17 ms·

We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments

818 points by rdgthree 5y ago

tsjq 5y ago
Similar to www.nobroker.in (India) ?
blakesterz 5y ago
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.
- jandrese 5y ago
  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.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    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.
    - stinkytaco 5y ago
      Please see: ticket sales: Ticketmaster, Stubhub, etc. In theory, these make sense and reduce anti-consumer inefficiency like scalping that individual venues are not equipped to deal with. In practice, they extract fees. It's not that they are bad, per se, just that if the opportunity exists, someone with a spreadsheet will spot it, likely with the best intentions but no eye to the overall impact. EDIT: To be clear, I think these services are a net good. Stubhub allows me to get sports tickets at a reduced price if someone can't go to the game. Ticketmaster stops people from spamming the system to gobble up tickets, it's just that these industries are now going to want a fee for that and we end up back where we started. I'm sure at one time brokers were helpful as well (a landlord free way to compare properties).
      - criddell 5y ago
        Not sure about Stubhub, but Ticketmaster exists to be the bad guy. Lots of Ticketmaster fees are shared with the promoter and venue operator.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Now it's just used to eliminate the poor and unemployed.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  > This was really well written, such a good read. The author's extreme user empathy, attention to detail, and willingness to do whatever it takes to reach a standard makes this a comforting read. You know it's going to end without disappointment, because he does whatever it takes to get good results for all stakeholders.
philipodonnell 5y ago
Great writeup.
swiley 5y ago
Some of this software is pretty terrible. I don't remember what for but the new CRM software at my apartment required that I fill some form that I couldn't find so I went down stairs to the office and the person working for the land lord didn't know either. We ended up figuring it out together.
cde-v 5y ago
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.
- aerovistae 5y ago
  Yeah it's pretty atrocious. They're so useless. It's such a feel-bad experience working with them, knowing they're not helping at all, and knowing you have to pay them thousands of dollars if you want the apartment - for nothing.
  - solumos 5y ago
    What's worse is when they try to pretend like you're actually getting value for the crazy fee they charge. "Now, I'm you're broker so if there are any problems throughout the lease, feel free to contact me. This isn't just a one time thing!" We literally emailed/called him two weeks later and he ghosted us. When we were moving out of our apartment when our lease was up, he was around showing another unit, introduced himself, asked us how long we lived there, etc
- KoftaBob 5y ago
  If I’m not mistaken, didn’t NYC enact a law last year that bans landlords from charging tenants the broker fee?
  - infogulch 5y ago
    It's good that there's no surprise fees, but they're still being paid. It's like anything, the value is just hidden in the price of the product now, rent in this case.
    - justaguy88 5y ago
      The landlord can decide if it's worth paying them then
ajb 5y ago
Glad they didn't go with virtual viewings - scam players here (UK) do that and just run away with the deposit.
- coding123 5y ago
  Super rampant here in CA with Craigslist. Scammer will post a rental ad for a house that is currently for sale in Zillow. You know it's a scam pretty easily, but not everyone does. If someone other than Craigslist can get in this market and do a better job, one that verifies the Lister owns the property, and there is no funny business about who gets the property, that would be excellent.
  - gfxgirl 5y ago
    I ran into this yesterday. It wasn't entirely clear it was a scam, well to me, at first. The first clue was "sorry, no in house viewing, we had son and 2 friends die from COVID, please understand". Yes, that's a big red flag but sounded like a legit excuse to me. But, at least it got me suspicious. Next was in their email they claimed to be working for somecompany.com but their email address was soomecompany.com. Finally the location was on redfin as having been sold only 4 month ago and the rental price was arguably 20% lower than it should have been. I can't prove it was a scam but I passed. It was frustrating to me that there is apparently no public online way to look up the owner of a property. I suppose there's some reason for that.
    - ajb 5y ago
      In the UK, you can look up the owner of a property. You pay £4 though.
    - coding123 5y ago
      This one in Cali: I am in Philadelphia in the Military Camp, you can go by and view the inside of the house through the window, if you like it, you get back to me so we can proceed with the rentals.. then at the end of the email... Thanks will be looking forward to your reply. United State Army General SCAPARROTTI For reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Scaparrotti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Scaparrotti
nickthemagicman 5y ago
Woah as a former landlord, this software is awesome.
TuringNYC 5y ago
I lived in a UDR apartment property for the past 3+ yrs. They first had 2 full-time sales persons on site. That went down to one, then to zero. Now they lease based on GOOD 3d drawings of apartments, virtual showings, and easy Docusign based lease agreements. You can check it out here: https://www.udr.com/washington-dc-apartments/arlington/crescent-falls-church/ https://www.udr.com/washington-dc-apartments/arlington/cresc... No value seems to have been lost in going from humans to software. Yes, vacancies are up, but that is probably due to the 15-20% rent increases and general migration away from the city. I'm sure they are also saving a mint on the two fewer on-site sales FTEs. Seems like a big win for both the tenant and landlord (hopefully the savings are being split.) EDIT: I dont think virtual showings are a replacement for a physical walk-thru. However, it is a great way to filter out obviously mismatching apartments and a way to not waste time visiting apartments way out of your requirements. For example, if I just want to see the size of closets (a big deciding factor for me), i can do that on a floorplan easily. I can easily filter out apartments w/o walk-in closets.
- gfxgirl 5y ago
  Virtual viewing is not a full solution for me. The plus is it helps me weed out places I'm sure I'm not interested in but I still need to see the real place before I rent. The virtual version of the place might not represent the actual place. There's no easy way to check noise levels, lighting, ambiance, etc. And further, it's far easier to scam people with virtual showings. I had one yesterday where they sent a matterport tour link and claimed I couldn't see the place for real because they had a son and 3 friends die from COVID so "please understand, no in person showings". After looking into details it became clear it was a scam.
- jdavis703 5y ago
  As a tenant I want to personally inspect the unit I’m renting. A 3D virtual tour won’t tell me if there’s low water pressure, a slow hot water heater, a stinky garbage bin outside the window or creaky floors.
- ajcp 5y ago
  I lived in DC and NOVA for 8+ years (including at UDRs Shirlington property) and never felt I needed a broker when apartment hunting. Now that was about 5 years ago, so the market might have changed.
coding123 5y ago
> Renters would pay us to take over the remainder of their lease obligation, we'd find a new qualified tenant and get the landlord's approval for a lease transfer or sublease. If we weren't able to find a new tenant, we'd pay the rent until the end of the lease. Also pretty nice that you do that, but one thing I would recommend is immediately not allow any landlords that require such evil practices and be banned from your system.
- mertd 5y ago
  What is the evil practice?
  - unanswered 5y ago
    Well, it's either requiring rent to be paid throughout the entire lease term or not allowing leases to be randomly transferred to unqualified tenants. Does it really matter at that point which one GP meant?
    - hammock 5y ago
      A lease is a contract where you agree to pay throughout the entire term. That's evil? Most municipalities at least in the USA also have tenant-friendly laws on that books that mandate either or both of: a) landlords are disallowed from refusing reasonable sublease (e.g. one that passes the same credit check etc that you did) b) landlords must release you from the remainder of a lease if you leave and a reasonably suitable replacement tenant is found
      - coding123 5y ago
        In Oregon they realized how evil it was and made this law: ORS 90.302 E The abandonment or relinquishment of a dwelling unit during a fixed term tenancy without cause. The fee may not exceed one and one-half times the monthly rent.
DoctorNick 5y ago
great, now replace landlords.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  With what?
  - handojin 5y ago
    communism
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      The Singapore system purportedly works pretty well.
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Does Singapore do anything in particular with regard to landlords?
        khuey 5y ago
        In Singapore the state builds housing and sells it to citizens cheaply.
        Robotbeat 5y ago
        Singapore has “social housing” except the government builds the housing and sells it to people for cheap: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/a-singapore-plan-for-public-housing https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/a-singapore-plan-for-publi...
        onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
        My understanding is that the median condo in Singapore costs $1M USD. Is this not true, and if it is, then how is $1M USD for a condo considered cheap? You can get condos next to The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills for that price...
mschuster91 5y ago
Landlords being able to require proof of no evictions in rent history makes sense (even though it absolutely makes life worse for people who fell on any form of hardship), but why are landlords even allowed to demand proof of no felonies?!
- codenesium 5y ago
  Probably for the same reason your employer does. Not saying it's fair to discriminate against people who have paid their debt to society but I wouldn't be crazy about having a rapist or murderer neighbor.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    I'm German. Landlords here aren't allowed to check criminal backgrounds as are employers (with the exception of jobs dealing with children and valuable objects). The idea behind that is that recidivism is best prevented by letting people be normal parts of society (=being able to work and live in peace) once they have served their term.
- agentdrtran 5y ago
