Renting: Slicing Up The Rental Pie

GigaOM mentioned the latest in rental search hotness, MyNewPlace, and correctly notes who their target market might be:

MyNewSpace is not for cities like San Francisco or New York, where Craigslist is king and rent control limits apartment turnover. Helm says his target user is a recent college grad moving to Atlanta to take a job at Coke who wants to post photos of her new apartment on her MySpace.

I'm sure the naming of the site is anything but coincidental. :) Utilities like this are going to serve young upwardly mobile types who are suddenly realizing the seriously fuXX0red condition of the housing market, as well as recent college grads with lots of debt and not much concern for settling down in the near future.

Plus, although free listing sites can vary wildly in quality, they can often be more honest and up-to-the-minute than any for-pay service (Present company included, of course). So for sites like MyNewSpace and Zillow to succeed, they have to offer even more value than free sites to justify the costs. If their base system--accurate listings--isn't up to snuff, what's the point? :)

Posted at September 18, 2006 01:38 PM

digg this story

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://weblog.housing.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/240

GigaOM mentioned the latest in rental search hotness, MyNewPlace, and correctly notes who their target market might be: MyNewSpace is not for cities like San Francisco or New York, where Craigslist is king and rent control limits apartment turnover. Helm says his target user is a recent college grad moving to Atlanta to take a job at Coke who wants to post photos of her new apartment on her MySpace. I'm sure the naming of the site is anything but coincidental. :) Utilities like this are going to serve young upwardly mobile types who are suddenly realizing the seriously fuXX0red condition of the housing market, as well as recent college grads with lots of debt and not much concern for settling down in the near future. Plus, although free listing sites can vary wildly in quality, they can often be more honest and up-to-the-minute than any for-pay service (Present company included, of course). So for sites like MyNewSpace and Zillow to succeed, they have to offer even more value than free sites to justify the costs. If their base system--accurate listings--isn't up to snuff, what's the point? :)