RentHackr

How Green ARE You?

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 11:29:00 -0500

When you hear “Green Living,” do you automatically think of toting a Sigg water bottle or energy efficient appliances and recycling bins for glass, plastic and metal stuff? Maybe it means having more living plants in your apartment, or driving a hybrid car? Or, maybe you ritualistically go to the Union Square Greenmarket and buy locally produced food, dump your bag of biodegradables in the composting bins (where they also sell potting soil for your urban herbal garden). You should be congratulated for doing any one of these things. They’re all good-for-the-environment individual actions. Now, think of what we could achieve if our apartment did its part to reduce its carbon footprint. You’d enjoy lower energy bills, peace of mind, and maybe even a tax-break from Uncle Sam.

The green standard for buildings is called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). You’ve probably heard of it, though most of us have only dreamt of the chance to live in a LEED-certified buildings because of the cost. In the early 2000s, a few affordable housing developers began to apply green building standards to their projects and a few cities began to promote their own standards for affordable housing and other residential development. According to a list just released on Jan. 23, 2013, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) approved 1908 LEED building projects in 11 states.

Then there’s the more guerilla, grassroots side of greener living spaces. For example, some of you have probably heard of storage containers being re-purposed as living spaces in countries like the Netherlands and the UK. There are even some popping up in Manhattan. In fact, according to Mother Nature Network (the world’s most visited environmental and social responsibility online network),

there are more than 300 million shipping containers sitting empty at ports around the world-shipping containers are used to build full-and part-time single family homes and much more. In their basic form, recycled shipping containers offer a quick and inexpensive solution to emergency housing needs and when stacked sky-high, they make for intriguing dormitory complexes.

As RentHackr grows, we’ll do what we can to support renters’ efforts to find and live in greener buildings and apartments. We want to help renters achieve greener living. It can be a lot harder to affect change in a rented apartment than it is in a house you own, but it can and should get easier as the awareness of LEED-certified housing becomes more transparent in the rental market. RentHackr will be a resource to help you get a greener apartment, and we’ll provide content to help you streamline your living space and make that old school apartment a little (or a lot) more greener for you.

A simple example of bringing some green into your home: add some bamboo. Not the stalks in a pot that you get in Chinatown (though we like those, too). We like companies like BambooKi who makes quality bamboo products like towels, sheets, kitchen utensils and more, all from 100% bamboo. They even have bamboo clothing, beauty products and bikes with bamboo frames. The company is committed to bamboo because this readily available, green fiber has so many benefits to both the environment and to customers. Who doesn’t love that? (More on bamboo here). I bet some of you eco-philes already own clothing and gear made of bamboo, right? That’s one step in the right direction. We’ve also seen buildings that use recycled bamboo flooring instead of your traditional wood or concrete flooring, and it looks and feels terrific!

We’re also excited by Kickstarter projects and other startups trying to help us be a little more eco-conscious. We’re looking at you, Windowfarms and The Sill :D

We can go on and on about ways to go green, but we’ll spare you (for now). If you’re an eco-nut and would like to share any tips, please send them our way. Whether you’re aspiring to get a little greener, or if you already grow all your own herbs, let RentHackr help you make the best apartment decisions, and join in the discussion on how we can resdesign the rental market by putting renter’s first.

We’ve created Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest accounts so that you can visit those anytime you feel like reading about how you can be more GREEN, amongst other things we’re finding about the rental market.

*Follow our Pinterest board for tips on Green Living: http://pinterest.com/renthackr/

Sources:

1) Union Square NYC image: Creative Commons

Information |Description=Farmers market at Union Square, New York City. |Source=Digital photo taken by User:Postdlf |Date=November 12, 2005 |Author= Postdlf }} == Licensing == {{GFDL-user-w|w|

2)Mother Nature Network website: http://www.mnn.com/your-home/remodeling-design/photos/8-eye-catching-shipping-container-homes/a-new-kind-of-living

3) LEED Logo https://financial.ucsc.edu/PublishingImages/Green_Purchasing/USGBC_Logo.gif

4) Storage container housing image: http://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/2247090/?type=articleLandscape

5) Sustainable Programs logo: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RvLRTMh5kMc/TGdi51Qkg-I/AAAAAAAAASY/NLONp-hOIKs/S1600-R/Sustainable+Programs+usgbc-li+long+island+u.s.+greenbuilding+council+long+island+blog.jpg

6) Bamboo info: http://life.gaiam.com/article/how-eco-friendly-bamboo

7) USGBC stats: http://new.usgbc.org/articles/usgbc-releases-2012-list-top-10-states-leed

