While most students ventured home to spend time with their families over the holiday break, James Zar, 20, and a band of Boston University classmates slaved away for weeks, locked in a Brighton basement, creating a solution to the strenuous apartment hunting process.
Today, Zar and his team launched SocialRent.us, an interactive alternative to cold-calling real estate agents and spending hours on Craigslist.
“We are taking the entire process, streamlining it and putting it online,” said Zar.
By signing into Facebook and activating the app, students scrambling to find that perfect place can build their ideal living situation while live-chatting with future roomies.
Users pick the location, rent limit and who they want to live with, then drag and drop apartment preferences into the interface to narrow the search.
SocialRent does the rest.
“Our team looks for your apartment, and we send all of your roommates available times to view them,” said Zar.
Zar, a senior marketing major at BU, said a lack of innovation in the apartment-hunting market fueled the desire to build the program with friends.
Zar and his team plan on launching mobile apps and roommate-matching capabilities as the business grows.
Follow Steve Annear on Twitter @steveannear
