We just emailed the winner of our Kindle Fire Giveaway, so if you’re reading this and have not received an email from us, then we sincerely apologize…
We hate losing too, so we feel your pain… Hopefully we’re still friends.
Not to worry though, we’ll be back in the near future with another great giveaway so stay tuned and Happy Holidays!
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Okay. Good news first: We just finished our very first (and might I add successful) contest here at RentSavvy. The winner has been notified but has only 7 days to
Even better news: We’re now giving away 1 free Kindle Fire. Click below to sign-up:
Operating in a world full of sheisty characters, spammers, and blackhat artists can make things difficult for a young startup like ours. But we know you are looking for something more.
Something more personal, something with a personality, and maybe (just maybe) something that might actually make searching for an apartment even a bit of fun.
Which is exactly why we built RentSavvy!
With that in mind, you might have noticed on our home page that “We’re like Conan O’brien with more beard”. No doubt you wondered what that meant (we weren’t even sure for awhile), but alas you’re now about to find out.
Today we’re launching daily deals across the state of Texas each potentially worth up to thousands of dollars. But while deals may be great, we wanted to spice things up just a bit. So to get a deal, all you have to do is “Find the Beard”:
Right now, everyone in Dallas, Houston, Austin, or San Antonio will see something like this:
Anyone can sign-up to receive these deals on our homepage, and don’t worry, this always come with our guarantee - “We hate spam too. So spam you we shan’t.”
Now in the very near future, we’ll be rolling these out state by state. But in the meantime, check us out in Texas and see what “the beard” can do for you! Stay tuned…
-Team Savvy
Yesterday we had the privilege of being featured on Thrillist in Dallas. We just wanted to say thank you to Aaron Miller, and the Thrillist team for the write-up.
Enjoy!
Attention weary apartment shoppers,
We’ve recently exited our private beta period with over 6 million apartment homes and hyperlocal neighborhood recommendations for every major city in the country. We’ve got tons of new things rolling out over the next few weeks so check back often and let us know how we’re doing.
Since we’re now live, we also published a quick demo to better explain exactly how our service saves you hours of frustration during your apartment search. Feel free to check it out at Rentsavvy.com/Tour or watch the short 4 minute video below.
Search on!
-Michael Ivey (cofounder & CEO)
The other day Inman News published an interesting infographic from Trulia that depicts what has become the #1 problem in online real-estate; listings (i.e. house / floorplan availability) The article noted that consumers and professionals alike complain that they are frequently out of date, expired, have the wrong price, etc… In other words, it’s a problem.
Now it might seem odd to the casual observer that the same data that drives our industry is also what harms it the most, but what was interesting to me was that the article didn’t dig into why this is really happening. Yes the article noted that the largest culprit is the “non-MLS 3rd party syndicator,” but who are these egregious rule breakers?
Short answer, everyone.
Why Has It Gotten So Bad?
The simple answer is that everyone wants you to believe that they control the information. This is after all why you pay for their service / hand over your email address, etc… So they create a website, post some information, and hope you’ll forgive them for any errors.
What you may not realize however (at least for rentals), is that no one really owns this data except for the landlord. When you see a published rate or a posted vacany, there’s a good chance that 100 other people saw it as well, which creates a bit of a land rush that results in the information being out of date almost immediately after it’s posted.
Consumers however are led to believe that because they see it on your site, it’s still available. A problem that is typically not resolved until after you’ve handed over your contact information. Great news for the agent, because they can now start spamming you, but terrible news for the consumer who just wanted to see that property.
What’s a Rational Person To Do?
1. Be Careful. First things first, you need to be protective of your email address. Ours is an industry notorious for spam, so if you come across websites like the following (names have been removed to protect the innocent), run:
2. Set clear goals. Some people search online for pricing information, others to see pictures of floorplans or to get an idea of where to focus your energy. I always checked online to get an idea of where the best deals were. Whatever your goals are, think about them
3. Check for social proof. Instead of blindly searching google, ask your friends who they recommend. Check who people are talking about on Twitter, etc… There are a lot of great services out there willing and able to offer their help, but all too often they are overwhelmed by guys like the ones mentioned above.
But if you’re still lost or confused, I happen to know a startup that built an apartment search engine that doesn’t suck. We’re still very young, but are focused on building an amazing product so let us know what you think!
For some reason, they never include this kind of picture on the apartment tour or pamphlet #fail.
Welcome, weary apartment hunters! RentSavy is apartment hunting that doesn't suck! so your journey is almost over. We're currently in private beta so sign-up today. Otherwise, check out our blog for updates for RentSavvy updates, news, and moving advice.
