In late 2010, Mike Cerny created DoNotRent.com, an apartment ratings site born out of his experience in commercial real estate and desire to create a place for renters to honestly review properties. After conceiving of the concept, name, and platform, he contracted a Chicago-based web developer and launched a beta. Today, DoNotRent.com left its beta and has more than 2,000 users and almost 2,000 reviews. Everything about DoNotRent.com’s development, from idea to functioning business, has come out of Chicago. “There is a lot of talent in the Chicago area, we love this city, we live in Chicago, started this business in Chicago and we are committed to growing in Chicago,” Cerny says.
[ibimage==20663==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]A top three apartment review site, DoNotRent.com allows users to rate apartments across the country positively (that’s the Do) or negatively (and that’s the Not). Cerny says his target users are 18- to 35-year-old renters or prospective renters, and it’s for them that the site has been tailored.
“DoNotRent.com is more user friendly with less ads, [as well as] social networking features which allow users to anonymously engage in a conversation with other users,” Cerny says. He believes that these features as well as the ability to review apartments from a mobile site sets DoNotRent.com apart from competitors such as ApartmentRatings.com, ApartmentReviews.net, and Apartments.com.
While the site is for renters, Cerny gives landlords a voice in an effort to provide a neutral platform for ratings and conversations. Property managers can add rental properties for free and, for a small fee, claim those listings, which allows them to market their apartments.
“Compared to our competition DoNotRent.com is the only site that provides numerous options for landlords to claim their listings in order to share information with prospective renters, market available units, drive traffic to their website, receive leads and respond to reviews all at a low cost compared to marketing properties with national apartment listing sites,” he says.
Approximately one out of five DoNotRent.com users access the site via mobile device, which is why the company plans to launch a custom mobile site within 60 days and Android and iPhone apps down the line.
“Users want to search and write reviews of apartments they rented or toured,” Cerny says. “By providing a mobile platform for users to write reviews it will only increase the amount of content on the site which will help other users make an informed decision about renting an apartment.”
DoNotRent.com also provides geographically-specific information to make the moving process easier. With listings for nearby businesses, moving services, and more, renters have access to additional resources on the same page. Potential renters can explore their future neighborhood virtually through a list of nearby businesses culled from Google Places. Between that and information about movers, DoNotRent.com aims to streamline the moving process. “Our moving services are partnerships with companies that will help reduce the amount of time a renter will spend trying to find the most affordable and cheapest mover,” Cerny says.
Now, as DoNotRent.com exits its beta, Cerny and his team aim to become the most trusted site for apartment renters on the Internet. They plan to do this by improving their offerings for renters and property managers alike.
Visit DoNotRent.com’s website, check out their BIC profile, and follow them on Twitter at @donotrentcom.
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