Feedback Wanted: Reviews for Rentals - Rearview Rent

AssociatedLRearviewRent @ rearviewrent.com on 22/02/2022 - 12:01
Last edited 22/02/2022 - 13:51 by 1 other user

Hi All,

I am currently launching a new start up called Rearview Rent (https://rearviewrent.com).
The basic premise of the service is simple: We provide a platform that allows anyone to leave reviews for rental properties.
Anyone being a tenant, roommate, neighbour, agent, or even the landlord. Basically anyone that has experience with the property.
Many people rent and move on, but once they move all that knowledge of how the experience was, typically leaves with them.

We are currently in early stage mode, and testing the value proposition with new users.
I would love to get any feedback from potential users about whether they see value in the solution and/or if there is anything we might be missing.
Any and all feedback is appreciated.

Also, please feel free to leave a review for any properties you / your friends have experience with.

If you want to follow us for any updates:
https://twitter.com/rearviewRent
https://www.instagram.com/rearviewrent

Cheers.

Home & Garden

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closed Comments

  • life is suffering on 22/02/2022 - 12:07

    How is it different to rental reviews.com

    • AssociatedRearviewRent @ rearviewrent.com on 22/02/2022 - 12:45
      -1

      Doesn't seem to be loading for me

      • AndyC1 on 22/02/2022 - 13:19

        Working fine for me.

  • pharkurnell on 22/02/2022 - 12:14
    +12

    Hope you have some good lawyers behind you….

    • freefall101 on 22/02/2022 - 15:19

      Seriously… a bad rental review could cost them thousands in rental income, they'll be more than happy to go legal on it.

      It's also not particularly difficult to pick out which tenant wrote a bad review. I'm renting a place after the owners occupied it, if I wrote a review they'd know exactly who it was.

      With people suing over tweets these days, there's no way I'd write a bad review when there's measurable income on the line. I can't see the income stream here being anywhere near enough to keep up with the legal fees.

  • tsunamisurfer on 22/02/2022 - 12:28
    -4

    Firstly I don't believe anything tenants say.

    Secondly things may change with each tenancy, if tenant A bitches about the lack of internal irrigation for his weed, it may have been fixed by the time tenant C is browsing the reviews.

    I think there is more use of a review site of tenants listing important data like :

    How many weeks in arrears on average they are.
    How many breach notices.
    How many doors kicked in.
    How many walls kicked in.
    Tenure.

    • Quantumcat on 22/02/2022 - 13:07
      +3

      The point would be how responsive the landlord is to fixing problems more than what the problems were. Even if one problem is fixed before the next tenant arrives, that tenant may face a new problem, and if the landlord doesn't respond and doesn't fix it until they move out then that isn't a good experience

    • bobbified on 22/02/2022 - 14:56

      Firstly I don't believe anything tenants say.

      There's both shitty tenants and shitty landlords. Who knows who to believe?

  • orangetrain on 22/02/2022 - 12:29

    Address look up sucks. Why is Australia first?

    No map navigation? How I know areas/properties to avoid? Why not create a Chrome extension for domain/real estate? How do you verify reviews?

    • pharkurnell on 22/02/2022 - 12:41
      +1

      How do you verify reviews?

      This x everynumber

    • AssociatedRearviewRent @ rearviewrent.com on 22/02/2022 - 12:51

      Agreed, the address lookup formatting isn't great. We're looking into better options.

      Very good points!

      In regards to the verification or reviews, we will perform various checks once a review made, but like all reviews you will need to make your own judgment based on the information you gather.

    • AndyC1 on 22/02/2022 - 13:19

      Free QAT testing????

  • trustnoone on 22/02/2022 - 12:31
    +1

    I find it interesting and see where the idea are coming from. Some initial things I'm thinking of though, usually its not the property that I'm worried about but the agency so a lot of the times I care about whether company x is good or bad at renting out not place x.
    I don't seem to see apartment units, but buildings overall, is the address data going to be added further/cleaned up/fixed up?
    Is there any confirmation/check that I lived there or can anyone make a review? It occurs to me that people could put in a bunch of negatives to try to lower a places rating so that less people apply besides yourself.
    Is there a dispute action for landlords who disagree or feel its wrong/trolling etc?

