Welcome header

OnBehalf - house viewings when you are busy

OnBehalf - house viewings when you are busy

Team info

i
Mark Goldrin

Category

An app + website "On Behalf" that helps to do house viewings while being abroad or busy. Here is the scenario of the usual scenario: 1. Tenant publishes adveritsement: date, time, address and describes what he would like to check. Additionaly, tenanat can note what exactly he/she would like to know (for instance, smell or noise level). 2. Tenant puts a bounty 20 EUR to anyone who will complete this order (with pictures and review). 3. Someone who is free at that time responds to the order and it gets booked → taken down from online. 4. Throuw escrow system money gets sent from the Tenant bank account and stored safely before it gets redirected to viewer bank account. The app (OnBehalf) holds 10-15% fee from that sum. 5. After getting a report from the viewer the tenant closes the deal and the viewer gets the money. The target group for the tenants are expats, students and immigrants. From 18 to 30 years old. Monetization is in the precent of the bounty. Channels for reaching target audiences are social media, internet. The idea is similar to Gander Tours although OnBehalf allows user to set bounty fee as high as he/she wants.

PROBLEM: When I was looking for the accomodation in Rotterdam I encountered a problem that even if I found a listing and I got invited to the viewing I could not attend it because at the time I was still in my homecountry - Estonia. That made the homehunting many times harder because I could not check the property for being a scam and real estate agents did not want to deal with the digital viewings for me (because I was a non-competetive candidate — student). Unfortunatley, the videos and the photos that the landlords provide do not transfer details that could not be captured through video. For instance smells, noise transparency, low temperature, decline of the floor and quality of the furniture. Since I had very few acquaintances in Rotterdam I could ask anyone to attend the viewing for me. Even if I found someone, it would be awkward to ask a person someone to commute to other side of the city to do a 5 minute viewing. Asking strangers was also dangerous, since I could have been easily scammed. Someone, who I met from Discord could agree to attend the viewing and then abandon me. Real estate agencies could not help me too since I was simply not their priority customer. Even if they accepted to cooperate, it would require to conclude a contract and go into payable agreement. Unfortunatly, my budget was limited already so I did not want to choose this scenario. Coming from Estonia to Rotterdam to view a one apartment was not an option too. It would be too expensive and I did not have a time for such transfers. SOLUTION: If only there was a digital platform with locals of the city where I could list my viewing it could have resolved my dilemma. I as a searching tenant [TENANT] would post an advertisement [BOUNTY] of the viewing, describe the viewing objectives (check for smell, noise, etc) and, to motivate people to help me, promise small fee for that (10-30 EUR). Locals, who are available at that time, date and want to earn a little money [VIEWER] respond to the advertisement. The platforms works on the “first-come-first serve” basis, which means that who first responds to the advertisement gets a chance to earn money. To assure security of such service in-app systems like viewers identification and video and photo authentication would be installed. Also, escrow system and help desk to resolve disputes. There are services with the similar idea like Gander Tours (USA) and VisitForMe but I would like to create a flexible C2C platform that would make an home seeking a little bit easier in the current housing crisis.

Photos & Videos

No media