Bidding Website Rentberry May Be the Startup of Your Nightmares (gizmodo.com)

Renting is already fraught with pain, from annual rent hikes to extortionate lettings fees. But if a new service called Rentberry takes off, it could be about to get a lot worse. From a report: Rentberry has been operating in test cities and angering affordable housing advocates since 2016. But with its new expansion into 1,000 cities in the United States, the rental bidding website is about to piss off a lot more people. Alex Lubinksy, founder of Rentberry, seems to be pursuing an image that's closer to Uber's vilified Travis Kalanick than the do-gooder model of Elon Musk. Lubinsky courts the controversy that surrounds his startup and is known to include negative press when communicating his vision to reporters. But one big difference with Rentberry will be that if it takes off and becomes the new standard for renting apartments, most of its customers won't be able to run a #deleteRentberry campaign because landlords will have the control. The website essentially functions as a cross between CraigsList and eBay. A landlord lists a rental space and potential tenants bid against one another to claim the lease. Tenants' personal information is available to the landlord. The landlord then makes their final decision by weighing what the best offer is along with which bidder seems like they'd be the best tenant. For now, Rentberry charges users a $25 fee, but in the future, it plans to charge 25 percent of the difference between the asking price and the agreed upon rent. Whoever received the better deal pays the fee -- every month.

Comments

Re:Only in America

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it has nothing to do with "government mandates". It refers to anyone who tries to extract profits without actually doing any more work. Monopolies (cable companies, unregulated utilities, patent holders, etc.) do it all the time.

Re:Seems like a good idea to me...

[cayenne8]

Why would a developer build anything but the priciest luxury rentals? There is no economic incentive to build small places for small rents.

Actually, there is. You do this on volume and ensure yourself a constant stream of tenants in the buildings generating rent.

You get your low price, small units in the Federal Section 8 housing program. The US Feds pay most of the rent, they have rules for the tenants, and if the tenants break rules, do drugs, destroy the place, you can have the Feds evict them and replace them with someone else in the program.

I know folks that make a LOT of mostly GUARANTEED money owning section 8 housing units.