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Datamining a Flat in Munich

239 points by ilovefood 12y ago

dazbradbury 12y ago
I'm one of the founders at OpenRent (UK rental site [1]), and loved your post. We face this kind of problem daily, and have tools in place to make sure our landlords reply to all tenants - even if it's to provide a reason why they're not suitable. We're constantly looking at better ways to solve this problem and improve the tenant experience - and your post will prove an excellent bit of anecdotal insight for us. Our data is similar, showing even just a name can impact response rate! To those suggesting all applicants should provide more data (facebook / linkedin / credit history), it's not always that simple. Still in the UK many renters don't have an online "presence". And whilst that may not be a problem for landlords with "hot" properties, putting off tenants for landlords with little demand is an absolute no go for us - sure, we want applicants to be of a high quality, but just because they don't have that information doesn't mean they aren't suitable. We think allowing tenants to provide more information, whilst supporting all application levels is key - but making it clear that the more data you provide the higher your chances of success and a quick response (even if it's a simple no) isn't always easy. [1] - https://www.openrent.co.uk https://www.openrent.co.uk
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  It is not really "open" if you have to pay, right?
  - dazbradbury 12y ago
    You don't have to pay to use the site, apply for properties, or advertise properties - the fact that wasn't immediately clear is something we probably need to work on! We charge to advertise on external websites only (who charge us), to conduct referencing (because it costs us), and to set up tenancies (again, because it costs us) - rental transactions complete daily on our site completely for free.
    - fiatjaf 12y ago
      Sorry for the misunderstanding. Now that you explained it, I think this is a GREAT business model. Thank you for existing. (Does it work great? Do you have a lot of paying customers?)
      - dazbradbury 12y ago
        We have over 15k landlords, and let a property on average in less than a week - so yes, I think it works pretty well. :-) The more people using our platform, the better it gets, so really we just need to work on our marketing - starting with making sure people understand our concept from the word go. Would you mind explaining why you thought there was a charge, and what pages helped you understand the business better?
        fiatjaf 12y ago
        When you land the website, you see two boxes, one is labeled "TENANTS" and the other "LANDLORDS". One says "NO FEES", the other "ONLY £29". It was clear to me that landlords had to pay a fee.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  Would you care to share how did you overcome the network effect when starting OpenRent?
wxm 12y ago
I've just finished doing the same for Edinburgh, UK and share many of the OP's frustrations. The monopoly that many letting agencies have in that they are also managing apartments adds to the shortage of accommodation in Europe's largest cities. Unlike in previous years, besides a worsening of the availability of accommodation I have also noticed an increase in scammers this year (i.e. people copying pictures from other city's agencies and trying to convince people to pay pre-deposits or application/administrative fees to 'secure keys').
gimboland 12y ago
Brilliant punchline.
Kiro 12y ago
> a girl with an italian name, gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets, 1% answer rate Depressing.
freyfogle 12y ago
My sympathies, I lived in Munich 15 years ago and it was a nightmare to find a place even back then. I've heard it's only gotten worse. We (Nestoria.de) aggregate listings of most of the players in real estate in Germany (IS24, immowelt, immonet, süddeutsche, others) and offer an API. We also offer an API of price trends (ie what the avg rent is in an area and if it's going up or down). Enjoy: http://www.nestoria.co.uk/help/api-search-listings http://www.nestoria.co.uk/help/api-search-listings
- senand 12y ago
  Wow, good to know! I'm currently looking for a flat in Berlin and will definitely use the site. Let's see if I also write some automation around it as the OP apparently did :) Question: how does nestoria make money? Do you get some cut from immowelt etc. in case you end up renting/buying?
  - freyfogle 12y ago
    We generate leads for our partners, the same model as all search engines.
- corv 12y ago
  Thanks for the link, your site is brilliant!
  - freyfogle 12y ago
    Thanks, you should tell EVERYONE you know. In seriousness though, while we do try our best (not just in Germany, but eight other countries as well), the situation he describes is one that the internet doesn't do a good job of solving. Basically demand way outstrips supply in cities like Munich. As a result, if you have a good flat or house you want to rent out, really all you need to do is tell 5-10 people and via word of mouth you'll very quickly have more than enough high quality applicants. You really don't need online tools. An interesting result is that we're now starting to see start-ups that reverse the model. In Köln/Düsseldorf there is https://salzundbrot.com https://salzundbrot.com (a Nestoria partner) who are free for owners/landlords, but charge applicants a small fee to make contact. Will be interesting to see if it catches on. The reality though is there is just way more demand than supply. Normally that would be solved by price rises, but the rate of rent increases is reguated by law. All that said, while I have sympathy with Munich renters, I now live in central London, where the problem is at another order of magnitude. As I always say "London isn't expensive, the rest of the world is cheap".
