New Yorkers: help me defeat the evil NYC real estate market

[rentenforcer]

Hi guys

I am an NYC based hacker who has had enough of dealing with the horrible process of finding and getting an apartment. One of the major issues you have is that you can only trust what the broker tells you to be true, ie "trust me, this is a good deal."

I have a solution: collect the rents of people in the city, and get a general idea of how yours compares (or how much you should be paying for a neighborhood if you are planning on moving).

Right now the app is very simple: it's just collecting data. Ultimately I'm not 100% sure how I'd use the data, but it would likely be open/free via an API etc. on top of my product. One vision I have is something like a Yelp.com but for real estate.

I am open to your ideas, and I'd love to get any feedback about the idea you have (I know the site itself isn't much). If you are a New Yorker, I'd really appreciate if you could take 30 seconds and fill out the form.

Thanks! NYC RentEnforcer

[zavulon]

This is a good idea, but maybe there's a way for you to display some data before signing up? Right now, there's nothing on the site at all except for the form requesting my information. After I submit it, there's a message there's not enough data for my address, and a request for email. At this point, it would be helpful to see what exactly I'm signing up for.

Maybe examples for different addresses, or average data per neighborhood? I recently was looking for a new apartment, and I found this very useful: http://www.tregny.com/manhattan_rental_market_report

[rentenforcer]

I definitely hear you - this is actually just an idea I had last night and just wanted to get some data. The response has really been pretty decent (I've got about 150 pieces of usable data).

My next step is to figure out exactly how to use the data. I will likely start with neighborhood pages, and move on to individual building pages once the data gets dense enough.

But I would love to hear your thoughts on product ideas - what info would you like to see? What comparisons/analytics on the data you know I have?

Thanks a lot for the feedback! RentEnforcer

[thinkalone]

Well, as your friendly neighborhood real estate agent: What do you feel is so "evil" about the NYC real estate market, aside from using it as a provoking headline?

Apartment prices depend on the move-in date - an apartment may be rented at significantly less than its current market value if the tenant has been there for 10 years, while someone who just moved in to the identical floorplan will be paying quite a bit more. Comparing this smattering of prices is unhelpful, and is exactly why rental reports like the one linked above are based on average and median prices for apartments currently on the market or recently rented.

[furyg3]

"What year did you move-in" is a good question to add to this page.

[andreyf]

Agreed. A simple one-image visualization example (can be part of design/background, even) of what you'll send me when you're done collecting data would go a long way to explaining what you're doing, exactly.

[jseliger]

I live in Tucson, not NYC, but this definitely seems like a great idea: I'm going to put up a link in my next links post. And I hope it gets to Tucson too, although NYC, L.A., and SF are all obvious places where real estate is very, very important.

[whereareyou]

I live in Tucson too.

[asanwal]

Like the idea. Think you need to figure out a way to get people who are happy to submit data. Like Glassdoor, I'd guess that the unhappy are more likely to provide data. Especially true for folks in the city who feel they have a great deal - why would I advertise that and tell others about that?

Beyond that, didn't like the fact that I provided data and got a "no data available" page. I understand your building up the dbase, but it didn't leave me with a great feeling (not a biggie). Perhaps you could show me some data for close by areas so at least as a user, I feel like I benefited somewhat.

On amenities, would add -- Doorman building

At some point, you could perhaps mash up data you get about buildings with a lot of the data NYC has opened up about the city as part of its gov2.0 efforts. This way, you can provide a sense for the "value" of an apartment alongside stats like average income of neighborhood, crime rates, etc.

But of course, building up your dbase is priority one. Good luck.

[thinkalone]

> At some point, you could perhaps mash up data you get about buildings with a lot of the data NYC has opened up about the city as part of its gov2.0 efforts. This way, you can provide a sense for the "value" of an apartment alongside stats like average income of neighborhood, crime rates, etc.

Already got some heavy competition in that area: http://nyc.everyblock.com/ http://streeteasy.com/nyc http://www.trulia.com/

[rentenforcer]

All great ideas, especially the gov2.0 data stuff. Thanks!

[weeksie]

I love the idea, finding an apartment in this town is a harrowing experience. It's even worse for newbies who don't know the market and often get stuck with overpriced apartments like the ones Jakobson Properties rent out. What do you plan on doing with the data you're collecting?

//edit: On your amenities list, you might want to add a field for duplex apartments.

[rentenforcer]

I'm not 100%, and I turn to HN for ideas. I will likely be providing a free search/compare service for apartment lookers, and eventually charge the landlords to manage their page or something. But any ideas you have I'd love to hear. Ultimately I'd like to make some sort of API to the data (ie: destroy the gatekeeper to this information that makes the market so hard for consumers), but that will likely be secondary to the main product.

[weeksie]

I'd suggest taking the trends from TREGNY (but not the actual values, as they are skewed high). Then taking scrapes from craigslist, leaving off the outliers, and then fitting those values to the trend curves and adjusting based on the input you get from your form. There's a bunch of data out there already, might as well use it in conjunction with what ever you're doing right now.

[ck2]

Great idea but do this for future-proofing while you still can:

http://nyc.rentenforcer.com/

then one day you can grow, ie:

chicago.rentenforcer.com

boston.rentenforcer.com

etc.

for now you can map www. to nyc. to keep inbound links

[dguido]

If you want to help New Yorker's, you're going to have to make an option for "0" bedrooms, as that is quite common around here :-).

[rentenforcer]

Hmm...I figured those people would select 1 BR and hit the Flex/Studio checkbox, but I guess that's not so clear? Maybe I should make it 0/Studio -> 5+ and then change the Flex/Studio checkbox to just Flex? Thoughts?