'Pilot Season' Rentals in Los Angeles

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:23:00 -0500

Are you, or someone you know, moving to L.A. between January and March? We’re fascinated with this time of year on the West coast because there seems to be quite a demand for housing during this season. It’s a season where fresh, new talent is in high demand, as so is housing — and that’s a part of the challenge where we think we can help. Check out our website: www.renthackr.com

We’re always on the lookout for housing trends across the nation and we revisited one of our favorites in the Los Angeles Times:

April 12, 2012|By Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times

“The average Los Angeles County rent is predicted to soar nearly 10% over the next two years, leading a resurgence of the costly Southland apartment lifestyle.

Southern California’s economic recovery may be halting and tepid, but young workers gaining new employment, a demand for apartment living and scarce construction of units are creating a rental squeeze in the region, according to a report released Wednesday by USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate.”

Fast forward nine months after this article was written and the rental climate for LA County seems to be going just as predicted… or is it? Many of these “young workers gaining new employment” are people in show business. So much so that 25% of all clients that seek rentals are those in the industry, according to Erin P. Alls, VP at Maison International.

The next three months is what the entertainment industry calls “Pilot Season.” What exactly is this Pilot Season and how does it affect the rental market in the greater LA areas? It happens every year from January to March, then again each Fall. This is because TV shows want new shows to come out alongside the upcoming year. During the fall, the same applies since fall is usually when the school year starts which also happens to be the PEAK time for rentals nationwide. A brand new year welcomes in a fresh batch of young actors flocking to LA to be the next young ingénue or hot leading young man to grace the silver screen, or iPad screen. So where do they all go? We want to know, and we’ll be studying the market there over the coming months.

So, if one fourth of the rental market concentrated in greater Los Angeles consists of these dream-chasing young workers, what about the rest of the market? In our interview with Alls, she indicates that other requests are for short-term business stays for digital media companies such as Google and visitors on extended stays to the area. The rest already LIVE in LA but just want to relocate. Makes sense. We love the way that the rental market is driven by clients and their specific needs. Even if it’s short term, there’s always a possibility of it turning into a long-term need for housing and we want Renthackr to be the tool to find that perfect place.

We’re fascinated with the Pilot Season occurrence because we have been getting requests for short-term housing in Los Angeles in the past few months, not just from our site but from our talented NY friends heading to CA to audition for roles. There are resources like Child Actor Programs and the Actors Fund that help young hopefuls find temporary housing but what about for bootstrappers who would rather find their LA digs through other resources? Not everyone has a mom or an agent to help scout out locations before they make the move to CA from regions like the mid-west and east coast. Simply sifting through search listings proves NOT so simple when the overriding drive to pack your bags to get to that t.v. pilot audition seems to supersede sitting in front of a computer to apartment hunt. So, where does Renthackr come in? Since we have a TON of NY leases already registered, we would like to parallel that with the west coast capital of the entertainment industry. We want users on the west coast to have a large presence, just like east coasters.

For now, we don’t know if there is a direct link with the Pilot Season phenom that happens on the first 3 months of the new year but there IS a migration pattern that occurs with the west and east coast. Whether or not a demand to find rentals in L.A. is not the problem, it is the HOW TO FIND the best one without getting ripped off, we want to fix.

So, before you get your headshots done, wardrobe updated, bleach your hair blonde and salivate over your first In n’ Out burger to get ready for your move to the west coast, tell your CA friends (and their friends and so on) to list their apartments on Renthackr so that we give back the power to the renters. The more information we get on rentals on the west coast, the better informed our aspiring Angelina Jolie’s and Brad Pitt’s out there will be.

*Sources

1) Erin P. Alls | Vice President | Maison International
Licensed in California and New York
Tel: 917 573 1303 | Email: erin@maisonintl.com
Twitter:@ealls | Blog: http://allsthatrealestate.blogspot.com/
Web NY: www.nyc123.com | Web LA: www.laiseasy.com
“Delivering exceptional and trusted results for over 20 years.”

2) Photo credits:

TOP Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
Top - Los Angeles Skyline from File:LA_Skyline_Mountains2.jpg by User:Nserrano
Middle Left - Venice Beach from File:Venice_Beach_Lifeguard_Tower.JPG by User:Adrian104
Middle right - Griffith observatory from File:Griffith_observatory.jpg by [1]
Bottom - Hollywood sign from en:File:PB050006.JPG by User:Oreos

State of the Summer 2012 Manhattan Rental Market

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:46:00 -0400

State of the Summer 2012 Manhattan Rental Market:

Highlights from today’s WSJ article on the rental market:

Demand is still very strong. Prices are getting higher, and incentives for renters have dwindled and gone away.