petercooper 12y ago
The conclusion from this little study, is that a girl with an italian name, gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets, 1% answer rate. The master of all, is the young munich guy who is around 25 Sadly, this doesn't surprise me. Across Europe, numerous anti-discrimination laws have been (rightfully) enacted, but it just pushes any inclination to discriminate that might exist into private. Oh, we "didn't receive" your e-mail, or oh, I "didn't see" your résumé.. This is why some people got upset about Google+ demanding real names and similar "use your real name" policies elsewhere, as even a name alone can be a huge trigger for discriminatory behavior.
- twobits 12y ago
  This won't be popular, but "discrimination" can be for good reasons and for bad reasons.
- philangist 12y ago
  I've noticed something similar here in NYC as I've been apartment hunting. There are postings that will ask for a link to your facebook/instagram/twitter before they'll even show you the property. I'm not saying that it's always motivated by discriminatory behavior, but if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck...
- ilovefood 12y ago
  Thanks for the input ! Maybe I should try it with jobs, just for a test, and write an article about it. :)
  - praptak 12y ago
    Such tests have been performed: "Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback" http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html I believe I have read a study (can't dig it up) where a simple switch to a female name in the context of a technical job made the response rate drop.
phreeza 12y ago
I was recently looking for a new flat in Berlin, and I didn't have the same type of problem the OP had, but once I had an interview, I had to make a decision on whether I wanted the flat or not quite quickly. So I used a variant of the optimal strategy of the secretary problem[0]: Decided on a rough maximal number of flats I wanted to visit N, visit N/e flats without real intention of renting, to sample the market, and then take the first flat that is better than all of the previously viewed flats. Worked out remarkably well for me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
valevk 12y ago
Getting an answer is only the first step. Afterwards you are invited with around 20-30 other persons to visit the flat. It's like cattle looking for a new shed.
- brazzy 12y ago
  When I was looking for a flat together with my girlfriend 3 years ago, we got several viewings of our own together with the agent. This seems to depend completely on whether the commission is paid by the owner or the tenant - the only time we had a "crowded" viewing (but still only about 5 other people) was for a flat where the commission was paid by the owner. Another factor might have been that we were looking in the outskirts of Munich - if you think you absolutely need to live in Schwabing or Glockenbachviertel, it's your own damn fault.
lultimouomo 12y ago
I was very surprised to find Caracas at #9 in the linked article of most expensive cities in the world; Venezuela having a pro capita GDP of around $13K I would have expected the cost of life to be quite low. Does anyone have first hand experience of that, or an explanation of why it is so?
- mithras 12y ago
  The study was probably done at the governments official exchange rate which is far off from the black market rate. Which would make it seem more expensive.
- pjc50 12y ago
  Inequality? It's an oil country. I'd not be surprised to find it's full of million-dollar apartments driving the average up. Maybe the low wage workers live beyond the city boundary, or in favelas that are excluded from the average. http://www.architonic.com/ntsht/over-site-how-caracas-s-new-cable-car-system-is-making-the-city-s-favelas-more-visible/7000511 http://www.architonic.com/ntsht/over-site-how-caracas-s-new-...
- koyote 12y ago
  I would not believe any of the numbers in that article. Just look at the numbers for Paris vs Munich. Paris is higher in everything but is ranked one behind Munich.
mironathetin 12y ago
Cool post. We want to buy something in Munich and indeed, even if you are prepared to spend a million or more, it is extremely hard to get an invitation to visit a place (Even if you are in the right age and your wife is an italian girl, like mine). It would be really cool to outwit the real estate dealers in the way you did it. I keep thinking. Ideas are welcome.
- brazzy 12y ago
  They didn't outwit the dealers, they "outwitted" other people looking for flats by crowding them out via spamming the dealers.
  - rasz_pl 12y ago
    Not really, TLDR says he found his apartment thru friends in the end, so all this crawling was for nothing.
domrdy 12y ago
> Appartment rental agencies cost roughly 3 times the monthly rent, which accounts for around 2000€. No need to say this was a no go for me as I prefer keeping that money and making something good out of it. As far as I know this fee will soon have to be paid by the landlord rather than the potential tenant (by german law).
