Housemate searching - thoughts/opinions?

bradders87

Hi all,

First post here - I'd love to hear your opinions when it comes to house hunting sites!

I'm currently working on an alternative service to Gumtree/Spareroom and the like, one that will remain completely free for anyone to use - no sponsored listings, charges to communicate early etc etc. It will also filter your results to those posted by someone that you have a mutual friend with (I figure it's got to be a safer way to meet someone plus you're probably more likely to get on).

Are the charges that some other sites impose in order to promote your listings etc a valuable addition to such a service, or do you feel that a service like this should be entirely free?

Do you think that sharing a house with someone that you share a friend with is a good idea in general, or is it likely to cause tensions over money/bills etc?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

00ec25

bradders87 wrote: »

one that will remain completely free for anyone to use - no sponsored listings, charges to communicate early etc etc.

Obviously as a site user i don't want to pay and when i have used spareroom ect I found I could get what I wanted without having to subscribe to the pay servcies. Whetehr I lost out by not being an "early bird" is a moot point, at the end of the day I got what i wanted for free. I will continue not to pay iof I ever used them again, this is an MSE site afterall..

IF I was the site owner however then of course i would not be doing it as a charity and |i would want to make money, even if only to cover the running costs (rather than make a profi) given they will be significant if it takes off - so how are you going to pay as a minimum the bandwidth costs of running the site? Advertising?

bradders87

Advertising would be my first thought, yeah. It's the first time I've done something like this - so it'll be a bit of a learning curve if/when it takes off and needs serious hosting requirements!

deedee71

With gumtree, spareroom, easyroommate, mondaytofriday (just off the top of my head) is there really market share for another flat share site?

What will be your USP?

bradders87

deedee71 wrote: »

With gumtree, spareroom, easyroommate, mondaytofriday (just off the top of my head) is there really market share for another flat share site?

What will be your USP?

I like to think that it's the 'social' element that sets it apart. You log in with Facebook, so we can use your list of friends to find you a room where you have a friend in common with someone that lives in the house already.

I figure that having a mutual friend to make introductions is safer than meeting a random stranger, and if someone is close to your social circles, there's a good chance that they'll be similar to you and you'll get on as housemates.

deedee71

Right so it's more of a matchmaker site than the landlord looking for someone, I understand now.

There are a few threads running on here, in fact the moral dilemma of the week is about flatshare, about flatsharing and finding suitable sharers.

JQ.

Have you researched what the hit rate would be from Facebook Friends of Friends? What if it's dire, you're USP suddenly disppears. Plus, if it does work then sureky all the other established players will just do exactly the same at the flick of a switch.

I like the idea, as essentially you could get a personal refernce from the friend of the friend, I would just questions how viable it is and whether you idea could just be instantly copied.

bradders87

deedee71 wrote: »

Right so it's more of a matchmaker site than the landlord looking for someone, I understand now.

There are a few threads running on here, in fact the moral dilemma of the week is about flatshare, about flatsharing and finding suitable sharers.

Ahh very interesting! Am I being blind though, I'm struggling to find the threads?

JQ. wrote: »

Have you researched what the hit rate would be from Facebook Friends of Friends? What if it's dire, you're USP suddenly disppears. Plus, if it does work then sureky all the other established players will just do exactly the same at the flick of a switch.

I like the idea, as essentially you could get a personal refernce from the friend of the friend, I would just questions how viable it is and whether you idea could just be instantly copied.

Well, I've kind of taken a suck it and see approach with regards to the hit-rate! You see so many options on gumtree and the like that I figured if this method could cut down your results to something more meaningful then that can only be a good thing.

As for having the idea copied, it's cost me nothing (ish) to set up, so only time will tell!

Racky_Roo

personally, I think it's a bad idea to share with a "friend of a friend" as in past experience, if anything goes wrong, the "friend" gets stuck in the middle.

I have used spareroom.com, didn't pay the early bird fees - think they are very expensive and don't guarantee you a lodger, but know people do like the option of being able to make their advert stand out, so think it should be an option and will create a bit of revenue for the site too

Matt_Hutchinson

Racky_Roo wrote: »

personally, I think it's a bad idea to share with a "friend of a friend" as in past experience, if anything goes wrong, the "friend" gets stuck in the middle.

That's a really interesting point. I work for SpareRoom - we asked our users who they thought made the best flatmates and the result was surprising:

• An existing friend - 28%
• A friend of a friend - 17%
• Someone you don't know - 55%

We thought people would say mostly friends but that's clearly not the case.


Re the points above about charging to use site like SpareRoom - around 80-85% of our users don't pay a penny to use us. The rest opt to pay for upgrades and this brings in enough revenue for us to maintain and develop the site, have a team of customer service staff on hand to answer calls and emails and - crucially - to monitor every ad on the site for scam and spam so we can delete them before they go live.


Obviously, as a business, we want to make a profit too but, hopefully, keeping the service free for most people strikes a reasonable balance.




Matt