YouGotListings (YC W11) looks to provide the best tools for real estate

I found my current apartment on Craigslist through an ad my landlord put up. I had to spend hours churning through what is essentially spam: brokers listing apartment or listing that they have listings but not actually giving out much information on individual places.

Services like this one and Rentjuice are services for brokers to find landlords and property managers who want to rent their apartments. (unless I misunderstand what's going on here.) Why are these services uniting landlords with managers and not with renters? I am tired of dealing with aggressive, bullshit-talking real estate agents who make money by having what amounts to a monopoly on rental information. In my experience they've got the incentive to get me into some apartment, any apartment as quickly as possible, they need me off their list ASAP, I need to find a place I'm going to spend most of my time in for at least a year. The general inability to listen to basic requests further annoys me, an agent has 4 apartments that fit my requirements, but I get dragged into places that don't meet my price requirements before getting around to the places I might actually rent.

The situation strikes me as ludicrous and it seems startups should be actively trying to dismantle this old-school ossified way of doing things. (see: AirBnB for hotels/temporary lodging as well as that car service one whose name I don't recall.) Craigslist listings moved us a big step in the correct direction, but they're still full of spam. It seems to me that real estate agents receive a lot more money than the value they're delivering. This may not be true with house purchases which is certainly more complicated and outside my experience.

"The SaaS allows landlords to post new listings, which get distributed in real-time to the brokers they’ve selected." Why aren't these being distributed to the people who need apartments?

Edited to add: "The software also includes tools for syndicate rental listings to general listing sites like Trulia, Hotpads, Craigslist and others. "

I can't believe I missed this the first time around. Worst case scenario (which I lean toward) means the above "feature" may as well read "We're going to ruin other services by helping you to spam them more easily." Sounds like a step in the wrong direction for renters, who should be the customers at the center of all of these transactions.

Re: YouGotListings (YC W11) looks to provide the best tools for real estate

#7

Post by cletus » Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 8:14 PM UTC

I come from Australia, have lived in the UK, Germany and Switzerland and now live in the US.

What I find really interesting is just how badly real estate works online in the US. To quote Bart Simpson, it achieves what was previously thought physically impossible: it sucks and blows at the same time.

In Australia there are basically two online sites for both rentals and sales: realestate.com.au and domain.com. They have a lot of crossover and you could honestly find somewhere to live or buy just by looking at one. Estate agents have their own sites too but I really don't know why. Anything they post gets cross-posted to one of these two sites.

In the UK, it's basically the same story with findaproperty.co.uk and 1-2 others I'm now forgetting.

In Switzerland it's even more centralized where you will find everything on homegate.ch.

In the US? It's a disaster. There are so many sites and nothing centralized has really taken off. Even when you boil it down to one city.

As a buyer or renter I want to go to a handful of sites and find up-to-date listings. Ideally I'd like that site to tell me how to contact the agent, when the open house is (if there is one), the location (even if only down to cross-street) and photos of the property. Oh and the date it was listed (which should be specified by the site, not the person writing the listing).

Online real estate in the US reminds me a lot of recruitment in the UK (both are fragmented disasters).

Typically sites will charge for a listing and that listing will stay there until whoever posted it removes it. It's important to have the right incentives here. Charge the advertiser by the amount of time it's shown so brokers and agents don't keep up listings to act like honeypots (much like UK recruiters do with jobs, both fake and real).

I feel that some government regulation is required here to stamp down on the misrepresentation that is both possible and actual (in both markets).

Even the fact that brokers exist is a sign of market inefficiency. Why do I need an intermediary to find an apartment? In NYC (where I now live) using a broker is almost a must (if you want a non-crappy apartment, which is taking money out of the pocket of the renter and the landlord, in the form of a below market rent). In Manhattan these brokers typically charge 15% (of the annual rent). In Brooklyn and Queens it could well be 1 month or lease.

So when I see software that helps brokers and landlords find each other, I see a business model that is perpetuation a market efficiency that I believe is ultimately doomed.

Also, $50/month for 1 user but $100/month for unlimited? Big mistake. I seriously suggest you read Joel [1] on this one:

> Bad Idea #1: Site Licenses.

> The opposite of segmentation, really. I have certain competitors that do this: they charge small customers per-user but then there's a "unlimited" license at a fixed price. This is nutty, because you're giving the biggest price break precisely to the largest customers, the ones who would be willing to pay you the most money. Do you really want IBM to buy your software for their 400,000 employees and pay you $2000? Hmm?

> As soon as you have an "unlimited" price, you are instantly giving a gigantic gift of consumer surplus to the least price-sensitive customers who should have been the cash cows of your business.

Not that I have the answers on how to fix the situation in America but cities (possibly even states) could (and IMHO should) regulate rental practices. In the larger cities, it clearly seems to be required.

[1]: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...

Re: YouGotListings (YC W11) looks to provide the best tools for real estate

#8

Post by jetaries » Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 8:31 PM UTC

We are looking for our help too! If you are a developer and looking for work, or want to join a start up. Email us, and join us as the 1st employee, and perhaps more. We are pretty open minded.

Re: YouGotListings (YC W11) looks to provide the best tools for real estate

#9

Post by ericb » Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 8:31 PM UTC

I cofounded a startup named RentRunner, in Boston, and spent a year trying to get a similar sounding system to be used by real estate brokers. We had an agent on our team, and he was our sales person. We could not find a model that would get us sales without expensive direct sales. And although direct sales seemed to work, the possible price points wouldn't support it.

My experience was that real estate brokerages have very little money, and even less desire to part with it. I'd like to humbly suggest that YouGotListings mentally prepare to consider a pivot rather early if you find the same. There is still so much good that can be done in this space.

I have some ideas for pivot directions--email me if you are interested in hearing more about our experiences.

Re: YouGotListings (YC W11) looks to provide the best tools for real estate

#10

Post by jetaries » Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 8:42 PM UTC

a_m_kelly wrote: post #6

I found my current apartment on Craigslist through an ad my landlord put up. I had to spend hours churning through what is essentially spam: brokers listing apartment or listing that they have listings but not actually giving out much information on individual places. Services like this one and Rentjuice are services for brokers to find landlords and property managers who want to rent their apartments. (unless I misu…

Thanks for the comment. Your point is certainly well taken and not alone. Unfortunately, one of the things we do is to help brokers and agents "spam", but it's a supply / demand thing. Landlords are well aware of Craigslist's existence, and if they wanted to be on there themselves, they would, right?

We ultimately are trying to tackle this issue and make it better for the renters and buyers. Yet, going against the market force will not help. Brokers will do what makes them money, that's that. Many startups came before us trying to cut out the brokers have failed utterly.

I believe companies like us in the long run will actually improve this situation. As software like ours become the standard toolset that brokers and landlords use, then we'll be able to improve the actually renting / buying experiences. It's an uphill battle.