- freyfogle 12y ago
  But surely they will just pass the fee to the tenant in the form of higher rent?
  - srg0 12y ago
    ... in the form of higher and recurring rent.
- mironathetin 12y ago
  Sometimes, the real estate agents already take it from both sides. Indeed, there is a law in preparation, that you pay, if you contacted the agent to find a flat, but the owner pays, if he asked the agent to find a tenant. I tell you what will happen: you'll never get a contract to rent a place, unless you sign that the agent worked for you, not for the owner.
- dtech 12y ago
  Such a law would do absolutely nothing in these kind of high-demand low-supply situations. The landlord doesn't really need those agencies, they're flooded in offers anyway.
dildog 12y ago
Hanz with a Z? Surely a Bavarian hiphop artist!
lordbusiness 12y ago
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point, identifies people like this author as "mavens". :-) The world is better off for having them.
- erikb 12y ago
  Maybe you could say some more about it, to make it useful for people who haven't read that book?
  - lordbusiness 12y ago
    It's a significant portion of the book so to summarize in a tiny comment will likely not do justice to the concept. However, I'll try. :-) In essence, maven comes from Yiddish, and it means "one who accumulates knowledge". Economists spend a lot of time studying mavens and their habits. Mavens are the people who will analyze every big screen TV on the market, pouring over data, correcting consumer report articles on minutia, and looking for the best deal. They're also the ones who analyze flight itineraries looking for the best combination of layovers and low fare, and they are the tiny fraction of people who actually read the prices on goods in a supermarket and will complain when the supermarket writes "special offer" on something without actually lowering the price, thus holding the market to account. The interesting thing about mavens is that they not only pour over this data for their own purposes, but they actively share it with the world (even if 'world' only means 'other people they talk to directly') at large in order to help others, consciously or unconsciously. The work of the few obsessors benefits everyone because markets don't "get away" with conning us.
    - tomek_zemla 12y ago
      You just made me want to read this book... Thank you.
      - lordbusiness 12y ago
        You won't regret it!
qwerta 12y ago
> This was pretty easy as there is absolutely no captcha system used by that time, on those websites Captcha is not really a problem if you are willing to spend a few cents.
NicoJuicy 12y ago
And what about politicians demanding 40% is female, while only 10% of the candidates are female... That is actually one silly law (i'm not trying to discriminate, but it's kinda unfair for finding the best candidates).
davidroetzel 12y ago
I do not know about the situation in Munich, but I spent lots of time looking for a place in Bonn last year and from my experience the approach from the article has one serious flaw: While the real estate websites offer contact forms to send e-mails, many people hate dealing with e-mails. Landlords and even "professional" real estate agents often ignore e-mails. Sometimes it is because of the sheer volume they get, but I suspect often it is just that they never really adapted to the medium. Many (most?) ads include a phone number. And I have had far better results by calling than by sending an e-mail. You should of course be one of the first people to call...
- probably_wrong 12y ago
  I was going at first to agree with you based on my experience with Berlin: when the ads there give a particular date in which the apartment will be shown, those interested have to fill a form right after seeing it. So in this situation there's no incentive for the owner to check the e-mails. However, that doesn't explain why both the Italian girl and Hanz from Munich got over a 90% answer rate - if they didn't check the e-mails, the response rate should have been lower. So while I agree about that one flaw, I don't really think it affects the results that much.
  - davidroetzel 12y ago
    Do not get me wrong, I do not disagree with his findings. That is probably very accurate and that is awful. But originally he was not out to mine this data. He actually needed a place to live, and I wanted to point out that he might have approached this the wrong way. Personally I prefer e-mail over phone calls. A lot. So this was not obvious to me up until my experience last year.
- jkbyc 12y ago
  I can confirm. I discovered this fact very quickly when I was looking for a flat in Munich in 2009. Almost no replies to emails, I got a pretty good response rate when I called or texted the people. I spoke some German so getting a viewing wasn't that complicated but the competition was big - sometimes tens of people queuing to view the apartment when I got there and I could tell they would typically prefer a German person over a Czech guy speaking imperfect German. Reversing the problem is also a good idea, I know some people had success buying an ad in Sueddeutsche Zeitung. At one point I also put up printed ads in supermarkets in the areas I was considering and while the response rate was very low, I got at least some response. There are also some agencies that in fact own flats and rent them without requiring the 2.5 x rent fee.