  Because they write the laws and not renters
- anonAndOn 5y ago
  How does bankruptcy sound? The discovery phase of the civil lawsuit will uncover that you allowed a convicted sex offender/drug dealer/murderer to move in next door and you are now financially responsible for the victim's damages, pain and suffering.
- dave5104 5y ago
  > but why are landlords even allowed to demand proof of no felonies?! As someone who has worked on tenant screening software, landlords typically care about a criminal history involving sex offenses or drug manufacturing. In case of recidivism, the former creates liability from other tenants if issues arise during tenancy, and the latter has potential for property destruction and/or harm to neighboring units. There are also typically time limits on how far "back" they can look, typically 5-7 years at the most.
__sy__ 5y ago
We started Seam (YC S20) a year ago to take on the problem of programmatic access to physical spaces (apartments, single-family homes, commercial buildings...etc). Basically one API that can open any door (smart locks, elevators, commercial buildings...etc). We're still in private beta but feel free to reach out if you're struggling with programmatic access. tbh, it's baffling that in 2021, this problem is still so difficult to solve. As a last point, we generally recommend against key-exhange solutions. From our experience at Sonder, people forget to return the keys and it creates a lot logistical headaches. You then have to re-key the doors...etc.
- nradov 5y ago
  Whether someone returned the keys or not is largely irrelevant. The prior occupants could have made extra copies.
  - __sy__ 5y ago
    I disagree. Whether the prior occupant or the property management company has extra sets of keys, you generally don't want some random prospective tenant out there to have the keys to a unit that you will eventually want to rent out to another individual. For Airbnb's/STR's, same problem; guests returning to a unit much later to carry out illegal activities is rather well documented at this point. Across the board, it's not worth the logistical pain and/or liability risk. In the case of a prior tenant, you generally know who the person is...etc. There are edge cases for sure (e.g. evictions) but it's generally less risky.
    - pedrosorio 5y ago
      You agree with the person you replied to. They are saying guests may return to carry out illegal activity even if they returned the keys because they could have just made copies.
      - __sy__ 5y ago
        My initial comment only said that, in our experience, it's a bad idea to use physical key-exchange system for short-term visits of a physical space. Key copies & key returns being two examples of problematic cases. I only brought up key returns in my initial comment because that's the one that caused the most headaches at Sonder. Most people, it turns out, are honest but also forgetful :) The key-copy potentially exposes you to a lot more liability though...
turtlebits 5y ago
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.
- tsywke44 5y ago
  This is the classic pet vs cattle problem. It isn't aimed at the person who is renting their precious second apartment. It's for investors with 50+ rentals where every unit is simply a number in a spreadsheet.
- Cyclone_ 5y ago
  That might make sense if you're in town, I rent out a house of mine that's far away from where I live most of the year and this seems like it might be worth a shot in that type of case.
tcbasche 5y ago
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
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Had a very similar idea 10 years ago. Just proves that ideas are easy. Execution is where the value is created.
  - tobyjsullivan 5y ago
    This is what I enjoyed most about this article. It's an idea I've thought about in the past (who hasn't) and their approach seems so much better than anything I thought up.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  How would one automate away the fixing of toilets and performing routine maintenance?
  - tcbasche 5y ago
    I don't think you would (and that would be a terrible idea), more the 'organising' and booking of those maintenance items. I can count more than I'd like to the amount of times I've had double-handling, miscommunication and downright rude behaviour from rental managers trying to either refute that you need maintenance, call the wrong person or don't chase anything up and get things fixed. Submit maintenance on an app and then boom someone is contacted to fix something
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      My point is automation is not going to fix the problem of an owner who is trying to squeeze every last cent of profit by skimping on maintenance, and hiring rude rental managers, or not paying enough for qualified people to come fix the problem.
soheil 5y ago
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/ https://www.charlesproxy.com/
- readflaggedcomm 5y ago
  You add its root cert, and it re-encrypts: https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/proxying/ssl-proxying/ https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/proxying/ssl-prox...
rememberlenny 5y ago
I'm a huge fan of Rezi which has a very similar experience to my knowledge. They are able to reduce broker fee/rents because they can assure a reduced time where apartments are unrented. https://www.rentrezi.com/ https://www.rentrezi.com/
d33lio 5y ago
Realtors are truly the scum of the earth, hustle culture, gate keeping, maligned incentives for clients, lazy industry in general. Only second to tech recruiters. Please keep up the good work!
wly_cdgr 5y ago
Wonderful writeup with a great balance of readability and detail. Thank you for sharing! TBH, this would work very well as an introduction to modern tech product development for a general audience - you could pitch this to the digital edition of the Atlantic, say, and probably get it in without much editing. It helps that the domain is so broadly relatable!
- __sy__ 5y ago
  The illustrations were solid too.
nacho2sweet 5y ago
Making being a landlord easier and more disconnected from people and your tenants etc for the investor class. What a great product for society and wealth inequality. Love it!!! Put an algorithm on judging if someone deserves shelter, we have never seen any problems with this in past studies!! Maybe one of the most evil things I seen on here in awhile tbh.
- b20000 5y ago
  why is this voted down?
  - not_exactly__ 5y ago
    Maybe because it presents a false dichotomy where one’s desire to profit from an asset must also accommodate those unable to afford it?
    - nacho2sweet 5y ago
      Commiting a felony seems to be a life sentence in the United States even after you have served your time. The algorithm can easily just disqualify them with no nuance. The description on this was even funny "When you rent a place for 1 or 2 years". Just wait till it caretakes rent collecting, rent raising, and eviction services.
      - not_exactly__ 5y ago
        If the algo disqualifies them with no nuance, great, that means there’s probably a market for those who do want to take the time to understand the actual risk profile of a tenant. Also, society as a whole does not owe a clean slate to anyone who has committed a felony. Perhaps we can codify it into law but that is not the case right now and the market has decided that we do care.
  - WaitWaitWha 5y ago
    I asked the same without the sarcasm, and it got down voted instantly.
at_a_remove 5y ago
About fifteen years ago, I set up a student rental website at the behest of the rental management. The list of things they wanted to automate, even then, was astonishing. I have seen this in other situations and it has led to a kind of maxim for me -- never underestimate the number of people who think that you can automate their jobs on their behalf and that they will still have those jobs at the end of the process. I don't like putting people out of work but that bit about replacing someone with a shell script is not entirely inaccurate at times.
fartcannon 5y ago
Now do it for real estate agents.
deregulateMed 5y ago
On a similar note, real estate agents need to be knocked down a level. Their job is to unlock a door. Why they can make a hundred thousand dollars a year is criminal.
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  I think the home purchasing system can and should be streamlined radically, and good real estate agents can make too much money for their actual contribution in many cases, but there's a bit more involved than merely unlocking a door and giving a tour of the kitchen and living room. For instance, merely putting together an offer to buy a house can be ultra complex. Once you've dealt with viewing the house and deciding to go for it, you have to deal with inspections and financing and insurance and other legal things. If there's a problem with the house, you have to know the right questions to ask and how to take the problems into account when making an offer. You have to know the local market well and what kind of offer to make or you could overpay by thousands or miss out on a dream home. On top of that, client contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on for a real estate agent. A real estate agent can in theory luck out showing a client one home, they love it, buy it without a hitch, and come away with thousands of dollars for a few hours of work. A real estate agent can also work with a client for weeks/months, show them dozens of houses, but then they go off and buy that exact house with another agent and lose out on the commission with basically no real recourse after investing many hours working for somebody for free. For every good financial thing that happens to an agent, they end up getting taken for a ride by others. Disclosure: I do have my own biases here as a friend is a real estate agent and I see some of the good and bad parts of the job.
elevaet 5y ago
I really hope software will replace realtors. In my country at least, the ratio of professionalism, accountability, value-added to fees/earnings is the lowest of any occupation I can think of. It would be really low-hanging fruit for tech to disrupt, but unfortunately the real estate boards recognize this, and hold the critical data with an iron fist (from what I understand). It would probably take some serious legal battles to pry that industry open.
- IggleSniggle 5y ago
  I believe both Zillow and Redfin are trying…
standardUser 5y ago
Apartment hunting is the most inefficient "purchasing" decision I have ever had to make, and the one most likely to end up with a severely sub-optimal outcome. There's some good ideas here that would at least facilitate efficiently viewing more apartments. But there's still so much extremely basic information that potential renters either cannot get about a unit or have to jump through hoops to get. Noise issues, pest issues, construction and renovation details, information about how the management company operates, light levels, info about neighbors and on and on. Ninety percent of the important information about a rental unit isn't discovered until the weeks and months after a lease has been signed, and I am desperate for someone to fix this problem.
