BITPORTERS ltd.

I’ve been looking for a new place lately. All the websites out there that list apartments suck really hard. Actually the best one I’ve found is craigslist — which is actually the best because of how simple it is. This got me thinking about the information presented in a listing. It’s an ad that lures you in to look at the place, only to be surprised by what’s not shown in the pictures or the enviornment around it. How can we solve this problem? What more information could a listing provide to save people time? What about getting input from people that have lived there or live near there? The people that have looked at it and declined to rent it?

I think the information that people REALLY want to know is as follows. Are the neighbours crazy? Is there any crime around here? Does it ever get loud? What about in the summer? Bugs — For the love of god are there any bugs in this place? Does the landlord like to root through my stuff? What if something breaks, do things get fixed correctly around here?

Now, like buying anything - the person creating the listing would never tell you these things. So what then? What about some kind of site where people could comment on appts as they look at them. Or if people move out of a place they can leave warnings to future people. How about a feature where users can tag and evaluate apartments to build a community sense of how much rent should be? It goes on and on.. so obviously if someone were to make this they’d really need to think about features but I think it’s something we need.

So there you have it, a social website where people can help each other find a good place to live. Good idea? Bad idea? Perhaps this already exists - if it does I need it *right now*