    Overall site wise looks nice and clean, address page feels a little too empty, maybe add a google map/map box pin location or street view or something so it feels like I'm on that addresses real page and not just some database call.

    I think legal may be an issue also, but I do find it interesting that some power is given to tenants, its an interesting line to balance.

    • trustnoone on 22/02/2022 - 12:37

      To add to this, you might want to include a bit more data to the property, something like rental history/rent paid would be hated by landlords but tenants would probably love to see its history and I imagine many would love the data/api to understand how the suburb is going and # of renters in a block/area etc.
      Also wondered if people would be interested in splitting the rating a bit, like x/5 stars for convenience, property manager, price, maintenance, location, neighbourhood, crime etc

      • AssociatedRearviewRent @ rearviewrent.com on 22/02/2022 - 13:37

        We're working on providing more granular address data.
        In regards to the trolling reviews, we will moderate the reviews.

        Reviews are also anonymous, any personal names mentioned in the reviews will be moderated.

        Thanks, really appreciate you taking the time. Lot's to consider here!

        • life is suffering on 22/02/2022 - 14:09
          +1

          How will you know if the person actually rented ?

      • bobbified on 22/02/2022 - 15:00

        …more data to the property, something like rental history/rent paid

        When I was searching properties before, I was able to see the prices on some sites like realestate.com.au, domain.com.au and a few other sites. I'm not sure whether they're pulling information from previous rental listings or if it's from somewhere else, but they seemed pretty accurate.

        • JimB on 22/02/2022 - 15:26

          I'd say pulling data from previous listing on realestate.com.au & domain.com.au.

  • popsiee on 22/02/2022 - 12:43
    +1

    I interpreted your name as A$$viewRent .
    You can thank me if you use it as it way more memorable .

  • GG57 on 22/02/2022 - 13:10
    +1

    I'm unsure how relevant this would be for renters. With high demand for rental properties in some areas, potential renters will probably not be able to see a review by the incumbent / most recent renter at the time of submitting an application.
    Current renters would be wanting to vacate (and receive their bond back) before they posted a review.

    • jellykingdom on 22/02/2022 - 13:57
      +3

      I would also argue that turnover of rental properties is (presumably) so low that most of the reviews aren't reality anymore.

      For e.g if my previous tenants commented on my investment place they would presumably say "good spot but its tired, needs refurb"…which is exactly what i did after the previous tenant left, and the new guy has fresh paint, new bathroom, replaced curtains, new floor etc. But he isn't going to have left a review, so all he would have known was that my place sounded like it was no good

      As a tenant i would be more interested in a) building-level knowledge / local knowledge of the street (e.g noisy road, or no parking), and b) local neighbourhood knowledge. Suburb-level isn't really too important to me, and as i mentioned i don't see the apartment-level knowledge being current enough

      • AssociatedRearviewRent @ rearviewrent.com on 22/02/2022 - 15:18

        Currently the mvp doesn't have dates when the reviews were left on, but you can think of the reviews as a kind of timeline.
        So in regards to your example, you would also be able to comment on your property as a landlord and mention the renovations you did. Which in my option is valuable to know, since it shows you listened to the previous tenant / cared to improve the place.

  • KaTst3R on 22/02/2022 - 13:11
    +1

    what happens when the property is sold to a new landlord? Would the reviews of the previous landlord gets deleted?

    • bobbified on 22/02/2022 - 14:22

      I was going to say that they could potentially put a compulsory field in the review that lists the managing agents' name (or company name). Different agents might indicate a different owner (but that's not a reliable since the new owner might just keep the same agent).

      The alternative could be to pull publicly available data that shows the property's "Last Sold" date. That, together with the above agent's details should do the trick and be a good indicator that the property is 'under new management'.