- benmanns 5y ago
  Agreed. There's not enough disincentive for wasting potential renters time filtering through listings or even touring apartments.
- paxys 5y ago
  During my apartment search in San Francisco I found that it was basically impossible to know whether a unit was covered by rent control or not. You'd have to explicitly ask the landlord, and even then they'd be cagey about it.
  - baby 5y ago
    I just moved to SF and I just used craigslist and always asked if it was rent controlled in my intro mail. What’s the point of visiting a place if it’s not?
  - clairity 5y ago
    you can just ask when the building was built. any building built before 1978 in LA and 1979 in SF (iirc) is rent-controlled. you can also look up the build date via parcel maps on the county assessor's website (e.g., https://portal.assessor.lacounty.gov/ https://portal.assessor.lacounty.gov/ ).
- bytematic 5y ago
csours 5y ago
This is a bit of a tangent, but finding reliable ratings for apartments is a complete quagmire. Many many apartments have extremely poor ratings, or boosted ratings that are not believable. I wonder how much of this is due to the fact that a significant portion of rental situations end with a major conflict and even uneventful apartment living has some portion of minor conflict due to yearly rent increases.
benmanns 5y ago
We used this pre-COVID to get out of a Brooklyn lease and had a fantastic experience (back when it was Flip Instant). Flip basically charged 1 month rent and guaranteed a fill or they'd pay the rest (6 months) of my lease. Compared to our landlord who wanted 1.75x rent, up to 2.75x rent if not filled immediately, after significant negotiation. Hiring a broker myself would have likely cost 1x rent or more anyways with all the risk on us. I really like the service provider + financial underwriting combination, where you get basically an SLA for them providing a service, where they take 100% of the risk after the fee.
- e1g 5y ago
  The landlord is under no obligation to accept anyone this service finds, so this startup guarantees an outcome they cannot control. It might be a way to build awareness and goodwill, but they are burning VC capital to offer a service that is either fundamentally unsustainable or mispriced.
  - crazygringo 5y ago
    Obviously you're not going to use it if your landlord doesn't allow subleases, and landlords are also usually pretty upfront about approval requirements for a sublease. I've never heard of a landlord not allowing a subletter to convert to a full lease upon original lease expiration. I mean, the alternative is to forego a month or two of rent while you find a new tenant. Unless there's a horrible problem with the existing subletter's credit, but then they probably wouldn't have gotten the sublease in the first place. I'm not saying it's never happened, but it's going to be rare. I don't really see anything unsustainable or mispriced about this at all. There are already other companies doing it as well in NYC, e.g.: https://doorkee.com/ https://doorkee.com/
    - e1g 5y ago
      The difference from Doorkee, or any matchmaking service, is that they do not guarantee to pay your rent for six months if a) they can't find someone within a month or b) your landlord doesn't like them. This bet is highly asymmetric - they can win 1 month fee (if you sublease tomorrow) but lose 6x that. I'm also in NYC, and wouldn't underwrite this gamble two years ago, and absolutely not today.
b20000 5y ago
why not build software that finds quality renters and sends them better deals on apartments similar to what they are renting? people pay too much rent in tech metros.
mshenfield 5y ago
Even though this begins with a pitch for empowering tenants, the customers are the landlords. The value for landlords comes at the expense of tenants in several ways. * It prevents tenants who don't meet income or other requirements from even looking at the unit. * It makes tenants liable for noting damage as soon as they view a unit to avoid it being attributed to them, a daunting task. * And it removes a face to face interaction that forces some accountability on landlords who don't provide a clean/cared for unit. Notably absent is a mechanism for tenants to provide feedback to landlords on the listing. The Questions feature is helpful, but not designed for concerns/praise.
- bredren 5y ago
  > it removes a face to face interaction that forces some accountability on landlords who don't provide a clean/cared for unit. I do not think face to face interactions with landlords help when the landlord knows they are providing a poorly kept property to begin with. I’ve had a landlord that would use various manipulative techniques to get people to sign leases. Promises of future fixes, charm, references to the difficulty of finding a place, hints toward other interest. Landlords can not be trusted to be benevolent. They are like the pre-Uber taxi drivers. Landlords lack accountability and provide services to people in positions of vulnerability. They take advantage of the asymmetric power differentials and do it in the name of profit. Anything to remove this person and unify terms is advantageous. Jerry.ai is doing this with insurance, and various startups have made attempts to do this with car dealerships. CarWoo back in the day. Bad algorithms can be improved overnight. Greedy, careless people are here to stay.
closeparen 5y ago
The big question in San Francisco is “what does the parking cost?” Very few complexes disclose this; you must give a human your name, number, and expected move date before they will say. It’s a scummy, car dealership-like experience. I would love for stuff like this to be online but the fact is savvy landlords with very high quality websites withhold it intentionally, in order to start a human relationship.
joshuaengler 5y ago
I really want to see the lockpicking lawyer pick that lock now, darn...
baby 5y ago
I don’t get leases. In Europe I can get out of my apartment any time. In the US I’m stuck with my place for a year.
- EricE 5y ago
  If you want to get out at any time look for month to month rentals. You will likely pay more for the flexibility...
  - baby 5y ago
    I never had the luxury to limit my research to these places only. Actually I ran into one of these places once in 5 moves and it was a coliving space. I’m convinced they don’t even exist or you’d be looking at 1-2 places for an absurd price.
    - EricE 5y ago
      Not surprising. The biggest expense for a landlord is finding reliable tenants. Churn is HIGHLY undesirable, and thus the market adjusts accordingly. I may need something temporary - at this point I'll just stay in an extended stay hotel vs. trying to find a place to rent. Anything under a year is, as you note, problematic.
      - baby 5y ago
        Bless airbnb for that, no idea how I would have managed when I was looking for apartments
- gfxgirl 5y ago
  A lease is also a plus for the renter that the rent will not change for the duration of the lease. Some places rent month to month but they may up the rent every month if the market suggests they can. Of course that could be solved by regulation I guess if a landlord was only allowed to change the rent between tenants and or once a year or so.
WaitWaitWha 5y ago
How will this system work for those - who do not have a smart phone, - who do not have a smart phone with Biometric identity verification, - who do not have a credit card to provide? If I was landlord, I would definitely what to automate everything. But, this feels like it would exclude people who cannot fulfill all of the above.
- eigenvalue 5y ago
  People like that are generally not going to be desirable tenants for landlords. And in a high cost city like NYC, they very likely wouldn't be able to pass the income and credit verification anyway.
boringg 5y ago
Caretaker: The redfin of brokers. Take all the value for themselves freeze out the brokers (who provide a service but are universally disdained). Ride that wave of positive news for a couples years. Eventually everyone will hate the fraction of the market Caretaker has as they raise prices to make investors happy and people realize there are problems. It's like the same idea of Uber and Lyft. Less human involvement = better world /S.
- sudopluto 5y ago
  as a student in boston where brokers take 1 month rent for doing exactly *nothing*, i welcome the idea of automating away these leaches. edit: fb marketplace might get the brokers first, most of my friends found their places via landlords posting there
  - boringg 5y ago
    Your comments are the perfect example of the short term positive news wave they can generate. Thank you for validating.
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      Not all brokers provide value to the renter. In "hot" markets like New York, a lot of the time they don't. They render a lot of value to the landlord, however. Taking nice photos, dealing with unqualified applicants, showing the property, etc.
    - seneca 5y ago
      > Your comments are the perfect example of the short term positive news wave they can generate. Thank you for validating. This kind of lazy snark comment degrades this community.
      - kreeben 5y ago
        Absolute free speech, however, empowers this community. I say, let each and everyone speak their mind, even the snark.
throwitaway1235 5y ago
Thank you for putting me out of work!
LatteLazy 5y ago
It's amazing to me that 90% of UK estate agents aren't gone in favour of websites. They've held out much longer than I expected.
umrashrf 5y ago
I just suggested this to my broker in Toronto yesterday. And he wants to do a startup with me on this.
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sneak 5y ago
It's getting to be that you almost can't engage in any everyday transaction in the US over $1000 that doesn't involve showing an online-verified ID. Someone who wishes to keep their driver's license out of S3 is getting pretty short on options.
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vel0city 5y ago
Using a broker to find an apartment to rent is a very alien thought to me but I guess I've only ever really rented in big apartment complexes. I would normally just browse the area I wanted to live in on Google/Bing maps, find a few places that looked interesting, see floorplans on their websites. Take the top few of those and spend a Saturday driving to each of those to check them out. I guess if I was trying to find a place with a lot of independently owned apartment units you'd need a broker to find stuff, but really it seems like something that doesn't need a broker getting paid several hundred dollars for an evening and a day of inconvenience of shopping around. I mean, you're probably going to spend that Saturday viewing the apartments anyways, now you just have someone you're paying to join you. Lease contracts in my state are pretty much entirely standardized. Pretty much every place uses the same lease that has a bunch of fill in the blanks for amounts, unit numbers, etc. There's not a lot of additional forms to be filed. When I bought a house I was happy to have a real estate agent with me as there were a lot of forms, several different 3rd parties to deal with, much more risk, and the whole process was a lot longer. Plus you pretty much need an agent to get in to the more accurate MLS listings. There would be so many homes still listed as for sale on sites like Zillow and others that were already sold while the MLS listings were usually up to date within several hours.