Kurtz79 12y ago
"Reasonnable means that the rent doesn’t exceed 800€ for a 15m² flat" Is living in 15 m² reasonable ? I live in a studio of about 30 m² and I find it claustrophobic at times.
- ivancamilov 12y ago
  My thoughts exactly. Here I was, complaining that it's hard to get an affordable apartment in my city, and they live in teeny tiny rooms in Europe!
- erikb 12y ago
  He can't afford more than a 15m² flat but even these are sometimes too expensive. That's not what he says literally, but it's probably his idea, considering that nobody would like to live in just 15 m² but many people have an upper limit on what they can pay.
  - Kurtz79 12y ago
    I was wondering if you can actually find flats that small. While I was looking here in Madrid, the least I could find were 20/25 m2 flats. Regardless, as someone that has shared the author's pains multiple times, kudos to him for the creativity of his method.
- claudius 12y ago
  I have no idea where they got that number from. I got a flat of 50m² last fall for ~850 €/month including heating. Top-level floor, close to the river, not too far from the underground, though not really in the city centre. I sent some emails and saw three flats, picking the second one.
- cpa 12y ago
  He hinted that he lived in Paris. There, somebody leaving alone in about 13 m^2 (the minimum surface that can be rented legally) is not uncommon. Priced dropped lately, but one or two years ago, less than 800€ for 15 m^2 in a very central place in Paris was a "reasonable" price. I live in Paris and 30 m^2 for one person is just not a possibility unless you make 3000+€/mo. Many young people flatshare.
fiatjaf 12y ago
I'm in the business of renting out flats. Not in Munich. Sadly, I'm in a lower-demand market, and I wouldn't rush to classify this as "discrimination". It is very very difficult to deal with bad tenants. They exist, a lot of them. And it is very very difficult to know who is a bad tenant through these websites and Facebook groups. The problem here is an information problem. If these sites gave the person applying for a flat the chance to give information to prove they are good enough, that would be a blessing, both for (good) renters and for landlords. I am not talking about financial information. I would be pretty happy with some references that would indicate the person is honest and serious and easy to deal with, even if they don't have much money; some access to Facebook profile and posts or other data available at the internet would do the job for me.
- anvarik 12y ago
  Why the heck shouldn't I classify this as discrimination? He tried Hans, an Italian female name, and his own, I believe is Karim. And he gets less replies than any other. He probably wrote a pretty darn good e-mail saying how educated and well-behaved he is, bla bla from Paris have degrees etc, but guess what, no replies. Just because of his name! That is what I call discrimination, and in Germany it is pretty common.
  - neptunus 12y ago
    What if the tenants have had more bad experiences with male arab tenants and more good experiences with female italians? Could it be called "science" instead of "discrimination"?
    - anvarik 12y ago
      We are not talking about a single tenant here, OP had enough data to mine, we are talking about whole munich. Are you telling me that whole munich had arab tenants at least once in their past?
    - JabavuAdams 12y ago
      No, because they did not look at him as an individual after categorizing him. This is exactly discrimination. For example, why would anyone expect the same behaviour from a single black criminal drug-addict as from a married black lawyer with kids? The fact that they share the same skin-tone is the least important hint to their potential behaviour, and yet, historically, it's what people use because it's the first thing they see.
joyofdata 12y ago
I pay less than €800 for my 45m² 3 subway stops away from the central station. And I found it by talking to people within 3 months ... :) Paying more than €800 for a small room means even by Munich standards just that you are getting ripped off.
dbasedow 12y ago
Two years ago I was in a similar situation. I had 6 weeks to find a fully furnished apartment in Munich from 800km away. For me the response rate for furnished apartments was 100%, although some simply said the apartment has been rented out already. I also turned to crawling. I regularly crawled IS24's furnished apartment section and put new entries into a Google Fusion Table. That way I could filter on fields and see the apartments on a map at the same time. This wasn't automated as much as the original poster's solution. But my main requirement was that the apartment be near a subway station of a line that stops at my place of work, which is not that easy to automate. After about a week I found an apartment that was rented out by the owner directly (none of that agent fee nonsense). I was the first to contact the guy - a few minutes after it was posted. I had to decide if I take it the same day. Based only on pictures... It was a good deal. Colleagues of mine were paying MUCH MORE and got MUCH LESS.
jonalmeida 12y ago
What was your dataset of people who were applying? If a girl with an Italian name gets 90% and a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets 1%, what about the in-between? I'd be curious to know where I stand..

