The price is really low. Not in a value proposition way but looking at minimum wage…
If you have an agent that drives to the rental property, talks to you let you in walks around with you for 15 minutes maybe
That’s $5 for 10 tours. That’s $0.50 per tour.
These have to be virtual tours, or VR tours. Or maybe the real first tired of getting stood up, or tired of people trying to see every property that exists without ever buying anything.
If you wanted to get a customer’s home address and name to do a Nexus lookup asking them for their name and their home address could net you anything
But requiring a small charge on a credit card gives you At least the address on record with a bank for whoever the cardholder is and whatever their legal name is.
I’m not buying it. Your explanation doesn’t defend the $11.99 “product” and you can do an Auth on a credit card and get that same info without doing a Settle which actually takes money from the person. At worst, you could say its a refundable deposit, but its not that either. This is simply a cash grab charging for something that was included for free before.
I’m not defending the product. I’m trying to figure out why a 50-cent max tour fee makes any fucking sense.
If you do auth on a credit card without settling they could give you anybody’s credit card. You could have kids filling it out, this is an online service. But that’s small charge showing up on your card bill means somebody’s going to see it.
They’re making sure that you at least give basic information that’s valid in case you are stealing things we’re hiding out the apartment to rape the next tour. There’s no one there to watch you It’s a self-guided tour.
Without a realtor there to watch you, They need some kind of protection or the insurance would be unreal.
Did i say anywhere that this is good or ok? you all seem to be reading in between some lines that aren’t there and echoing off each others baseless accusations.
Nothing about your original comment reads as anything but defending that practice. Everything you said is factual, and it all sounds like defense. I appreciate that you laid out all the information that you did, but it reads like you’re saying “just playing devil’s advocate” when you’re just trying to spin a narrative that this is ok when that isn’t reality.
You sure? Cause nothing about what you’re talking about is critical. Part of being a renter is the cost associated with showing units and convincing people to buy. You’re lucky enough to have the capital to own rental property that’s essentially passive income. If you don’t want to put in the effort to show a unit to a potential tenant, then sell the real estate and fuck off with your money.
“Oh, you’re interested in a desktop PC? It cost us money to power it on and show how well it runs while playing games or using it as a workstation. So to cover that cost we’re going to have to charge you $5 to mess around with a display model.”
“Test drive a used car on our lot? You’re using 5 minutes of fuel and wearing the tires so $5 please.”
“Welcome to your local shopping mall. It costs us money to keep the place cool in the summer and we’re tired of people coming in and not buying something so to make sure we recapture that cost, we’re charging $5 at the door.”
Yeah, gone forbid they ask you for a way that ends up giving them your legal name and your home address and a likelihood of your credit rating No one would ever want that for a rental system. /s
I agree completely. I’m not saying that it’s a good system I’m just trying to figure out how they were doing anything useful with a 50-cent charge for a tour.
It’s only 50 cents if you’re looking at 10 other properties managed by the same service. In practice, it’s $5 if you were only looking to tour a single place.
The problem I have with it is, if they’re trying to make money from it, the price is way too low. It’s not like a single unit is going to roll in the rent for a month in perspective visits. Letting a practically unvetted person remotely into an apartment that could steal things or hide out in a closet and rape someone… just the insurance to cover that alone would eat up a tremoundous amount of the fee. Cellular lockboxes are hundreds of dollars a piece.
If it was about money, it would need to be $20 for a single tour on a grand scale to make fiscal sense.
That’s why I think they’re just using it to harvest your data, that’s worth WAY more than $20 to them.
It’s not only to harvest your data to sell, it’s also to know how high the initial rent can be set (before you even see a property). That’s called an unfair advantage.
there’s probably a commission system built-in to pay the value of a month’s rent or something to the ‘agent’ when you sign a lease. which means, of course, they’re financially motivated to steer you to better paying properties (for them), not better units or locations for you.
That’s only a $0.50 per visit charge for their more expensive option. There aren’t enough hours in the day for tours to make a reasonable amount of cash out of that that’s my problem.
If you chose the unlimited they could be getting pennies a visit out of it. It’s not enough to pay anybody anything even these system that they’re running. It purely has to be for information gathering to whoever’s paying the bill.
You’re missing the point, which is that estate agents already get paid by the landlord for this. Charging renters is just extra money for doing what they already did.
And in sane places it doesn’t happen, and is often illegal.
If you have an agent that drives to the rental property, talks to you let you in walks around with you for 15 minutes maybe
Half the time they just send you a (usually wrong) door code or tell you to knock on the door and ask the existing tenants.
