It's the regulation change that needs to happen if you don't want that renter pay the broker "services". For example, a new law in Germany to apply the "who hires pays" principle for brokers in the renting market basically made the renting "broker fee free" for renters. Previously, the landlords would hire a broker that needed to be paid by the rent…

The Marklers are such parasites.

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#48

Post by soheil » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

The blog mentions they used Charles to intercept traffic and reverse engineer the digital lock [0]. How does a tool like that decode HTTPS traffic? I thought HTTPS was encrypted end to end by the browser.

[0] https://www.charlesproxy.com/

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#49

Post by badestrand » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

literallycancer wrote: post #33

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption that software can solve this problem is simply wrong. It's the regulation change that needs to happen if you don't want that renter pay the broker "services". For example, a new law in Germany to apply the "who hires pays" principle for brokers in the renting market basically made the renting "broker fee free" for renters. Previously, the landlords would hire a broker that needed to be paid by the rent…

So the landlords just make the rent more expensive to account for having to pay the broker, what changed?

Actually the brokers' prices fell drastically in response to this law. Probably because the landlords now have an incentive to take the cheapest broker.

Re: We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

#50

Post by jon-wood » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

shazzzm wrote: post #22

cde-v wrote: post #6

Would love something like this to kill (or at least severely maim) the broker industry in NYC. 0 value added at the cost of 10-15% of yearly rent.

Lettings fees were banned in Scotland a while back, I think they're now also illegal in England and Wales too.

Yup, also banned in England now. It shouldn't have been, but it was very refreshing when I last renewed my lease not to be charged several hundred pounds for the privilege of emailing back a signed copy of the document with the end date changed.