239 points by ilovefood 12y ago

I'm one of the founders at OpenRent (UK rental site [1]), and loved your post. We face this kind of problem daily, and have tools in place to make sure our landlords reply to all tenants - even if it's to provide a reason why they're not suitable. We're constantly looking at better ways to solve this problem and improve the tenant experience - and your post will prove an excellent bit of anecdotal insight for us. Our data is similar, showing even just a name can impact response rate! To those suggesting all applicants should provide more data (facebook / linkedin / credit history), it's not always that simple. Still in the UK many renters don't have an online "presence". And whilst that may not be a problem for landlords with "hot" properties, putting off tenants for landlords with little demand is an absolute no go for us - sure, we want applicants to be of a high quality, but just because they don't have that information doesn't mean they aren't suitable. We think allowing tenants to provide more information, whilst supporting all application levels is key - but making it clear that the more data you provide the higher your chances of success and a quick response (even if it's a simple no) isn't always easy. [1] - https://www.openrent.co.uk https://www.openrent.co.uk

fiatjaf 12y ago
It is not really "open" if you have to pay, right?
- dazbradbury 12y ago
  You don't have to pay to use the site, apply for properties, or advertise properties - the fact that wasn't immediately clear is something we probably need to work on! We charge to advertise on external websites only (who charge us), to conduct referencing (because it costs us), and to set up tenancies (again, because it costs us) - rental transactions complete daily on our site completely for free.
  - fiatjaf 12y ago
    Sorry for the misunderstanding. Now that you explained it, I think this is a GREAT business model. Thank you for existing. (Does it work great? Do you have a lot of paying customers?)
    - dazbradbury 12y ago
      We have over 15k landlords, and let a property on average in less than a week - so yes, I think it works pretty well. :-) The more people using our platform, the better it gets, so really we just need to work on our marketing - starting with making sure people understand our concept from the word go. Would you mind explaining why you thought there was a charge, and what pages helped you understand the business better?
      - fiatjaf 12y ago
        When you land the website, you see two boxes, one is labeled "TENANTS" and the other "LANDLORDS". One says "NO FEES", the other "ONLY £29". It was clear to me that landlords had to pay a fee.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
fiatjaf 12y ago
Would you care to share how did you overcome the network effect when starting OpenRent?

wxm 12y ago

I've just finished doing the same for Edinburgh, UK and share many of the OP's frustrations. The monopoly that many letting agencies have in that they are also managing apartments adds to the shortage of accommodation in Europe's largest cities. Unlike in previous years, besides a worsening of the availability of accommodation I have also noticed an increase in scammers this year (i.e. people copying pictures from other city's agencies and trying to convince people to pay pre-deposits or application/administrative fees to 'secure keys').

gimboland 12y ago

Brilliant punchline.

Kiro 12y ago

> a girl with an italian name, gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets, 1% answer rate Depressing.

freyfogle 12y ago

My sympathies, I lived in Munich 15 years ago and it was a nightmare to find a place even back then. I've heard it's only gotten worse. We (Nestoria.de) aggregate listings of most of the players in real estate in Germany (IS24, immowelt, immonet, süddeutsche, others) and offer an API. We also offer an API of price trends (ie what the avg rent is in an area and if it's going up or down). Enjoy: http://www.nestoria.co.uk/help/api-search-listings http://www.nestoria.co.uk/help/api-search-listings

senand 12y ago
Wow, good to know! I'm currently looking for a flat in Berlin and will definitely use the site. Let's see if I also write some automation around it as the OP apparently did :) Question: how does nestoria make money? Do you get some cut from immowelt etc. in case you end up renting/buying?
- freyfogle 12y ago
  We generate leads for our partners, the same model as all search engines.
corv 12y ago
Thanks for the link, your site is brilliant!
- freyfogle 12y ago
  Thanks, you should tell EVERYONE you know. In seriousness though, while we do try our best (not just in Germany, but eight other countries as well), the situation he describes is one that the internet doesn't do a good job of solving. Basically demand way outstrips supply in cities like Munich. As a result, if you have a good flat or house you want to rent out, really all you need to do is tell 5-10 people and via word of mouth you'll very quickly have more than enough high quality applicants. You really don't need online tools. An interesting result is that we're now starting to see start-ups that reverse the model. In Köln/Düsseldorf there is https://salzundbrot.com https://salzundbrot.com (a Nestoria partner) who are free for owners/landlords, but charge applicants a small fee to make contact. Will be interesting to see if it catches on. The reality though is there is just way more demand than supply. Normally that would be solved by price rises, but the rate of rent increases is reguated by law. All that said, while I have sympathy with Munich renters, I now live in central London, where the problem is at another order of magnitude. As I always say "London isn't expensive, the rest of the world is cheap".