But also, the onus to pay a broker should NEVER be on the renter. That’s a transaction between the broker and the landlord. If a landlord can’t afford a broker they can show the place themselves. If a renter can’t afford a broker they’re locked out of the transaction altogether.
They’re self tours. They’re forcing you to pay a pittance with a identifiable credit card (not a gift card) which gives them your billing address The name associated with your bank account and with a quick joint through Nexus you’re approximate credit score and amount of money you make.
At 50 cents a tour nobody’s making any money off of it they’re not even making enough money to pay for the internet connected lock they put on the door
If you’re trying to sell a product, the last thing you want to do is create a barrier between potential customers and the sales pitch. Most people are going to look at the free homes first, and probably move into one of those before they pay a fee to see something they might not even want.
The only way this fee helps the company is if they have a monopoly on the area and people have no other choice than to pay to play.
Ah, there it is It’s a self tour. Thanks for the link, super helpful.
They’re getting your payment information, and the home address went to your bank. They’re logging where you’re going in case you’re doing something unspeakable. And they’re probably taking that information and getting a Nexus lookup on you for approximate credit scores and income.
The price at all is ridiculous. Touring a rental is a sales action. Yes you have to pay for someone to administer a tour, but that’s a cost of doing business. It’s also weird because you generally don’t pay to tour homes for purchase.
This is exactly it. It’s always been a risk of being an estate agent/real estate agent. You take on the up-front cost on the basis you will make it back overall in commission in the long term.
12 or so years ago, we were looking at rental properties. And not only was there none of this nonsense. They were finding extra properties to look at, in addition to the one(s) we asked for. They wanted to sell and understood they need to put in the time up-front to get that.
But, if you can get the seller AND the buyer to pay you for your services? Damn, is that a win for them?
We’re missing some critical data here.
The price is really low. Not in a value proposition way but looking at minimum wage…
If you have an agent that drives to the rental property, talks to you let you in walks around with you for 15 minutes maybe
That’s $5 for 10 tours. That’s $0.50 per tour.
These have to be virtual tours, or VR tours. Or maybe the real first tired of getting stood up, or tired of people trying to see every property that exists without ever buying anything.
There’s something strange with that.
Those sound like “cost of doing business” as a landlord/management agent.
It’s a self-tour system they’re gathering information on the customers
Why are they charging customers then?
If you wanted to get a customer’s home address and name to do a Nexus lookup asking them for their name and their home address could net you anything
But requiring a small charge on a credit card gives you At least the address on record with a bank for whoever the cardholder is and whatever their legal name is.
I’m not buying it. Your explanation doesn’t defend the $11.99 “product” and you can do an Auth on a credit card and get that same info without doing a Settle which actually takes money from the person. At worst, you could say its a refundable deposit, but its not that either. This is simply a cash grab charging for something that was included for free before.
I’m not defending the product. I’m trying to figure out why a 50-cent max tour fee makes any fucking sense.
If you do auth on a credit card without settling they could give you anybody’s credit card. You could have kids filling it out, this is an online service. But that’s small charge showing up on your card bill means somebody’s going to see it.
They’re making sure that you at least give basic information that’s valid in case you are stealing things we’re hiding out the apartment to rape the next tour. There’s no one there to watch you It’s a self-guided tour.
Without a realtor there to watch you, They need some kind of protection or the insurance would be unreal.
You keep saying this. Is that better? Like what makes any of what they are doing ok?
Did i say anywhere that this is good or ok? you all seem to be reading in between some lines that aren’t there and echoing off each others baseless accusations.
Nothing about your original comment reads as anything but defending that practice. Everything you said is factual, and it all sounds like defense. I appreciate that you laid out all the information that you did, but it reads like you’re saying “just playing devil’s advocate” when you’re just trying to spin a narrative that this is ok when that isn’t reality.
for appreciating it, you certainly have downvoted every comment I made here.
You are free express these bootlicker opinions, we are free to respond to them.
You sure? Cause nothing about what you’re talking about is critical. Part of being a renter is the cost associated with showing units and convincing people to buy. You’re lucky enough to have the capital to own rental property that’s essentially passive income. If you don’t want to put in the effort to show a unit to a potential tenant, then sell the real estate and fuck off with your money.
“Oh, you’re interested in a desktop PC? It cost us money to power it on and show how well it runs while playing games or using it as a workstation. So to cover that cost we’re going to have to charge you $5 to mess around with a display model.”
“Test drive a used car on our lot? You’re using 5 minutes of fuel and wearing the tires so $5 please.”
