Lively: Innovating the Real Estate Rental Market
Lively – an idea focused on saving real estate investors and tenants money. This idea was born were all great ideas start, the shower. I was lost in thought thinking about how college students only have two options when it comes to their living situation – rent or pay for on campus housing. There is really opportunity for college students to get into home ownership and due to lack of savings, lower credit scores, and shorter time horizons in their respective college towns home ownership is not even considered. How can we offer then a chance to have an equity stake in their living environment? That challenge is not one that I was able to figure out fully, but it led me to my next realization.
There is an opportunity to provide an alternate option to renters and landlords where the renter takes on increased responsibility in exchange for compensation. And this change in renting dynamics is a positive sum game benefiting both parties. Let me explain..
I think it’s important to set the stage – let’s take a look at the current rental market in the US. My takeaways after doing research is that with home prices only getting more expensive, while wages are staying stagnant, home purchases are not affordable for everyone – especially millennials. When you couple the stats below with the growing trend of millennials desiring mobility and getting married later in life, renting is a common practice and has become the norm, even as we get older.
As I pulled this thread further, I started thinking about the landlord-renter relationship and the property management industry. My conclusion is that this industry is ripe for innovation. As things currently stand, there aren’t the right incentives in place to optimize landlords going the extra mile to see to their tenant’s needs and tenant’s aren’t incentivized to take the highest level of care of the landlord’s property.
Ratings and reviews are critical for a peer-to-peer platform. They incentivize positive interactions, inspire trust, and keep the user experience enjoyable, while promoting proactive behavior.
Zillow: Does not provide any way to see reviews from previous tenants at a property
Apartments.com: Apartments.com has no ability to sort rental options by reviews, and most listings have few or no reviews at all
Craigslist: Does not offer the tenant any information on the listing’s history or offer the landlord information on the prospective tenant’s renal history
Finding a place to call home is hard.
With Lively, we can make it easier and more affordable. Lively believes that the property management and rental industry is ready for innovation. There are more homes available for rent and more renters on the market than ever before. The process of finding a quality rental is hard and there is an absence of critical information that both tenants and landlords could use to make better decisions. Furthermore, we believe that renters would like to take on more ownership in their living experience in exchange for a cost savings on their rent. By empowering renters to take more responsibility around the upkeep and handling of problems throughout their lease, landlords put their investment properties in better hands. These cost savings also get transferred to the landlord through decreased maintenance from negligent renters and from decreased property management costs.
Lively can help you save $970/year
The average 1BR rent in the US for 2020 was $1,617. With a 5% reduction in rent through. Lively, a tenant would save $80.85/month and $970.20/year. The same cost savings is applied to the landlord who receives a 5% reduction in their property management expenses (assuming standard 10% property management fees are in place)
I see a lot of potential with this idea. I plan on building out a user flow, working with a friend to create a UI demo in Figma and then building out an MVP in Bubble, a no-code tool. After that I plan on consulting with some contacts in the startup community and seeing if this is a viable product. I’ve always wanted to build out an idea, but wanted it to be the right one. While there are 1000 challenges ahead of me and 1000 more that I don’t even know of yet, I have a feeling like this idea needs more investigation. More thought. More time spent taking it from an idea on paper to a product that people can actually use. I’m excited to make it a reality.
– Josh Gordon