petercooper 12y ago

The conclusion from this little study, is that a girl with an italian name, gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets, 1% answer rate. The master of all, is the young munich guy who is around 25 Sadly, this doesn't surprise me. Across Europe, numerous anti-discrimination laws have been (rightfully) enacted, but it just pushes any inclination to discriminate that might exist into private. Oh, we "didn't receive" your e-mail, or oh, I "didn't see" your résumé.. This is why some people got upset about Google+ demanding real names and similar "use your real name" policies elsewhere, as even a name alone can be a huge trigger for discriminatory behavior.

twobits 12y ago
This won't be popular, but "discrimination" can be for good reasons and for bad reasons.
philangist 12y ago
I've noticed something similar here in NYC as I've been apartment hunting. There are postings that will ask for a link to your facebook/instagram/twitter before they'll even show you the property. I'm not saying that it's always motivated by discriminatory behavior, but if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck...
ilovefood 12y ago
Thanks for the input ! Maybe I should try it with jobs, just for a test, and write an article about it. :)
- praptak 12y ago
  Such tests have been performed: "Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback" http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html I believe I have read a study (can't dig it up) where a simple switch to a female name in the context of a technical job made the response rate drop.

phreeza 12y ago

I was recently looking for a new flat in Berlin, and I didn't have the same type of problem the OP had, but once I had an interview, I had to make a decision on whether I wanted the flat or not quite quickly. So I used a variant of the optimal strategy of the secretary problem[0]: Decided on a rough maximal number of flats I wanted to visit N, visit N/e flats without real intention of renting, to sample the market, and then take the first flat that is better than all of the previously viewed flats. Worked out remarkably well for me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

valevk 12y ago

Getting an answer is only the first step. Afterwards you are invited with around 20-30 other persons to visit the flat. It's like cattle looking for a new shed.

brazzy 12y ago
When I was looking for a flat together with my girlfriend 3 years ago, we got several viewings of our own together with the agent. This seems to depend completely on whether the commission is paid by the owner or the tenant - the only time we had a "crowded" viewing (but still only about 5 other people) was for a flat where the commission was paid by the owner. Another factor might have been that we were looking in the outskirts of Munich - if you think you absolutely need to live in Schwabing or Glockenbachviertel, it's your own damn fault.

lultimouomo 12y ago

I was very surprised to find Caracas at #9 in the linked article of most expensive cities in the world; Venezuela having a pro capita GDP of around $13K I would have expected the cost of life to be quite low. Does anyone have first hand experience of that, or an explanation of why it is so?

mithras 12y ago
The study was probably done at the governments official exchange rate which is far off from the black market rate. Which would make it seem more expensive.
pjc50 12y ago
Inequality? It's an oil country. I'd not be surprised to find it's full of million-dollar apartments driving the average up. Maybe the low wage workers live beyond the city boundary, or in favelas that are excluded from the average. http://www.architonic.com/ntsht/over-site-how-caracas-s-new-cable-car-system-is-making-the-city-s-favelas-more-visible/7000511 http://www.architonic.com/ntsht/over-site-how-caracas-s-new-...
koyote 12y ago
I would not believe any of the numbers in that article. Just look at the numbers for Paris vs Munich. Paris is higher in everything but is ranked one behind Munich.

mironathetin 12y ago

Cool post. We want to buy something in Munich and indeed, even if you are prepared to spend a million or more, it is extremely hard to get an invitation to visit a place (Even if you are in the right age and your wife is an italian girl, like mine). It would be really cool to outwit the real estate dealers in the way you did it. I keep thinking. Ideas are welcome.

brazzy 12y ago
They didn't outwit the dealers, they "outwitted" other people looking for flats by crowding them out via spamming the dealers.
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  Not really, TLDR says he found his apartment thru friends in the end, so all this crawling was for nothing.

domrdy 12y ago

> Appartment rental agencies cost roughly 3 times the monthly rent, which accounts for around 2000€. No need to say this was a no go for me as I prefer keeping that money and making something good out of it. As far as I know this fee will soon have to be paid by the landlord rather than the potential tenant (by german law).