Fewer than 5% of landlords are offering a free month’s rent or paying brokers’ fees—the kind of incentives that were far more common for renters at the height of the recession.

The average Manhattan apartment rented for $3,459 in July, an increase of $16 over the previous $3,443 record set in May.

Manhattan’s inventory increased to 1.2% in July, the highest level since March. In the year-earlier month, the Manhattan vacancy rate was 0.86%.

July through September are the months New Yorkers are likeliest to move, making the 1.2% vacancy rate not far off the mark from what’s typical for July. ”I’m not surprised,” Mr. Wagner said. “It’s a seasonal opening of inventory. If you take a look at the numbers in October, they’ll be tighter again.”

… adding to a rush for housing in the last few weeks of summer, Mr. Malin said, and the Manhattan vacancy rate will likely drop in August due to pent-up demand. This will push some out of Manhattan and into cheaper apartments in other boroughs.

He said that will help create demand in Brooklyn and Queens and spur new housing development there. “It’s better for everyone in the long run,” Mr. Malin said. “But the truth is, we need more housing.”

We’re working hard to enable RentHackrs to plan their next move ahead of time and avoid the housing rush. Check out all the apartments we have on RentHackr now, and let us know how we can help you find the best place for your next apartment.

The WSJ reports on why the rent keeps getting higher in an...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 11:55:02 -0400

The WSJ reports on why the rent keeps getting higher in an economic downturn.

Here are some highlights:

Even during the downturn, the city’s median rent increased to $1,100 a month in 2011 from $950 in 2008…

Tenants are handing over a larger portion of their pay to landlords than they did before the recession. The percentage of New York City households spending more than half their income on rent grew to 29% in 2011 from 26% in 2008…

Demand for rentals is on the rise as fewer people buy apartments and houses, either because they can’t get loans or they are worried about not being able to sell if things turn sour. More people are moving to the city, where employment still outpaces the rest of the country. Meanwhile, developers say the rising cost of land means it has become tough to build new, moderately priced rental housing…

When rents increase, the search for a comparable spot is growing increasingly more difficult, brokers and tenants said.

Thanks @joshuabrustein for this NYTimes piece on using tech to...

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:17:00 -0400

Thanks @joshuabrustein for this NYTimes piece on using tech to make NYC apartment search less painful!

One major problem: the information available to potential renters is simply not very good. Rental listings rarely include much about the landlords, and many listings exist not to convey any real information but to lure potential clients into the offices of brokers, who will then show them whatever spaces they are trying to unload that day. When I looked at my street on PadMapper, for instance, there were three listings supposedly advertising three different apartments along a 10-block stretch, each described in almost identical language.

This problem is not a secret, and nascent projects like InsideDigs and RentHackr are trying to get renters to cooperate to solve it.

The idea is that renters will work cooperatively to find and lease apartments. …On RentHackr, users share what they are paying for their apartments and if they plan to move soon.

via Navigating the Rental Jungle

Filter RentHackr Markers by Lease End Date One of the most...

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 09:55:50 -0400

Filter RentHackr Markers by Lease End Date

One of the most requested features is now here. Use the date slider to filter the apts on the screen. Choose the month of your lease end, or stretch it out to see what’s going on in a longer time span.

Next up, a price filter. Let us know what you think of the date filter, and what features you want to see next.

RentHackr is still in it’s infancy. We’re dying to get some key features into the hands of users. Thanks for bearing with us at this early stage!

Cheers,

Team RentHackr, RentHackr.com

Does renthackr have a mobile app? That would be amazing!

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 17:34:00 -0400

Hi Distantly,

Thanks for checking our RentHackr and for giving your feedback!

We will definitely roll out mobile after we tighten up the web more. RentHackr was originally conceived as a mobile app, but we chose to start with web because it’s easier and faster (and cheaper!) to test and validate on web.

If you have any more feedback, please share on http://j.mp/GFP82Z.

RentHackr Demo @NYTM

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:25:00 -0400

RentHackr Demo @NYTM:

In case you missed it, catch the livestream of @RentHackr’s demo at the NY Tech Meetup last night. RentHackr starts at 23:50 #NYTM

And here are some quick snaps of the demo. Thanks to everyone for your support!!

RentHackr - Let’s change the rental market together Our...

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:01:00 -0400

RentHackr - Let’s change the rental market together

Our terrific video explaining RentHackr is guaranteed to make you smile.