- sjs7007 5y ago
  Brokers are typically hired by the landlord to find a tenant and not a tenant to find an apartment. The big apartment complexes with a company ownership rather than individual typically hires brokers too, but probably they have enough apartments to just have in-house ones and pay them themselves. But at least in NYC those big apartment complexes are typically only at the higher end of the spectrum. You'll be using a website like StreetEasy to find listings online which often don't have the best pictures, floor plans and you will have to schedule an appointment with one such broker for a time that works best for both of you. These days its less common but pre-pandemic it was not uncommon for a tenant to have to pay 1 month rent as broker fees.
frashelaw 5y ago
"The rent of the land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give. " -- ch 11, wealth of nations "As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce." -- Adam Smith "[the landlord leaves the worker] with the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more." -- ch 11, wealth of nations. "The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all made by his own. " -- ch 11, wealth of nations. "RENT, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances. In adjusting the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock" -- ch 11, wealth of nations. "[Landlords] are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind" -- ch 11, wealth of nations.
- zajio1am 5y ago
  These are good points for original meaning of 'landlords', i.e. ones who lease land (fixed-amount natural resource), but does not make sense for landlords that lease houses or apartments (capital product).
AJRF 5y ago
I recently moved house. I was previously living with my friend, and we had an agreement I pay sometime before the end of the month. He gave me a contract and said you'll need this, just because when you go to the next place they will ask you for your previous contract. He found it online, it was boiler plate and we agreed verbally I pay him whenever during the month. We we're really good friends, and I lived there for 3 years without a single issue. Then when I tried to rent a new place, the agent asked for lots of details, that we're then passed on to a referencing agency. I gave them all they needed. I have a maxed out credit rating on the 2 providers I can easily check in the UK. My salary was 4x the yearly rent. And the referencing company failed me. They failed me because I didn't always pay the rent on the 20th of the month. Now granted - that is what my contract said, but it wasn't the reality of the situation. Of course the referencing company never asked me about this and just stamped RISK on my profile. They said they couldn't override the software - which I don't believe at all. Luckily my agent was able to call the new landlord, we all got on a call, my agent, my friend, me and the landlord. The landlord laughed on the call and said how stupid that was, and approved my application. The call lasted 1 minute and 28 seconds. I have a deep knot in my stomach about where all this software takes us. In the pursuit of scale, we lose all sense of nuance and humanity. I was lucky in my case, but I know others aren't. It's going to cost us dearly.
- gentleman11 5y ago
  All my online dashboards I deal with for various things are buggy and inflexible. Whatever the problem is though, you can usually phone a human who can fix it. If you get rid of humans, it’s just creating a nightmare
  - perlpimp 5y ago
    We already know how this happens when Google cancels your account, without any warning.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Want a sneak peek of the nightmare? Plenty of companies are now introducing conversational bots on their phone lines, desperately trying to prevent you from getting in touch with a human. And unlike traditional voice menus, pressing 0 or mashing the keypad doesn't work on them. I recently wasted a good 10 minutes trying to reach a flesh-and-blood consultant of a phone company, and I actually wanted to buy stuff from them. I just needed a human to make sure it's on the record I'm requesting a non-default service (FTTH Internet with external ONT, so that I could swap a proper router in place of the piece of garbage they normally provide). Their fancy bot actually understood what I wanted when I repeatedly said "I want to be connected with a consultant" - it kept replying, "I understand you want to talk to a consultant; before we do that, can you tell me [insert some random idiotic question]?". I almost blew a fuse there. I only persisted because for technical reasons, I couldn't go with other providers.
korethr 5y ago
This sounds great from a tenant's perspective, too. I can't speak for all renters, but speaking for myself, I have have been frustrated by all the little points of friction named in this article. However, I should not have had to go to the company's webpage, find no hint of the tenant side of this transaction, get no answer from the chat box, do some google searches, end up back at the blog, and go digging through the blog in order to find apartment.app to be the other half with all the magical UI improvements described in the OP. Afterward, of course I found the link in the footer of the company's main page. UI suggestion. Make it easier for prospective tenants (we are your product, after all) who land on the landlord side to find the renter's side, and vice versa. IMO, there is no greater sin in business than to leave a prospect who has learned of your prodcut/service and wishes to do business with you bereft of someone who will shut up and take his money.
notorandit 5y ago
All this doesn't mean that the software is better than any human broker but simply that those humans were way worse than whatever software has been used.
Trias11 5y ago
Every time middlemen eliminated, new kitten is born! And vice versa. I applaud any service that makes former happens.
rStar 5y ago
does the software lie about the rats? people are better at that type of soft skill.
nickelcitymario 5y ago
Serious Manna vibes: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
dailybagel 5y ago
The article mentions how important it is to keep availability status accurate: Before I get into the solution, I should explain why these renters have such persistent trust issues. [...] Because messaging/applications/leasing were all on-platform for us, we could know when a lister was unresponsive or a lease was signed. That insight naturally allowed us to reliably prevent stale listings. Critically, however, new renters to our website didn't know that. And they wouldn't believe us when we said it. We were in a bit of a pickle. When sampling listings in Manhattan, the second one I came across was in fact not actually available [0]. “Hi, this unit has been rented, what exactly are you searching for?“ [0]: https://apartment.app/listings/2-bedroom-west-53rd-street-new-york-ny https://apartment.app/listings/2-bedroom-west-53rd-street-ne...
vanusa 5y ago
Nice (maybe) but the "filled 200 vacant apartments" is meaningless - it not outright deceptive. "Filled N apartments" compared to what baseline? That is, what is the comparative rate of success? And what is the total transaction cost? What about the inventory that couldn't be rented? And what about all the tenants getting dissed by the algorithm (read: discriminated against, perhaps unlawfully), per a sibling comment to this one? Then again, these are realtors, so we expect them to blow smoke up our... nevermind.
meristem 5y ago
UX question here: I noticed on the blog's screen shots that "self checkout, but for apartments" is used. How did you come up with "self-checkout" as the action? Checkout seems so far away in time re: the process flow. What was your users' mental model?
yawaworht1978 5y ago
Economically a great result, that is indisputable. A small "but" however, did you also improve the customer experience? I am asking as someone who has lived long term in many Airbnb and similar platforms, and almost every single on of them has problems, uses every trick not covered by terms and conditions and has an evasive and unresponsive customer service. Too many to list but I've experienced: No car parking available(were full) when advertised as "with free parking" Free wifi- but not installed Aircon- no aircon in sight(been renovated) Cameras in the flat- but "don't worry they are disabled and part of the alarm system" More such things and extremely annoying to resolve. Not saying your product has these issues, just asking if this is considered and handled or if it's all purely profit oriented.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  Given the system has no way of knowing if the lister/landlord is just lieing or being misleading (beyond maybe users reporting the entire post as fraud). However this platform does is make it easy to visually inspect the unit. Since these are long(er) term rentals, the whole point is that you can inspect before you lease so checking things like parking, WiFi, and air conditioning should be pretty easy.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> On search, we decided that self-tour viewings on an apartment ought to feel like 2-day shipping on a product on Amazon. Knowing that you can get a given product tomorrow or the next day vs. an alternative a week from now can drive purchasing decisions - for good reason. That's how Amazon used to do shipping - when you go to checkout, they offer you a menu of shipping speeds, you can pick the speed you want, and then the item will arrive by the time you picked. It has nothing to do with how Amazon does shipping now. Today, Amazon offers zero choice in shipping speeds, provides an estimate of when your item will arrive, and won't honor the estimate. Don't try to emulate Amazon's shipping "options". They couldn't offer a worse shipping experience if they wanted to.
n8ta 5y ago
Where the heck is the renter facing side of this website? I'd like to be on the other end of this service (never had an agent I thought improved upon a lockbox with a key). Edit: Here! https://apartment.app/s https://apartment.app/s
kamfc 5y ago
Apps like this is something you planned to build but don't care for regardless of wealth potential...and you wished someone built it for you. It sucks that this took almost a decade (usually have to wait 3, 5, 10 years if you wait for someone else to build it) but glad someone decided to do it! Thank goodness...and hopefully more competitors (choices) to come in the future. Good luck!
risyachka 5y ago
Any attempt to replace brokers should be celebrated. They provide literally zero value for the price they charge. They do nothing that can't be automated.