freyfogle 12y ago
But surely they will just pass the fee to the tenant in the form of higher rent?
- srg0 12y ago
  ... in the form of higher and recurring rent.
mironathetin 12y ago
Sometimes, the real estate agents already take it from both sides. Indeed, there is a law in preparation, that you pay, if you contacted the agent to find a flat, but the owner pays, if he asked the agent to find a tenant. I tell you what will happen: you'll never get a contract to rent a place, unless you sign that the agent worked for you, not for the owner.
dtech 12y ago
Such a law would do absolutely nothing in these kind of high-demand low-supply situations. The landlord doesn't really need those agencies, they're flooded in offers anyway.

dildog 12y ago

Hanz with a Z? Surely a Bavarian hiphop artist!

lordbusiness 12y ago

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point, identifies people like this author as "mavens". :-) The world is better off for having them.

erikb 12y ago
Maybe you could say some more about it, to make it useful for people who haven't read that book?
- lordbusiness 12y ago
  It's a significant portion of the book so to summarize in a tiny comment will likely not do justice to the concept. However, I'll try. :-) In essence, maven comes from Yiddish, and it means "one who accumulates knowledge". Economists spend a lot of time studying mavens and their habits. Mavens are the people who will analyze every big screen TV on the market, pouring over data, correcting consumer report articles on minutia, and looking for the best deal. They're also the ones who analyze flight itineraries looking for the best combination of layovers and low fare, and they are the tiny fraction of people who actually read the prices on goods in a supermarket and will complain when the supermarket writes "special offer" on something without actually lowering the price, thus holding the market to account. The interesting thing about mavens is that they not only pour over this data for their own purposes, but they actively share it with the world (even if 'world' only means 'other people they talk to directly') at large in order to help others, consciously or unconsciously. The work of the few obsessors benefits everyone because markets don't "get away" with conning us.
  - tomek_zemla 12y ago
    You just made me want to read this book... Thank you.
    - lordbusiness 12y ago
      You won't regret it!

qwerta 12y ago

> This was pretty easy as there is absolutely no captcha system used by that time, on those websites Captcha is not really a problem if you are willing to spend a few cents.

NicoJuicy 12y ago

And what about politicians demanding 40% is female, while only 10% of the candidates are female... That is actually one silly law (i'm not trying to discriminate, but it's kinda unfair for finding the best candidates).

davidroetzel 12y ago

I do not know about the situation in Munich, but I spent lots of time looking for a place in Bonn last year and from my experience the approach from the article has one serious flaw: While the real estate websites offer contact forms to send e-mails, many people hate dealing with e-mails. Landlords and even "professional" real estate agents often ignore e-mails. Sometimes it is because of the sheer volume they get, but I suspect often it is just that they never really adapted to the medium. Many (most?) ads include a phone number. And I have had far better results by calling than by sending an e-mail. You should of course be one of the first people to call...

probably_wrong 12y ago
I was going at first to agree with you based on my experience with Berlin: when the ads there give a particular date in which the apartment will be shown, those interested have to fill a form right after seeing it. So in this situation there's no incentive for the owner to check the e-mails. However, that doesn't explain why both the Italian girl and Hanz from Munich got over a 90% answer rate - if they didn't check the e-mails, the response rate should have been lower. So while I agree about that one flaw, I don't really think it affects the results that much.
- davidroetzel 12y ago
  Do not get me wrong, I do not disagree with his findings. That is probably very accurate and that is awful. But originally he was not out to mine this data. He actually needed a place to live, and I wanted to point out that he might have approached this the wrong way. Personally I prefer e-mail over phone calls. A lot. So this was not obvious to me up until my experience last year.
jkbyc 12y ago
I can confirm. I discovered this fact very quickly when I was looking for a flat in Munich in 2009. Almost no replies to emails, I got a pretty good response rate when I called or texted the people. I spoke some German so getting a viewing wasn't that complicated but the competition was big - sometimes tens of people queuing to view the apartment when I got there and I could tell they would typically prefer a German person over a Czech guy speaking imperfect German. Reversing the problem is also a good idea, I know some people had success buying an ad in Sueddeutsche Zeitung. At one point I also put up printed ads in supermarkets in the areas I was considering and while the response rate was very low, I got at least some response. There are also some agencies that in fact own flats and rent them without requiring the 2.5 x rent fee.

