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Over het initiatief / About the initiative

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In welke fase zit jouw initiatief? / In what stage is your initiative?

Ideefase

Heb je jouw initiatief al gevalideerd? / Did you validate your initiative?

Yes with fellow students.

Meer informatie over jouw initiatief / More info about your initiative

It is an open secret. The dutch housing market is broken. Not only is there a severe lack of supply, particularly in large cities such as Amsterdam or Rotterdam, but another issue exists that is only rarely mentioned: Lack of transparency. Currently, the situation for accommodation searchers is the following: 

Firstly, one applies through various housing platforms, such as Pararius, on an array of houses of which remarkably little information is given. Secondly, one usually then needs to upload extensive documentation in terms of financials and personal identification to an unknown landlord. Thirdly, if one is lucky they receive an invitation for a viewing and can finally find out about what they have actually signed up for. Oftentimes, the arrangement does not work out then and the tenant as well as the landlord is left having wasted considerable amounts of time. 

The obvious problem here is that each party, accommodation seekers, landlords (+current tenants), in the last stage of this lengthy procedure. 

Our initiative would solve this problem by providing a platform with detailed profiles of each party, specifying personal information, living expectations and other requirements. 

Our matchmaking service would happen similar to the Tinder concept in which each party has the option of either liking or disliking the profiles. In our case this would play out in the following way: 

The accommodation seekers would like the offerings that suit them best. After this, the landlords and the current tenants get an array of applications from which they can chose from to invite for a viewing.  

This way the compatibility screening happens right at the start of the procedure and saves considerable amounts of time for all parties involved. 

Wat zijn jouw volgende stappen om het verder te ontwikkelen? / What are your next steps to develop the initiative?

Our next steps are the following:

1, Further market research of competing platforms, such as Pararius, Huurstunt etc, to identify differentiating factors.
2, Set up prototype website.
3, Validate and test the idea further with fellow students & landlords.
4, Network with landlords and housing developers to host their offerings on our platform.
5, Devise adequate marketing strategy and launch the platform.

Wat heb je nodig om (nog meer) impact te maken met dit initiatief? / What do you need to make (more) impact with this initiative?

To be even more impactful, we would ideally be able to overcome our greatest hurdle: Getting enough offerings on our platform. Especially in Rotterdam the housing supply is very scarce and hence many landlords and housing developers will be reluctant to host their offerings on a less established as ours. Hence, we will need to figure out how to make our platform as attractive as possible to the supply-side.

Secondly, we aim to become more impactful by expanding our target group to also include young professionals once we have launched our platform successfully among Rotterdam students. This next target group is also suited since they usually also live with other associates in an apartment and, hence, are similarly bothered by the lack of transparency in the housing search.

And finally, we also aim to be more impactful by expanding out platform to nearby cities such as Delft, Den Haag and Amsterdam. Once again, the prerequisite for this step is that we have already established a well functioning and popular platform in Rotterdam.