“Welcome to your local shopping mall. It costs us money to keep the place cool in the summer and we’re tired of people coming in and not buying something so to make sure we recapture that cost, we’re charging $5 at the door.”
FOOH
Yeah, gone forbid they ask you for a way that ends up giving them your legal name and your home address and a likelihood of your credit rating No one would ever want that for a rental system. /s
FOOH Right back at you.
You do that when you submit an application, not when you are just looking. Those details are none of their business if I have a look and decide no.
I agree completely. I’m not saying that it’s a good system I’m just trying to figure out how they were doing anything useful with a 50-cent charge for a tour.
It’s only 50 cents if you’re looking at 10 other properties managed by the same service. In practice, it’s $5 if you were only looking to tour a single place.
The problem I have with it is, if they’re trying to make money from it, the price is way too low. It’s not like a single unit is going to roll in the rent for a month in perspective visits. Letting a practically unvetted person remotely into an apartment that could steal things or hide out in a closet and rape someone… just the insurance to cover that alone would eat up a tremoundous amount of the fee. Cellular lockboxes are hundreds of dollars a piece.
If it was about money, it would need to be $20 for a single tour on a grand scale to make fiscal sense.
That’s why I think they’re just using it to harvest your data, that’s worth WAY more than $20 to them.
It’s not only to harvest your data to sell, it’s also to know how high the initial rent can be set (before you even see a property). That’s called an unfair advantage.
What the hell are you on about? Renters accompany prospective buyers on tours or walk throughs. No one is doing remote tours.
there’s probably a commission system built-in to pay the value of a month’s rent or something to the ‘agent’ when you sign a lease. which means, of course, they’re financially motivated to steer you to better paying properties (for them), not better units or locations for you.
One month rent was the going rate for a real estate agent to fill a rental for you in my area 6 months ago. Paid by the landlord/property owner
That’s only a $0.50 per visit charge for their more expensive option. There aren’t enough hours in the day for tours to make a reasonable amount of cash out of that that’s my problem.
If you chose the unlimited they could be getting pennies a visit out of it. It’s not enough to pay anybody anything even these system that they’re running. It purely has to be for information gathering to whoever’s paying the bill.
You’re missing the point, which is that estate agents already get paid by the landlord for this. Charging renters is just extra money for doing what they already did.
And in sane places it doesn’t happen, and is often illegal.
Half the time they just send you a (usually wrong) door code or tell you to knock on the door and ask the existing tenants.
But also, the onus to pay a broker should NEVER be on the renter. That’s a transaction between the broker and the landlord. If a landlord can’t afford a broker they can show the place themselves. If a renter can’t afford a broker they’re locked out of the transaction altogether.
we’re not missing anything. renters don’t pay for tours of units. that’s the landlords problem. this is just all kinds of fucked up.
They’re self tours. They’re forcing you to pay a pittance with a identifiable credit card (not a gift card) which gives them your billing address The name associated with your bank account and with a quick joint through Nexus you’re approximate credit score and amount of money you make.
At 50 cents a tour nobody’s making any money off of it they’re not even making enough money to pay for the internet connected lock they put on the door
50/c/tour using highly cacheable data is easily profitable. but profitability is a completely unrelated point. as you touched on briefly.
Which takes me back to: ‘this is just all kinds of fucked up’
Low?! The price should be zero.
If you’re trying to sell a product, the last thing you want to do is create a barrier between potential customers and the sales pitch. Most people are going to look at the free homes first, and probably move into one of those before they pay a fee to see something they might not even want.
The only way this fee helps the company is if they have a monopoly on the area and people have no other choice than to pay to play.
It’s real.
https://futurism.com/rently-apartment-tours
Ah, there it is It’s a self tour. Thanks for the link, super helpful.
They’re getting your payment information, and the home address went to your bank. They’re logging where you’re going in case you’re doing something unspeakable. And they’re probably taking that information and getting a Nexus lookup on you for approximate credit scores and income.
The price at all is ridiculous. Touring a rental is a sales action. Yes you have to pay for someone to administer a tour, but that’s a cost of doing business. It’s also weird because you generally don’t pay to tour homes for purchase.
This is exactly it. It’s always been a risk of being an estate agent/real estate agent. You take on the up-front cost on the basis you will make it back overall in commission in the long term.
12 or so years ago, we were looking at rental properties. And not only was there none of this nonsense. They were finding extra properties to look at, in addition to the one(s) we asked for. They wanted to sell and understood they need to put in the time up-front to get that.
But, if you can get the seller AND the buyer to pay you for your services? Damn, is that a win for them?