Kurtz79 12y ago

"Reasonnable means that the rent doesn’t exceed 800€ for a 15m² flat" Is living in 15 m² reasonable ? I live in a studio of about 30 m² and I find it claustrophobic at times.

ivancamilov 12y ago
My thoughts exactly. Here I was, complaining that it's hard to get an affordable apartment in my city, and they live in teeny tiny rooms in Europe!
erikb 12y ago
He can't afford more than a 15m² flat but even these are sometimes too expensive. That's not what he says literally, but it's probably his idea, considering that nobody would like to live in just 15 m² but many people have an upper limit on what they can pay.
- Kurtz79 12y ago
  I was wondering if you can actually find flats that small. While I was looking here in Madrid, the least I could find were 20/25 m2 flats. Regardless, as someone that has shared the author's pains multiple times, kudos to him for the creativity of his method.
claudius 12y ago
I have no idea where they got that number from. I got a flat of 50m² last fall for ~850 €/month including heating. Top-level floor, close to the river, not too far from the underground, though not really in the city centre. I sent some emails and saw three flats, picking the second one.
cpa 12y ago
He hinted that he lived in Paris. There, somebody leaving alone in about 13 m^2 (the minimum surface that can be rented legally) is not uncommon. Priced dropped lately, but one or two years ago, less than 800€ for 15 m^2 in a very central place in Paris was a "reasonable" price. I live in Paris and 30 m^2 for one person is just not a possibility unless you make 3000+€/mo. Many young people flatshare.

fiatjaf 12y ago

I'm in the business of renting out flats. Not in Munich. Sadly, I'm in a lower-demand market, and I wouldn't rush to classify this as "discrimination". It is very very difficult to deal with bad tenants. They exist, a lot of them. And it is very very difficult to know who is a bad tenant through these websites and Facebook groups. The problem here is an information problem. If these sites gave the person applying for a flat the chance to give information to prove they are good enough, that would be a blessing, both for (good) renters and for landlords. I am not talking about financial information. I would be pretty happy with some references that would indicate the person is honest and serious and easy to deal with, even if they don't have much money; some access to Facebook profile and posts or other data available at the internet would do the job for me.

anvarik 12y ago
Why the heck shouldn't I classify this as discrimination? He tried Hans, an Italian female name, and his own, I believe is Karim. And he gets less replies than any other. He probably wrote a pretty darn good e-mail saying how educated and well-behaved he is, bla bla from Paris have degrees etc, but guess what, no replies. Just because of his name! That is what I call discrimination, and in Germany it is pretty common.
- neptunus 12y ago
  What if the tenants have had more bad experiences with male arab tenants and more good experiences with female italians? Could it be called "science" instead of "discrimination"?
  - anvarik 12y ago
    We are not talking about a single tenant here, OP had enough data to mine, we are talking about whole munich. Are you telling me that whole munich had arab tenants at least once in their past?
  - JabavuAdams 12y ago
    No, because they did not look at him as an individual after categorizing him. This is exactly discrimination. For example, why would anyone expect the same behaviour from a single black criminal drug-addict as from a married black lawyer with kids? The fact that they share the same skin-tone is the least important hint to their potential behaviour, and yet, historically, it's what people use because it's the first thing they see.

joyofdata 12y ago

I pay less than €800 for my 45m² 3 subway stops away from the central station. And I found it by talking to people within 3 months ... :) Paying more than €800 for a small room means even by Munich standards just that you are getting ripped off.

dbasedow 12y ago

Two years ago I was in a similar situation. I had 6 weeks to find a fully furnished apartment in Munich from 800km away. For me the response rate for furnished apartments was 100%, although some simply said the apartment has been rented out already. I also turned to crawling. I regularly crawled IS24's furnished apartment section and put new entries into a Google Fusion Table. That way I could filter on fields and see the apartments on a map at the same time. This wasn't automated as much as the original poster's solution. But my main requirement was that the apartment be near a subway station of a line that stops at my place of work, which is not that easy to automate. After about a week I found an apartment that was rented out by the owner directly (none of that agent fee nonsense). I was the first to contact the guy - a few minutes after it was posted. I had to decide if I take it the same day. Based only on pictures... It was a good deal. Colleagues of mine were paying MUCH MORE and got MUCH LESS.

jonalmeida 12y ago

What was your dataset of people who were applying? If a girl with an Italian name gets 90% and a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets 1%, what about the in-between? I'd be curious to know where I stand..