    • AssociatedRearviewRent @ rearviewrent.com on 22/02/2022 - 15:23

      Our current thinking is the reviews would stay regardless of if the property get's sold. As the new landlord is free to join the conversation and leave a review on their own new property.

      • pharkurnell on 22/02/2022 - 16:32

        I hope your house and car is in someone elses name… the lawyers are already dancing a jig.

      • kerfuffle on 22/02/2022 - 16:47

        There's no apostrophe in 'gets'.

  • 7ekn00 on 22/02/2022 - 13:13
    +1

    Interesting idea, where does the monetization come in?

    • ChillBro on 22/02/2022 - 14:31

      Charge landlords with shitty reviews to remove them lmao

  • Lem_is_cool on 22/02/2022 - 13:21
    +3

    I think a great idea in theory. I would like to know things like; are there trains going through the night, are the roads terrible during school hours, weird property things like doors opening wrong way, barking dogs, annoying neighbours, as well as the obvious ones like is the agent a pain.

    That stuff might be helpful, but for me right now I'm looking for a place to rent and places that are advertised, when I contact I'm already getting a "We have so many applications we're not reviewing more", and 50+ people going to inspections, so for now if it's neat and has airconditiong, I'm going to apply no matter what reviews say :(

    P.S. Anyone renting out a place north of Adelaide cheap ^_^

  • life is suffering on 22/02/2022 - 13:25
    +2

    As a renter I wanted to know how the neighbourhood is how the owner is to work with. This is a good idea. Needs proper execution Op all the best

  • Nutrino on 22/02/2022 - 13:49

    Seriously, what review system on any planet cant be compremised. Look at steam, google maps, amazon… they spend millions to keep it reliable… why would you go there?….

  • jellykingdom on 22/02/2022 - 13:52

    My work internet system won't let me see your page - "Newly registered domain"

  • Hybroid on 22/02/2022 - 14:01
    +2

    Seems like a pointless exercise as no one will remember this, use it nor trust it really.

    What's your monetisation strategy?

    If you want some constructive feedback: Website is very very very very very very basic. Looks really poorly made. It even shows addresses for apartment blocks but not the units themselves for some reason. The whole stars display is odd too (3x *) is bad UI design.

  • kerfuffle on 22/02/2022 - 14:02

    What does your profile picture have to do with leaving reviews?

  • imcjb on 22/02/2022 - 14:10

    How are you going to make money? Targeted ads?

  • TimmyTims on 22/02/2022 - 14:13

    If I can google an address and your page showing reviews appears on the first page, there is use. Otherwise I don't see how you drive people to your site and get them to search there.

    I left a very carefully worded review. Although it is anonymous, if a landlord is monitoring their address/s they can easily guess who left the review. I can see some vindictive landlords using this as evidence at (Your state here)CAT

  • bobbified on 22/02/2022 - 14:13
    +1

    Have you seen rentrabbit.com.au?

    That seems to be a relatively recent launch too.
    They charge people $30 to get a review - From that $30, $20 goes to the reviewer and $10 goes to rentrabbit. (With prices like that, I can see it failing miserably!)

    Now, feedback on https://rearviewrent.com/:

    Simple can be good, but this page just looks too amateurish.

  • Ghost47 on 22/02/2022 - 14:18

    Watch your back, landlords have the money to hire hitmen and will send them after you.

  • AndyC1 on 22/02/2022 - 14:45
    +2

    Troll for free testing and business feedback on a half backed product based on the posts above.

    • popsiee on 22/02/2022 - 16:40

      I reckon he is going to sell it to REA or Domain for 200 mil in 5 yrs .

      • AndyC1 on 22/02/2022 - 17:11
        +1

        And pigs already fly faster than the concord currently does.

  • JimB on 22/02/2022 - 15:30

    You may want to do a FAQ.
    e.g. what's the benefit of leaving a review?

  • Moderatorscrimshaw on 22/02/2022 - 18:10

    Thread closed, OP is using a ghost account. Please use your existing account, Domain Buyer.
    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/user/360388/nodes

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