The StreetEasy Update is a channel for Matt Daimler, VP & General Manager of StreetEasy, and others from StreetEasy’s leadership team to communicate directly with you — agents, brokerages and industry partners — about what’s going on at StreetEasy and our related brands.
I want to start by telling you about Rachel. At StreetEasy, we operate around personas – curated profiles that help humanize different customer segments that we’re trying to solve problems for. We talk about these personas constantly, and they help guide our business, product and marketing decisions every day. In the rental space, that persona is Rachel the Renter.
For a long time, Rachel has told us that she’s frustrated with her apartment shopping in NYC. It’s already a competitive, expensive, and fast-moving market. Add bait-and-switch scams and stale inventory into the mix, and it’s a complete nightmare that can waste her time and cause a ton of stress.
Our top priority is providing NYC renters with the best possible apartment search experience, which is rooted in having real and reliable listings. Last July, we added a new layer to help curb this problem for Rachel with a product solution that you know as the NYC Rental Network. With this network, we introduced a $3 per listing per day fee to advertise rentals across StreetEasy, Zillow, Trulia and HotPads. While some saw this only as a way for us to make money, this decision was by far the most aggressive change we’ve taken to help Rachel’s experience. The results exceeded our expectations. Over the past year, we’ve seen a 60 percent drop in complaints related to stale or fraudulent listings on StreetEasy. Also, our audience has grown as we’ve improved, with 85 percent of renters using a NYC Rental Network site in the last year.
As an agent, why does this matter for you? Because your real listings are no longer diluted by fake ones, and more renters than ever are trusting and visiting our rental network to find a new apartment. In fact, we’ve seen a 40 percent increase in the number of messages sent to rental listings advertised on the network since launch. A happier Rachel is a renter who is more likely to contact you, sign a lease and help you build your business. This is a game-changer.
I’m happy to announce that we’re taking all these learnings and applying them to our other NYC brand, Naked Apartments. On Feb. 1, 2019, Naked Apartments, NYC’s largest rentals-only platform, will join as the fifth NYC Rental Network brand and add hundreds of thousands more visits to the platform. More information about this transition can be found in the FAQ here.
As the value of the network continues to increase, we have adjusted the price from $3 per rental listing per day to $4.50. This will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2019. Through a single point of entry, agents will now be able to reach the largest, most engaged audience of NYC renters across StreetEasy, Naked Apartments, Zillow, Trulia and HotPads. More about the NYC Rental Network can be found here. If you have an agent profile on StreetEasy, you will also receive more info about this via email.
We’re on a mission to make Rachel happier, and we want to work with you to keep making this happen. As always, we welcome your feedback and ideas at agentsuccess@streeteasy.com.
– Matt