818 points by rdgthree 5y ago

tsjq 5y ago

Similar to www.nobroker.in (India) ?

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.

jandrese 5y ago
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.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  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.
  - stinkytaco 5y ago
    Please see: ticket sales: Ticketmaster, Stubhub, etc. In theory, these make sense and reduce anti-consumer inefficiency like scalping that individual venues are not equipped to deal with. In practice, they extract fees. It's not that they are bad, per se, just that if the opportunity exists, someone with a spreadsheet will spot it, likely with the best intentions but no eye to the overall impact. EDIT: To be clear, I think these services are a net good. Stubhub allows me to get sports tickets at a reduced price if someone can't go to the game. Ticketmaster stops people from spamming the system to gobble up tickets, it's just that these industries are now going to want a fee for that and we end up back where we started. I'm sure at one time brokers were helpful as well (a landlord free way to compare properties).
    - criddell 5y ago
      Not sure about Stubhub, but Ticketmaster exists to be the bad guy. Lots of Ticketmaster fees are shared with the promoter and venue operator.
- sneak 5y ago
  Now it's just used to eliminate the poor and unemployed.
wombatmobile 5y ago
> This was really well written, such a good read. The author's extreme user empathy, attention to detail, and willingness to do whatever it takes to reach a standard makes this a comforting read. You know it's going to end without disappointment, because he does whatever it takes to get good results for all stakeholders.

philipodonnell 5y ago

Great writeup.

swiley 5y ago

Some of this software is pretty terrible. I don't remember what for but the new CRM software at my apartment required that I fill some form that I couldn't find so I went down stairs to the office and the person working for the land lord didn't know either. We ended up figuring it out together.

cde-v 5y ago

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.

aerovistae 5y ago
Yeah it's pretty atrocious. They're so useless. It's such a feel-bad experience working with them, knowing they're not helping at all, and knowing you have to pay them thousands of dollars if you want the apartment - for nothing.
- solumos 5y ago
  What's worse is when they try to pretend like you're actually getting value for the crazy fee they charge. "Now, I'm you're broker so if there are any problems throughout the lease, feel free to contact me. This isn't just a one time thing!" We literally emailed/called him two weeks later and he ghosted us. When we were moving out of our apartment when our lease was up, he was around showing another unit, introduced himself, asked us how long we lived there, etc
KoftaBob 5y ago
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t NYC enact a law last year that bans landlords from charging tenants the broker fee?
- infogulch 5y ago
  It's good that there's no surprise fees, but they're still being paid. It's like anything, the value is just hidden in the price of the product now, rent in this case.
  - justaguy88 5y ago
    The landlord can decide if it's worth paying them then

ajb 5y ago

Glad they didn't go with virtual viewings - scam players here (UK) do that and just run away with the deposit.

coding123 5y ago
Super rampant here in CA with Craigslist. Scammer will post a rental ad for a house that is currently for sale in Zillow. You know it's a scam pretty easily, but not everyone does. If someone other than Craigslist can get in this market and do a better job, one that verifies the Lister owns the property, and there is no funny business about who gets the property, that would be excellent.
- gfxgirl 5y ago
  I ran into this yesterday. It wasn't entirely clear it was a scam, well to me, at first. The first clue was "sorry, no in house viewing, we had son and 2 friends die from COVID, please understand". Yes, that's a big red flag but sounded like a legit excuse to me. But, at least it got me suspicious. Next was in their email they claimed to be working for somecompany.com but their email address was soomecompany.com. Finally the location was on redfin as having been sold only 4 month ago and the rental price was arguably 20% lower than it should have been. I can't prove it was a scam but I passed. It was frustrating to me that there is apparently no public online way to look up the owner of a property. I suppose there's some reason for that.
  - ajb 5y ago
    In the UK, you can look up the owner of a property. You pay £4 though.
  - coding123 5y ago
    This one in Cali: I am in Philadelphia in the Military Camp, you can go by and view the inside of the house through the window, if you like it, you get back to me so we can proceed with the rentals.. then at the end of the email... Thanks will be looking forward to your reply. United State Army General SCAPARROTTI For reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Scaparrotti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Scaparrotti

nickthemagicman 5y ago

Woah as a former landlord, this software is awesome.

TuringNYC 5y ago

I lived in a UDR apartment property for the past 3+ yrs. They first had 2 full-time sales persons on site. That went down to one, then to zero. Now they lease based on GOOD 3d drawings of apartments, virtual showings, and easy Docusign based lease agreements. You can check it out here: https://www.udr.com/washington-dc-apartments/arlington/crescent-falls-church/ https://www.udr.com/washington-dc-apartments/arlington/cresc... No value seems to have been lost in going from humans to software. Yes, vacancies are up, but that is probably due to the 15-20% rent increases and general migration away from the city. I'm sure they are also saving a mint on the two fewer on-site sales FTEs. Seems like a big win for both the tenant and landlord (hopefully the savings are being split.) EDIT: I dont think virtual showings are a replacement for a physical walk-thru. However, it is a great way to filter out obviously mismatching apartments and a way to not waste time visiting apartments way out of your requirements. For example, if I just want to see the size of closets (a big deciding factor for me), i can do that on a floorplan easily. I can easily filter out apartments w/o walk-in closets.

gfxgirl 5y ago
Virtual viewing is not a full solution for me. The plus is it helps me weed out places I'm sure I'm not interested in but I still need to see the real place before I rent. The virtual version of the place might not represent the actual place. There's no easy way to check noise levels, lighting, ambiance, etc. And further, it's far easier to scam people with virtual showings. I had one yesterday where they sent a matterport tour link and claimed I couldn't see the place for real because they had a son and 3 friends die from COVID so "please understand, no in person showings". After looking into details it became clear it was a scam.
jdavis703 5y ago
As a tenant I want to personally inspect the unit I’m renting. A 3D virtual tour won’t tell me if there’s low water pressure, a slow hot water heater, a stinky garbage bin outside the window or creaky floors.
ajcp 5y ago
I lived in DC and NOVA for 8+ years (including at UDRs Shirlington property) and never felt I needed a broker when apartment hunting. Now that was about 5 years ago, so the market might have changed.

coding123 5y ago

> Renters would pay us to take over the remainder of their lease obligation, we'd find a new qualified tenant and get the landlord's approval for a lease transfer or sublease. If we weren't able to find a new tenant, we'd pay the rent until the end of the lease. Also pretty nice that you do that, but one thing I would recommend is immediately not allow any landlords that require such evil practices and be banned from your system.

mertd 5y ago
What is the evil practice?
- unanswered 5y ago
  Well, it's either requiring rent to be paid throughout the entire lease term or not allowing leases to be randomly transferred to unqualified tenants. Does it really matter at that point which one GP meant?
  - hammock 5y ago
    A lease is a contract where you agree to pay throughout the entire term. That's evil? Most municipalities at least in the USA also have tenant-friendly laws on that books that mandate either or both of: a) landlords are disallowed from refusing reasonable sublease (e.g. one that passes the same credit check etc that you did) b) landlords must release you from the remainder of a lease if you leave and a reasonably suitable replacement tenant is found
    - coding123 5y ago
      In Oregon they realized how evil it was and made this law: ORS 90.302 E The abandonment or relinquishment of a dwelling unit during a fixed term tenancy without cause. The fee may not exceed one and one-half times the monthly rent.

DoctorNick 5y ago

great, now replace landlords.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
With what?
- handojin 5y ago
  communism
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    The Singapore system purportedly works pretty well.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Does Singapore do anything in particular with regard to landlords?
      - khuey 5y ago
        In Singapore the state builds housing and sells it to citizens cheaply.
      - Robotbeat 5y ago
        Singapore has “social housing” except the government builds the housing and sells it to people for cheap: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/a-singapore-plan-for-public-housing https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/a-singapore-plan-for-publi...
        onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
        My understanding is that the median condo in Singapore costs $1M USD. Is this not true, and if it is, then how is $1M USD for a condo considered cheap? You can get condos next to The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills for that price...

mschuster91 5y ago

Landlords being able to require proof of no evictions in rent history makes sense (even though it absolutely makes life worse for people who fell on any form of hardship), but why are landlords even allowed to demand proof of no felonies?!

codenesium 5y ago
Probably for the same reason your employer does. Not saying it's fair to discriminate against people who have paid their debt to society but I wouldn't be crazy about having a rapist or murderer neighbor.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  I'm German. Landlords here aren't allowed to check criminal backgrounds as are employers (with the exception of jobs dealing with children and valuable objects). The idea behind that is that recidivism is best prevented by letting people be normal parts of society (=being able to work and live in peace) once they have served their term.
agentdrtran 5y ago
Because they write the laws and not renters
anonAndOn 5y ago
How does bankruptcy sound? The discovery phase of the civil lawsuit will uncover that you allowed a convicted sex offender/drug dealer/murderer to move in next door and you are now financially responsible for the victim's damages, pain and suffering.
dave5104 5y ago
> but why are landlords even allowed to demand proof of no felonies?! As someone who has worked on tenant screening software, landlords typically care about a criminal history involving sex offenses or drug manufacturing. In case of recidivism, the former creates liability from other tenants if issues arise during tenancy, and the latter has potential for property destruction and/or harm to neighboring units. There are also typically time limits on how far "back" they can look, typically 5-7 years at the most.