You can now catch this video showing on our homepage over at RentHackr.com. If you like the video, you’ll love RentHackr. Check it out.

Thanks to Rodrigo and JoAnn over at Mindbugstudios for orchestrating the production of our video.

RentHackr at the June New York Tech Meetup! We’re excited...

Thu, 31 May 2012 11:56:16 -0400

RentHackr at the June New York Tech Meetup!

We’re excited and grateful for the opportunity to demo RentHackr at the next NYTM on June 5th!

The New York Tech Meetup has grown to over 22,000 members from all parts of the New York technology community. They’re huge! The venue is the beloved Skirball Center, holding 860 + the event is simulcast to General Assembly and New Work City + it’s livestreamed for anyone on the internet.

This is by far the largest audience that we’ve ever demo’d RentHackr to. We can’t wait to get feedback from a wider audience. We’re hoping to unveil some new features, too.

Join us in person *buy tickets at 1pm SHARP on June 1 here*($10), or
Livestream the event from http://new.livestream.com/nytm2012 (Free), and
Let us know how you want RentHackr to change the rental market for the better! Give us your feedback

Thanks Hackrs!

Wow, Thanks RentHackrs!

Thu, 03 May 2012 11:53:00 -0400

Thanks to all you renters that checked out, signed up, spread the word, and gave feedback for RentHackr!

Thanks to you, our early alpha version of RentHackr got the press below. We are sincerely grateful - arigato!!

and

There’s much more to come from RentHackr. Thanks for your support!

Power Consumption, Map Design, and Meaningful Amenities This...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:07:26 -0400

Power Consumption, Map Design, and Meaningful Amenities

This great map project by the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University shows NYC’s complete power usage, broken down to an estimate for your own apartment building.

We have a long list of amenities on the RentHackr roadmap that we want to enable people to search and filter by. Building amenities are on the top of our list, things like a doorman, elevator, and roof access. It’s a tough design challenge to add amenities info into a map in an intuitive way. Kudos to the team at Columbia for pulling off this rich map in a way that everyone instantly understands.

I’m not so sure that energy consumption will be a determining factor for renters in choosing an apartment, but I can see it being useful in lots of other ways.

What are the amenities that mean the most to you in selecting your apartment to move into? Tell us and we’ll add them to our list for RentHackr.

Manhattan Rents at All-time High “I got a letter in the mail...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:00:00 -0400

Manhattan Rents at All-time High

“I got a letter in the mail notifying me that they wanted to raise my rent,” he said. “I looked at it and just started laughing. I could not believe they were serious.” He immediately began to look for a new apartment.

A rent increase is one of the main pain points that RentHackr was created to address. RentHackr gives users a place to compare realtime rents versus your neighbors and your neighborhood. RentHackr’s price transparency enables renters to make the best decision: is it time to move, or am I better off staying where I am with an increased rent?

In our last post, we talked about NYC rent regulation and the average rental cost for a NYC apartment. The average rents felt like a steal to most, since the average was $1050 for rent stabilized and $1369 for nonregulated. These averages are drawn down by cheaper apartments in the outer boroughs.

Well, here’s a look rents isolated to Manhattan, courtesy for the NYTimes. There’s the painfully high rent we’re familiar with! Rents are stronger than they ever have been, floating above $3000 and closer to $3500 in 2011. At the same time, the vacancy rate for September, the highest month of turnover, is near it’s lowest point in 5 years. It’s kind of a perfect storm for landlords, and against renters, as rents in Manhattan rebound to record highs.

Visit RentHackr.com today and find out if you’re paying too much for rent. If you’re already a user, come back and see all the new rents. There’s more data added every day.

NYC Apartments Covered by Rent Regulations Infographic According...

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:00:00 -0400

NYC Apartments Covered by Rent Regulations Infographic

According to this report, the vacancy rate for NYC rentals is 3%. That means that 97% of the market is unknown to renters as we try to determine if our rent is fair. RentHackr is solving this problem by sourcing lease information from current renters (from the 97%), and not from listings for vacancies.

Renters have no way of knowing when 97% of the market is going to come up for lease or become an available apartment. RentHackr is solving this problem by displaying predicted availability for each apartment added by our users, based on what renters are planning to do. RentHackrs are able to find out about apartment availability months in advance, even before the landlords.

The nice infographic on NYC Rentals is from this piece by the NY Post. We’ve taken the useful bits about rent regulation and put them together for you below.

