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Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

rentpost.com

81–90 of 255 posts

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#81

Amazing! I run a coworking space for entrepreneurs in Brooklyn, which means every month I'm running around gathering up a dozen or so checks from tenants--so this the most exciting tool I've seen in a long time. Thanks, oojacoboo. You're a lifesaver!

that makes me :)

Congrats on the launch! A few people here aren't sold on the concept but that's fine. There are obviously others that are.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say it, but most of the descriptions you provide about yourself as a landlord typify why people often dislike them.

Uh, ok. This is a product marketed to land lords, not to tenants. I am giving the opinion for the target. Im sure the same thing could be said about attorneys. Its the way the world works. Tenants like asking for misc bullshit and landlords hate doing them.

This is also how your units end up with leaking sinks and tens of thousands of dollars in repair costs. It depends on how you want to run your business. Many companies WANT work orders, and with the system you can read over them, prioritize and determine if you need to address or dismiss. You also don't have to take the call or deal with any of that, they just come into your feed.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#83

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…

My current apartment complex has a portal where one can pay via eCheck and it's pretty awesome. Do you have a "convenience fee" for paying by credit card? How well do you advertise it?

> I think the last thing we would want is to make it easier for the tenant to complain about things.

Kinda sounds like a place where I don't want to live. How are your ratings on ApartmentRatings.com?

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#84

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…

I hate to say it, but most of the descriptions you provide about yourself as a landlord typify why people often dislike them.

Maybe, but how does that make his critique any less valid?

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#85
post #5

the problem is that most property owners aren't tech savvy. Most of them don't even have a webpage. And I'm not talking about the 1-2 unit owners...I'm talking about multi building companies with $600K in yearly revenue who haven't even bothered to setup a 1 page site with their phone # and hours of operation. If you are going to take on this market, you are going to need a direct on the ground sales team.

Property owners are a diverse group. They range from boneheads with no high school education to college professors. This service is clearly intended for those who like to use web services, which is still a big group (and growing).

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#86

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…

So basically what you're saying is this tool actually solves the tenant's problems, and not the landlord's...

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#87

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…

That's as good an advertisement for 'iterate' early and often as we'll see around here. Two years of development and that's the first response you give, I guess either you're not the target market or maybe they should have connected with actual users a bit earlier. So this makes me wonder, was this product developed on the 'they will come' methodology or was there actual end-user involvement and piloting with early a…

Take a look through their blog- they had a year of end user involvement- testing, evaluation and so on.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#88
post #70
post #5

the problem is that most property owners aren't tech savvy. Most of them don't even have a webpage. And I'm not talking about the 1-2 unit owners...I'm talking about multi building companies with $600K in yearly revenue who haven't even bothered to setup a 1 page site with their phone # and hours of operation. If you are going to take on this market, you are going to need a direct on the ground sales team.

Check out http://www.landlordmax.com/ and especially the blog. This guy (selling Java-based desktop tenant management software) managed to eke out quite a profitable business in a few years time. His blog has stats, afaik with sales and nr of users etc. (he used to hang out on the old BoS boards (maybe still does?) and was one of my inspirations back then to get into actual product development).

yep, and there are others too, even web based ones. This isn't anything new, we just think our service is and will be better.

Re: Ask HN: Review RentPost.com

#90

This looks great! Do you have any thoughts on lower tiers? I have 1 rental unit. On the one hand, $9/month is pretty low; on the other hand, paying the same as someone with 15 units is psychologically painful =). If it was like $20/unit/year for 1-4 units, that'd be pretty cool.

We've considered a very small free plan, and will think more on that. As per the rent collection for these accounts, it doesn't become profitable for us at these smaller numbers, so this is why the $9 plan exists.

Are you thinking of making this internationally available? The whole concept of 'rent collecting' and 'checks' or 'paying rent is cash' doesn't exist in Europe. Rents are paid by bank transfer, usually automated (with rental contracts stipulating that the tenant needs to set up this automatic transfer or otherwise there will be a rent hike).

Re: pricing, I agree that a smaller or freemium plan would be nice, but for people who don't need anything from you to do automatic collections (i.e., everybody outside of the US ;) ), it would be quite hard to see how you could make money off them.

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