__sy__ 5y ago

We started Seam (YC S20) a year ago to take on the problem of programmatic access to physical spaces (apartments, single-family homes, commercial buildings...etc). Basically one API that can open any door (smart locks, elevators, commercial buildings...etc). We're still in private beta but feel free to reach out if you're struggling with programmatic access. tbh, it's baffling that in 2021, this problem is still so difficult to solve. As a last point, we generally recommend against key-exhange solutions. From our experience at Sonder, people forget to return the keys and it creates a lot logistical headaches. You then have to re-key the doors...etc.

nradov 5y ago
Whether someone returned the keys or not is largely irrelevant. The prior occupants could have made extra copies.
- __sy__ 5y ago
  I disagree. Whether the prior occupant or the property management company has extra sets of keys, you generally don't want some random prospective tenant out there to have the keys to a unit that you will eventually want to rent out to another individual. For Airbnb's/STR's, same problem; guests returning to a unit much later to carry out illegal activities is rather well documented at this point. Across the board, it's not worth the logistical pain and/or liability risk. In the case of a prior tenant, you generally know who the person is...etc. There are edge cases for sure (e.g. evictions) but it's generally less risky.
  - pedrosorio 5y ago
    You agree with the person you replied to. They are saying guests may return to carry out illegal activity even if they returned the keys because they could have just made copies.
    - __sy__ 5y ago
      My initial comment only said that, in our experience, it's a bad idea to use physical key-exchange system for short-term visits of a physical space. Key copies & key returns being two examples of problematic cases. I only brought up key returns in my initial comment because that's the one that caused the most headaches at Sonder. Most people, it turns out, are honest but also forgetful :) The key-copy potentially exposes you to a lot more liability though...

turtlebits 5y ago

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.

tsywke44 5y ago
This is the classic pet vs cattle problem. It isn't aimed at the person who is renting their precious second apartment. It's for investors with 50+ rentals where every unit is simply a number in a spreadsheet.
Cyclone_ 5y ago
That might make sense if you're in town, I rent out a house of mine that's far away from where I live most of the year and this seems like it might be worth a shot in that type of case.

tcbasche 5y ago

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

throwawayboise 5y ago
Had a very similar idea 10 years ago. Just proves that ideas are easy. Execution is where the value is created.
- tobyjsullivan 5y ago
  This is what I enjoyed most about this article. It's an idea I've thought about in the past (who hasn't) and their approach seems so much better than anything I thought up.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
How would one automate away the fixing of toilets and performing routine maintenance?
- tcbasche 5y ago
  I don't think you would (and that would be a terrible idea), more the 'organising' and booking of those maintenance items. I can count more than I'd like to the amount of times I've had double-handling, miscommunication and downright rude behaviour from rental managers trying to either refute that you need maintenance, call the wrong person or don't chase anything up and get things fixed. Submit maintenance on an app and then boom someone is contacted to fix something
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    My point is automation is not going to fix the problem of an owner who is trying to squeeze every last cent of profit by skimping on maintenance, and hiring rude rental managers, or not paying enough for qualified people to come fix the problem.

soheil 5y ago

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/ https://www.charlesproxy.com/

readflaggedcomm 5y ago
You add its root cert, and it re-encrypts: https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/proxying/ssl-proxying/ https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/proxying/ssl-prox...

rememberlenny 5y ago

I'm a huge fan of Rezi which has a very similar experience to my knowledge. They are able to reduce broker fee/rents because they can assure a reduced time where apartments are unrented. https://www.rentrezi.com/ https://www.rentrezi.com/

d33lio 5y ago

Realtors are truly the scum of the earth, hustle culture, gate keeping, maligned incentives for clients, lazy industry in general. Only second to tech recruiters. Please keep up the good work!

wly_cdgr 5y ago

Wonderful writeup with a great balance of readability and detail. Thank you for sharing! TBH, this would work very well as an introduction to modern tech product development for a general audience - you could pitch this to the digital edition of the Atlantic, say, and probably get it in without much editing. It helps that the domain is so broadly relatable!

__sy__ 5y ago
The illustrations were solid too.

nacho2sweet 5y ago

Making being a landlord easier and more disconnected from people and your tenants etc for the investor class. What a great product for society and wealth inequality. Love it!!! Put an algorithm on judging if someone deserves shelter, we have never seen any problems with this in past studies!! Maybe one of the most evil things I seen on here in awhile tbh.

b20000 5y ago
why is this voted down?
- not_exactly__ 5y ago
  Maybe because it presents a false dichotomy where one’s desire to profit from an asset must also accommodate those unable to afford it?
  - nacho2sweet 5y ago
    Commiting a felony seems to be a life sentence in the United States even after you have served your time. The algorithm can easily just disqualify them with no nuance. The description on this was even funny "When you rent a place for 1 or 2 years". Just wait till it caretakes rent collecting, rent raising, and eviction services.
    - not_exactly__ 5y ago
      If the algo disqualifies them with no nuance, great, that means there’s probably a market for those who do want to take the time to understand the actual risk profile of a tenant. Also, society as a whole does not owe a clean slate to anyone who has committed a felony. Perhaps we can codify it into law but that is not the case right now and the market has decided that we do care.
- WaitWaitWha 5y ago
  I asked the same without the sarcasm, and it got down voted instantly.

at_a_remove 5y ago

About fifteen years ago, I set up a student rental website at the behest of the rental management. The list of things they wanted to automate, even then, was astonishing. I have seen this in other situations and it has led to a kind of maxim for me -- never underestimate the number of people who think that you can automate their jobs on their behalf and that they will still have those jobs at the end of the process. I don't like putting people out of work but that bit about replacing someone with a shell script is not entirely inaccurate at times.

fartcannon 5y ago

Now do it for real estate agents.

deregulateMed 5y ago

On a similar note, real estate agents need to be knocked down a level. Their job is to unlock a door. Why they can make a hundred thousand dollars a year is criminal.

logicalmonster 5y ago
I think the home purchasing system can and should be streamlined radically, and good real estate agents can make too much money for their actual contribution in many cases, but there's a bit more involved than merely unlocking a door and giving a tour of the kitchen and living room. For instance, merely putting together an offer to buy a house can be ultra complex. Once you've dealt with viewing the house and deciding to go for it, you have to deal with inspections and financing and insurance and other legal things. If there's a problem with the house, you have to know the right questions to ask and how to take the problems into account when making an offer. You have to know the local market well and what kind of offer to make or you could overpay by thousands or miss out on a dream home. On top of that, client contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on for a real estate agent. A real estate agent can in theory luck out showing a client one home, they love it, buy it without a hitch, and come away with thousands of dollars for a few hours of work. A real estate agent can also work with a client for weeks/months, show them dozens of houses, but then they go off and buy that exact house with another agent and lose out on the commission with basically no real recourse after investing many hours working for somebody for free. For every good financial thing that happens to an agent, they end up getting taken for a ride by others. Disclosure: I do have my own biases here as a friend is a real estate agent and I see some of the good and bad parts of the job.

elevaet 5y ago

I really hope software will replace realtors. In my country at least, the ratio of professionalism, accountability, value-added to fees/earnings is the lowest of any occupation I can think of. It would be really low-hanging fruit for tech to disrupt, but unfortunately the real estate boards recognize this, and hold the critical data with an iron fist (from what I understand). It would probably take some serious legal battles to pry that industry open.