Rent Stabilized - 45%
About 45.4 percent of the housing stock is rent-stabilized — where the rent can be raised by a maximum of 3.75 percent a year. The average rent of those apartments is $1,050 a month.

Nonrergulated - 39%
The average rent for a nonregulated apartment is $1,369 a month.

Rent Controlled - 1.8%
About 1.8 percent of the city’s rental-housing stock is rent-controlled, according to the city’s 2011 housing-vacancy survey. The average price of the city’s 38,374 rent-controlled units is $800 a month.

To qualify for rent control, a tenant or family member must have been inhabiting the unit continuously since before July 1, 1971. For that reason, rent control is slowly waning to a close.

If they file paperwork with the state, landlords can raise the price of rent-controlled units by 7.5 percent a year until it reaches the “maximum base rent,” determined every two years by the state based on real-estate taxes and other building operating expenses.

We’re looking into enabling users to see if a building has rent stabilized units on RentHackr.com. Do you want to be able to see rent stabilization?

RentHackr @ SXSW 2012 We’d barely let RentHackr into the...

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:52:00 -0400

RentHackr @ SXSW 2012

We’d barely let RentHackr into the world when I raced off with @marivicgirl to tell everyone we could find at SWSX what RentHackr is and how it’s useful for them.

With a very minimal budget and just a few days. Our plan was to show up at key events and make fast friends. We tagged RentHackr on the many surfaces at SXSW that were created to be tag friendly.

At The Daily SXSW Pool Party, we met some good old friends and made some fun new ones. The highlights were a chat with @ceonyc in the pool, and a chance to catch up with @andymorris by the BBQ. These conversations are leading to follow up meetings back here in NY.

At Grindspace’s excellent popup space right outside the convention center, Marivic tagged their paper table. That led to an interview with a roaming “proxybot.”

Apparently the @proxybot was livestreaming/lifestreaming the entire SXSWi, though I can’t find any of the footage now.

We hit the Foursquare courts on our last afternoon. They had these great big chalkboards. RentHackr represented on the boards.

All this low key marketing worked, but to a very limited degree. The quality of our interactions was very high, but it was with way too few people. We found people were excited to hear about RentHackr. They felt the pain of renting in a market with poor visibility. They sensed it was broken and they really wanted a fix. RentHackr needs to fill that gap and be the best fix for them. We know we can do a lot more to reach and serve people better. And we’re looking forward to bringing it at SXSW 2013 ;)

Updates in the pipeline

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:40:00 -0500

Hey renting public,

We’ve all had our heads down coming up with some great updates. Now you can see first crops of the fruits of our labor. We have a sweet new map that shows you our data in the most straightforward way, just points on a map.

We’ve got some visualizations in store, and we’d like to know from you what kind of information you’d really like to have to make use of renthackr. Remember, any information you want to get is also information someone’d have to give, so keep the golden rule in mind. It’s what keeps our community going.

Hit us up at our feedback page.

The Good, the Bad, and the Criminal

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:02:05 -0500

The Good, the Bad, and the Criminal:

There are good landlords, there are bad landlords, and then some are downright criminal.

These particular slumlords had been abusing the system spectacularly. Their trick was to keep transferring ownership of the building between LLC’s, each owned by different but connected people. Whenever the city or the tenants tried to force the owner to fix the issues (essential issues of habitability, like exposed raw sewage, children exposed to lead, etc), they would just claim it was no longer their building and that ownership has transferred.

To solve this situation Orgnet tapped into obfuscated information and used it to find a solution. They connected the dots and followed the money trail like Prezbo from the Wire. Using social graphing, they found out how these LLC’s were all linked between two families, who had links to a bank. That bank kept transferring mortgages between the llc’s, and those LLC’s allowed the slumlords to take money from the buildings without putting anything back in. And using this info, they got convictions and won cases.

Renthackr hopes to empower the renter in the same way. Help visualize the obfuscated and bring light to the darkness.

New York City Population by Borough

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:08:52 -0500

nycedc:

Take a look at our demographic data, available at http://www.nycedc.com/economic-data/demographics

More people moved to New York City than left last year - a...

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 19:52:00 -0500

More people moved to New York City than left last year - a reversal in net migration.

nycdigital: Thanks for your enthusiasm and help suggesting...

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:12:49 -0400

nycdigital:

Thanks for your enthusiasm and help suggesting station sites for the NYC Bikeshare program!

As of September 20 at 3:30pm, the City has received 5,566 individual station nominations and 32,887 support clicks.

Want to see how they look in terms of location and density? Here’s a heat map illustrating the number of suggestions and supports per square mile as of September 19.