<story><title>We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments</title><url>https://caretaker.com/blog/we-replaced-rental-brokers-with-software-and-filled-200-vacant-apartments</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boringg</author><text>Caretaker:  The redfin of brokers.  Take all the value for themselves freeze out the brokers (who provide a service but are universally disdained).  Ride that wave of positive news for a couples years.  Eventually everyone will hate the fraction of the market Caretaker has as they raise prices to make investors happy and people realize there are problems.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like the same idea of Uber and Lyft.  Less human involvement = better world &amp;#x2F;S.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>908B64B197</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s like the same idea of Uber and Lyft. Less human involvement = better world &amp;#x2F;S.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting how everyone conveniently forgot about the medallion system Uber and Lyft disrupted.&lt;p&gt;Pre-Uber, either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won&amp;#x27;t touch these medallions!) a medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that planned to use it as his retirement savings (an extremely volatile asset and not very liquid).&lt;p&gt;The more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their industry was a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a breeze of fresh air: Someone could simply buy a car, calculate the depreciation and it&amp;#x27;s value on the market (since unlike medallions cars are relatively liquid assets!) do rideshare and calculate their profits or loss. They can get out of the game at anytime, and they know exactly how much they are going to get for the car they have should they sell it.&lt;p&gt;And I&amp;#x27;m not even touching the usual pain points and often discriminatory practices of medallion drivers (refusing card payments, refusing rides to non-white passengers and to non-white neighborhoods...).</text></comment>
<story><title>We replaced rental brokers with software and filled 200 vacant apartments</title><url>https://caretaker.com/blog/we-replaced-rental-brokers-with-software-and-filled-200-vacant-apartments</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boringg</author><text>Caretaker:  The redfin of brokers.  Take all the value for themselves freeze out the brokers (who provide a service but are universally disdained).  Ride that wave of positive news for a couples years.  Eventually everyone will hate the fraction of the market Caretaker has as they raise prices to make investors happy and people realize there are problems.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like the same idea of Uber and Lyft.  Less human involvement = better world &amp;#x2F;S.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sudopluto</author><text>as a student in boston where brokers take 1 month rent for doing exactly *nothing*, i welcome the idea of automating away these leaches.&lt;p&gt;edit: fb marketplace might get the brokers first, most of my friends found their places via landlords posting there</text></comment>