IggleSniggle 5y ago
I believe both Zillow and Redfin are trying…

standardUser 5y ago

Apartment hunting is the most inefficient "purchasing" decision I have ever had to make, and the one most likely to end up with a severely sub-optimal outcome. There's some good ideas here that would at least facilitate efficiently viewing more apartments. But there's still so much extremely basic information that potential renters either cannot get about a unit or have to jump through hoops to get. Noise issues, pest issues, construction and renovation details, information about how the management company operates, light levels, info about neighbors and on and on. Ninety percent of the important information about a rental unit isn't discovered until the weeks and months after a lease has been signed, and I am desperate for someone to fix this problem.

benmanns 5y ago
Agreed. There's not enough disincentive for wasting potential renters time filtering through listings or even touring apartments.
paxys 5y ago
During my apartment search in San Francisco I found that it was basically impossible to know whether a unit was covered by rent control or not. You'd have to explicitly ask the landlord, and even then they'd be cagey about it.
- baby 5y ago
  I just moved to SF and I just used craigslist and always asked if it was rent controlled in my intro mail. What’s the point of visiting a place if it’s not?
- clairity 5y ago
  you can just ask when the building was built. any building built before 1978 in LA and 1979 in SF (iirc) is rent-controlled. you can also look up the build date via parcel maps on the county assessor's website (e.g., https://portal.assessor.lacounty.gov/ https://portal.assessor.lacounty.gov/ ).
bytematic 5y ago

csours 5y ago

This is a bit of a tangent, but finding reliable ratings for apartments is a complete quagmire. Many many apartments have extremely poor ratings, or boosted ratings that are not believable. I wonder how much of this is due to the fact that a significant portion of rental situations end with a major conflict and even uneventful apartment living has some portion of minor conflict due to yearly rent increases.

benmanns 5y ago

We used this pre-COVID to get out of a Brooklyn lease and had a fantastic experience (back when it was Flip Instant). Flip basically charged 1 month rent and guaranteed a fill or they'd pay the rest (6 months) of my lease. Compared to our landlord who wanted 1.75x rent, up to 2.75x rent if not filled immediately, after significant negotiation. Hiring a broker myself would have likely cost 1x rent or more anyways with all the risk on us. I really like the service provider + financial underwriting combination, where you get basically an SLA for them providing a service, where they take 100% of the risk after the fee.

e1g 5y ago
The landlord is under no obligation to accept anyone this service finds, so this startup guarantees an outcome they cannot control. It might be a way to build awareness and goodwill, but they are burning VC capital to offer a service that is either fundamentally unsustainable or mispriced.
- crazygringo 5y ago
  Obviously you're not going to use it if your landlord doesn't allow subleases, and landlords are also usually pretty upfront about approval requirements for a sublease. I've never heard of a landlord not allowing a subletter to convert to a full lease upon original lease expiration. I mean, the alternative is to forego a month or two of rent while you find a new tenant. Unless there's a horrible problem with the existing subletter's credit, but then they probably wouldn't have gotten the sublease in the first place. I'm not saying it's never happened, but it's going to be rare. I don't really see anything unsustainable or mispriced about this at all. There are already other companies doing it as well in NYC, e.g.: https://doorkee.com/ https://doorkee.com/
  - e1g 5y ago
    The difference from Doorkee, or any matchmaking service, is that they do not guarantee to pay your rent for six months if a) they can't find someone within a month or b) your landlord doesn't like them. This bet is highly asymmetric - they can win 1 month fee (if you sublease tomorrow) but lose 6x that. I'm also in NYC, and wouldn't underwrite this gamble two years ago, and absolutely not today.

b20000 5y ago

why not build software that finds quality renters and sends them better deals on apartments similar to what they are renting? people pay too much rent in tech metros.

mshenfield 5y ago

Even though this begins with a pitch for empowering tenants, the customers are the landlords. The value for landlords comes at the expense of tenants in several ways. * It prevents tenants who don't meet income or other requirements from even looking at the unit. * It makes tenants liable for noting damage as soon as they view a unit to avoid it being attributed to them, a daunting task. * And it removes a face to face interaction that forces some accountability on landlords who don't provide a clean/cared for unit. Notably absent is a mechanism for tenants to provide feedback to landlords on the listing. The Questions feature is helpful, but not designed for concerns/praise.

bredren 5y ago
> it removes a face to face interaction that forces some accountability on landlords who don't provide a clean/cared for unit. I do not think face to face interactions with landlords help when the landlord knows they are providing a poorly kept property to begin with. I’ve had a landlord that would use various manipulative techniques to get people to sign leases. Promises of future fixes, charm, references to the difficulty of finding a place, hints toward other interest. Landlords can not be trusted to be benevolent. They are like the pre-Uber taxi drivers. Landlords lack accountability and provide services to people in positions of vulnerability. They take advantage of the asymmetric power differentials and do it in the name of profit. Anything to remove this person and unify terms is advantageous. Jerry.ai is doing this with insurance, and various startups have made attempts to do this with car dealerships. CarWoo back in the day. Bad algorithms can be improved overnight. Greedy, careless people are here to stay.

closeparen 5y ago

The big question in San Francisco is “what does the parking cost?” Very few complexes disclose this; you must give a human your name, number, and expected move date before they will say. It’s a scummy, car dealership-like experience. I would love for stuff like this to be online but the fact is savvy landlords with very high quality websites withhold it intentionally, in order to start a human relationship.

joshuaengler 5y ago

I really want to see the lockpicking lawyer pick that lock now, darn...

baby 5y ago

I don’t get leases. In Europe I can get out of my apartment any time. In the US I’m stuck with my place for a year.

EricE 5y ago
If you want to get out at any time look for month to month rentals. You will likely pay more for the flexibility...
- baby 5y ago
  I never had the luxury to limit my research to these places only. Actually I ran into one of these places once in 5 moves and it was a coliving space. I’m convinced they don’t even exist or you’d be looking at 1-2 places for an absurd price.
  - EricE 5y ago
    Not surprising. The biggest expense for a landlord is finding reliable tenants. Churn is HIGHLY undesirable, and thus the market adjusts accordingly. I may need something temporary - at this point I'll just stay in an extended stay hotel vs. trying to find a place to rent. Anything under a year is, as you note, problematic.
    - baby 5y ago
      Bless airbnb for that, no idea how I would have managed when I was looking for apartments
gfxgirl 5y ago
A lease is also a plus for the renter that the rent will not change for the duration of the lease. Some places rent month to month but they may up the rent every month if the market suggests they can. Of course that could be solved by regulation I guess if a landlord was only allowed to change the rent between tenants and or once a year or so.

WaitWaitWha 5y ago

How will this system work for those - who do not have a smart phone, - who do not have a smart phone with Biometric identity verification, - who do not have a credit card to provide? If I was landlord, I would definitely what to automate everything. But, this feels like it would exclude people who cannot fulfill all of the above.

eigenvalue 5y ago
People like that are generally not going to be desirable tenants for landlords. And in a high cost city like NYC, they very likely wouldn't be able to pass the income and credit verification anyway.

boringg 5y ago

Caretaker: The redfin of brokers. Take all the value for themselves freeze out the brokers (who provide a service but are universally disdained). Ride that wave of positive news for a couples years. Eventually everyone will hate the fraction of the market Caretaker has as they raise prices to make investors happy and people realize there are problems. It's like the same idea of Uber and Lyft. Less human involvement = better world /S.

sudopluto 5y ago
as a student in boston where brokers take 1 month rent for doing exactly *nothing*, i welcome the idea of automating away these leaches. edit: fb marketplace might get the brokers first, most of my friends found their places via landlords posting there
- boringg 5y ago
  Your comments are the perfect example of the short term positive news wave they can generate. Thank you for validating.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Not all brokers provide value to the renter. In "hot" markets like New York, a lot of the time they don't. They render a lot of value to the landlord, however. Taking nice photos, dealing with unqualified applicants, showing the property, etc.
  - seneca 5y ago
    > Your comments are the perfect example of the short term positive news wave they can generate. Thank you for validating. This kind of lazy snark comment degrades this community.
    - kreeben 5y ago
      Absolute free speech, however, empowers this community. I say, let each and everyone speak their mind, even the snark.

throwitaway1235 5y ago

Thank you for putting me out of work!

LatteLazy 5y ago

It's amazing to me that 90% of UK estate agents aren't gone in favour of websites. They've held out much longer than I expected.

umrashrf 5y ago

I just suggested this to my broker in Toronto yesterday. And he wants to do a startup with me on this.

deleted 5y ago

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sneak 5y ago

It's getting to be that you almost can't engage in any everyday transaction in the US over $1000 that doesn't involve showing an online-verified ID. Someone who wishes to keep their driver's license out of S3 is getting pretty short on options.