[wan23]

I had a hard time deciding whether to check the "Flex" box or not. I live in a 1 br/sort of 2br and I was trying to decide if it should be 1/Flex or 2/Flex. Should the number of rooms you choose include the sort-of/flex BR?

[mcargian]

What is flex? I'd just go with 0 or Studio as it is much more common on rental website search forms.

[carbocation]

"Where do you want to live?"

It would be nice to be able to put in neighborhoods instead of street + zip. E.g., "Upper West Side."

[wildjim]

Where's the London version? ;-P

[DrJokepu]

Seconded. Not sure about New York, but the real estate market over here easily reaches Darth Vader levels in terms of evilness.

[rentenforcer]

Just started this project this morning, but the goal is soon! Once I get a decent product working for NYC it shouldn't be difficult to branch it off into other cities.

[alextp]

Also, every friend I have who tried to rent an apartment in São Paulo either failed or ended up with something wildly overpriced. If you could make this generic enough to use in other countries/cities it'd be great.

[MichaelApproved]

Am I being a nitpicking nerd or does "(100% anonymous & confidential)" seem wrong when asking for my street address and probably logging IP and possibly other data?

I haven't tried to use it but what I've read in the comments here you also ask for email address.

Confidential, maybe. Anonymous, unlikely.

[rentenforcer]

Wrong and wrong.

I don't log any data other than the date besides what you put in the fields. I also don't connect the email address to the listing, it just goes onto a mailing list.

For now it is confidential, though I'm not sure how to reconcile the idea of an API with confidentiality - even when anonymity is involved. Perhaps I should just change it to 100% anonymous?

[MichaelApproved]

The only reason I even cared about it was because you stated it. It made me think this information SHOULD be kept private and think twice before letting it information out.

Does that message even need to be there? Is anyone concerned with it? Might be be better to put the message at the bottom instead. Those who care will look for a statement like that and others won't be distracted.

[elai]

If I've never lived in NYC, or am planning to move there, there is no way for this to be useful to me. Let us see the data once you've gotten enough without putting anything in. Or do it glassdoor style where you only partially see data.

[rentenforcer]

Definitely agree, this will be the next step. The project is about a day old, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on what directions it should go in.

[daveyb100]

Yes, there's a problem with this UI. People who are curious will plug in any data just to see the results. That will result in your data being 'polluted'.

[udfalkso]

Add dishwasher to the list.

[theashworld]

1. opensource it (the code, so people can build their own website) 2. provide an api

You'll soon face spam issues though. what's your spam strategy?

[rentenforcer]

Likely community moderation.

[HaloZero]

Couldn't you scrape craigslist at least for some basic information about each neighborhood?

[angstrom]

If craigslist wasn't filled with so many fake adverts from brokers trying to reel in suckers that would be a realistic option. Generally, if the price looks good it will always be "just taken", but don't worry, there's "another property like it that just came on the market". When it comes to apartment hunting in NYC craigslist is a joke.

[rentenforcer]

I easily could - the whole point is to avoid taking the information from the marketplace. The prices on craiglist are borderline fraudulent, and are meant to get you into the broker's office at which point they inform you "oh sorry that apt is gone, but here are 5 more that aren't as nice and twice the price!"

[thinkalone]

> The prices on craiglist are borderline fraudulent

The most attractively priced apartments advertised on CL are on there because they are great deals. There are thousands of people looking for the cheapest apartments, and when someone rents it, that means 999 other people get to hear "I'm sorry, that apartment is gone." Obviously I understand the frustration, since I've been on both sides of those conversations, and there are some brokerages that put out shady ads, but nearly all rentals are on the market less than a week, and smart landlords price their apartments so well they are rented within a day - just because apartments get rented is not evidence of a mass conspiracy.

[maxawaytoolong]

I've actually had "ok" experiences finding apartments on Craigslist. However, here are practices that bug me:

- brokers and rental companies ALWAYS post in the "by owner" section. I've had agents from Citiapartments actually pretend to be the "owner!"

- brokers post in the "no fee" section but there are always fees.

- no photos... because everything that's a decent deal is also a dump.

- "Net Effective" rent prices in the listing. It's listed at $1700 but that's the "Net Effective" rent not taking into account your 2 months free after 14 months and waiving the fee we didn't tell you about which means that you're really sending us a check for $2150 every month but really, trust us, it's only $1700.

[thinkalone]

Brokers advertising as "by owner" should be reported, and if fee apartments are advertised in "no fee," those should also be reported. (Honestly, management companies are allowed to split off and have their own brokerage, so that they collect fees by renting the apartments they already own, and in that case they would advertise in "by owner," but it sounds like you were speaking of something different.)

Not having pictures is directly related to how fast apartments are rented - sometimes it's simply not reasonable or possible to gain access and go take pictures of an apartment before it is rented.

Net effective is slimy, but not prohibited, as long as it's labeled properly.

For what it's worth, I never advertise without photos and have never used net effective prices, which is my personal decision, but it still bothers me when people extrapolate from a few bad ads or ads they think are misleading and then disparage the entire industry. The real CL scams are much worse than what people are typically paranoid about real estate agents doing behind the scenes.

[maxawaytoolong]

It's not a few bad ads, it's like every third ad. I went through 15 experiences like what I described above and gave up and found my current place through a friend. I don't find it that "slimy." I just figure this is New York and that's how everything works... there's always some middleman trying to screw you. It's what the entire economy of the city is based upon.

As far as I can tell, almost every price listed by a management company for an apartment in a new development is "net effective," whether they list it as such or not.

[sgaur]

But how are you going to prevent that from happening on your site too? Wouldn't brokers try to inflate the prices on your site as well?

[klbarry]

This has fantastic potential. Good work!