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vel0city 5y ago

Using a broker to find an apartment to rent is a very alien thought to me but I guess I've only ever really rented in big apartment complexes. I would normally just browse the area I wanted to live in on Google/Bing maps, find a few places that looked interesting, see floorplans on their websites. Take the top few of those and spend a Saturday driving to each of those to check them out. I guess if I was trying to find a place with a lot of independently owned apartment units you'd need a broker to find stuff, but really it seems like something that doesn't need a broker getting paid several hundred dollars for an evening and a day of inconvenience of shopping around. I mean, you're probably going to spend that Saturday viewing the apartments anyways, now you just have someone you're paying to join you. Lease contracts in my state are pretty much entirely standardized. Pretty much every place uses the same lease that has a bunch of fill in the blanks for amounts, unit numbers, etc. There's not a lot of additional forms to be filed. When I bought a house I was happy to have a real estate agent with me as there were a lot of forms, several different 3rd parties to deal with, much more risk, and the whole process was a lot longer. Plus you pretty much need an agent to get in to the more accurate MLS listings. There would be so many homes still listed as for sale on sites like Zillow and others that were already sold while the MLS listings were usually up to date within several hours.

sjs7007 5y ago
Brokers are typically hired by the landlord to find a tenant and not a tenant to find an apartment. The big apartment complexes with a company ownership rather than individual typically hires brokers too, but probably they have enough apartments to just have in-house ones and pay them themselves. But at least in NYC those big apartment complexes are typically only at the higher end of the spectrum. You'll be using a website like StreetEasy to find listings online which often don't have the best pictures, floor plans and you will have to schedule an appointment with one such broker for a time that works best for both of you. These days its less common but pre-pandemic it was not uncommon for a tenant to have to pay 1 month rent as broker fees.

frashelaw 5y ago

"The rent of the land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give. " -- ch 11, wealth of nations "As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce." -- Adam Smith "[the landlord leaves the worker] with the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more." -- ch 11, wealth of nations. "The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all made by his own. " -- ch 11, wealth of nations. "RENT, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances. In adjusting the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock" -- ch 11, wealth of nations. "[Landlords] are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind" -- ch 11, wealth of nations.

zajio1am 5y ago
These are good points for original meaning of 'landlords', i.e. ones who lease land (fixed-amount natural resource), but does not make sense for landlords that lease houses or apartments (capital product).

AJRF 5y ago

I recently moved house. I was previously living with my friend, and we had an agreement I pay sometime before the end of the month. He gave me a contract and said you'll need this, just because when you go to the next place they will ask you for your previous contract. He found it online, it was boiler plate and we agreed verbally I pay him whenever during the month. We we're really good friends, and I lived there for 3 years without a single issue. Then when I tried to rent a new place, the agent asked for lots of details, that we're then passed on to a referencing agency. I gave them all they needed. I have a maxed out credit rating on the 2 providers I can easily check in the UK. My salary was 4x the yearly rent. And the referencing company failed me. They failed me because I didn't always pay the rent on the 20th of the month. Now granted - that is what my contract said, but it wasn't the reality of the situation. Of course the referencing company never asked me about this and just stamped RISK on my profile. They said they couldn't override the software - which I don't believe at all. Luckily my agent was able to call the new landlord, we all got on a call, my agent, my friend, me and the landlord. The landlord laughed on the call and said how stupid that was, and approved my application. The call lasted 1 minute and 28 seconds. I have a deep knot in my stomach about where all this software takes us. In the pursuit of scale, we lose all sense of nuance and humanity. I was lucky in my case, but I know others aren't. It's going to cost us dearly.

gentleman11 5y ago
All my online dashboards I deal with for various things are buggy and inflexible. Whatever the problem is though, you can usually phone a human who can fix it. If you get rid of humans, it’s just creating a nightmare
- perlpimp 5y ago
  We already know how this happens when Google cancels your account, without any warning.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Want a sneak peek of the nightmare? Plenty of companies are now introducing conversational bots on their phone lines, desperately trying to prevent you from getting in touch with a human. And unlike traditional voice menus, pressing 0 or mashing the keypad doesn't work on them. I recently wasted a good 10 minutes trying to reach a flesh-and-blood consultant of a phone company, and I actually wanted to buy stuff from them. I just needed a human to make sure it's on the record I'm requesting a non-default service (FTTH Internet with external ONT, so that I could swap a proper router in place of the piece of garbage they normally provide). Their fancy bot actually understood what I wanted when I repeatedly said "I want to be connected with a consultant" - it kept replying, "I understand you want to talk to a consultant; before we do that, can you tell me [insert some random idiotic question]?". I almost blew a fuse there. I only persisted because for technical reasons, I couldn't go with other providers.

korethr 5y ago

This sounds great from a tenant's perspective, too. I can't speak for all renters, but speaking for myself, I have have been frustrated by all the little points of friction named in this article. However, I should not have had to go to the company's webpage, find no hint of the tenant side of this transaction, get no answer from the chat box, do some google searches, end up back at the blog, and go digging through the blog in order to find apartment.app to be the other half with all the magical UI improvements described in the OP. Afterward, of course I found the link in the footer of the company's main page. UI suggestion. Make it easier for prospective tenants (we are your product, after all) who land on the landlord side to find the renter's side, and vice versa. IMO, there is no greater sin in business than to leave a prospect who has learned of your prodcut/service and wishes to do business with you bereft of someone who will shut up and take his money.

notorandit 5y ago

All this doesn't mean that the software is better than any human broker but simply that those humans were way worse than whatever software has been used.

Trias11 5y ago

Every time middlemen eliminated, new kitten is born! And vice versa. I applaud any service that makes former happens.

rStar 5y ago

does the software lie about the rats? people are better at that type of soft skill.

nickelcitymario 5y ago

Serious Manna vibes: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

dailybagel 5y ago

The article mentions how important it is to keep availability status accurate: Before I get into the solution, I should explain why these renters have such persistent trust issues. [...] Because messaging/applications/leasing were all on-platform for us, we could know when a lister was unresponsive or a lease was signed. That insight naturally allowed us to reliably prevent stale listings. Critically, however, new renters to our website didn't know that. And they wouldn't believe us when we said it. We were in a bit of a pickle. When sampling listings in Manhattan, the second one I came across was in fact not actually available [0]. “Hi, this unit has been rented, what exactly are you searching for?“ [0]: https://apartment.app/listings/2-bedroom-west-53rd-street-new-york-ny https://apartment.app/listings/2-bedroom-west-53rd-street-ne...

vanusa 5y ago

Nice (maybe) but the "filled 200 vacant apartments" is meaningless - it not outright deceptive. "Filled N apartments" compared to what baseline? That is, what is the comparative rate of success? And what is the total transaction cost? What about the inventory that couldn't be rented? And what about all the tenants getting dissed by the algorithm (read: discriminated against, perhaps unlawfully), per a sibling comment to this one? Then again, these are realtors, so we expect them to blow smoke up our... nevermind.

meristem 5y ago

UX question here: I noticed on the blog's screen shots that "self checkout, but for apartments" is used. How did you come up with "self-checkout" as the action? Checkout seems so far away in time re: the process flow. What was your users' mental model?

yawaworht1978 5y ago

Economically a great result, that is indisputable. A small "but" however, did you also improve the customer experience? I am asking as someone who has lived long term in many Airbnb and similar platforms, and almost every single on of them has problems, uses every trick not covered by terms and conditions and has an evasive and unresponsive customer service. Too many to list but I've experienced: No car parking available(were full) when advertised as "with free parking" Free wifi- but not installed Aircon- no aircon in sight(been renovated) Cameras in the flat- but "don't worry they are disabled and part of the alarm system" More such things and extremely annoying to resolve. Not saying your product has these issues, just asking if this is considered and handled or if it's all purely profit oriented.

KingMachiavelli 5y ago
Given the system has no way of knowing if the lister/landlord is just lieing or being misleading (beyond maybe users reporting the entire post as fraud). However this platform does is make it easy to visually inspect the unit. Since these are long(er) term rentals, the whole point is that you can inspect before you lease so checking things like parking, WiFi, and air conditioning should be pretty easy.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> On search, we decided that self-tour viewings on an apartment ought to feel like 2-day shipping on a product on Amazon. Knowing that you can get a given product tomorrow or the next day vs. an alternative a week from now can drive purchasing decisions - for good reason. That's how Amazon used to do shipping - when you go to checkout, they offer you a menu of shipping speeds, you can pick the speed you want, and then the item will arrive by the time you picked. It has nothing to do with how Amazon does shipping now. Today, Amazon offers zero choice in shipping speeds, provides an estimate of when your item will arrive, and won't honor the estimate. Don't try to emulate Amazon's shipping "options". They couldn't offer a worse shipping experience if they wanted to.

n8ta 5y ago

Where the heck is the renter facing side of this website? I'd like to be on the other end of this service (never had an agent I thought improved upon a lockbox with a key). Edit: Here! https://apartment.app/s https://apartment.app/s

kamfc 5y ago

Apps like this is something you planned to build but don't care for regardless of wealth potential...and you wished someone built it for you. It sucks that this took almost a decade (usually have to wait 3, 5, 10 years if you wait for someone else to build it) but glad someone decided to do it! Thank goodness...and hopefully more competitors (choices) to come in the future. Good luck!

risyachka 5y ago

Any attempt to replace brokers should be celebrated. They provide literally zero value for the price they charge. They do nothing that can't be automated.