Subscribe
Sign in
Flatbook — We pay your rent while you're away, guaranteed.
76
Replies
@rrhoover Thanks for the love Ryan :)
We do love helping digital nomads pursue their dreams. It's all a part of the mission!
One of the more impressive products on PH in a while. I do wonder about the unit economics but the value prop especially to the college student who rents a year lease or the remote worker/long travel crowd is immense.
@dshan Thank you Derek! We do find very innovative ways with internal tools and processes that keep our unit economics at a very healthy level. And yes, we've seen an incredible response to our value prop :)
cool. seems similar to the program that Pillow recently announced: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mariahsu...
Congrats on all the success! We were literally talking with a Toronto Star reporter about you today and she ate up the idea of a consistent brand for short-term rentals. The value prop for people subletting is so simple to - just give us the keys and your rent is covered!
I've hung out in a restyled apartment from Flatbook while in MTL - fantastic experience. Looking forward to seeing you expand into Ottawa so I can make all my incoming friends / colleagues stay with you.
@brandonwaselnuk Hey Brandon! Thanks for the shoutout :)
We actually are live in Ottawa. More than 70 people have already applied to have Flatbook sublet their apartment. Feel free to drop us a line!
@denisechan26 We guarantee subletting by doing two things:
1. When a subletting application is accepted, we immediately pay out the tenant's rent (guaranteeing it). We then bring in a photographer, local artist, interior designer and work to rearrange the furniture, bring in comfortable (Flatbook) bedding and essentially add value to the properties as best we can.
2. We then make it easy for travelers across the world to find and book these sublet properties at a nightly rate. Whereas your rent might cost you $1,000/month, we might be able to charge $150/night. In that regard, our break-even point would sit at about a week's worth of occupancy. Anything beyond that is used to provide the same (free) Flatbook service to more people.
I hope that answers your question!
I have a rule not to check out or upvote products on top... don't ask me why, I'm just stubborn. But... after seeing a few tweets, I resigned myself to see the site, and WOW, the video is great. It makes me feel happy and comfortable and... well, I'd use your service. Kudos. ;)
How do you deal with apartments whom by contract can't be Subletted. Many landlords are against it and specifically ask not to subrent. Can you do offices Too?
@ourielohayon We don't do offices. If your landlord doesn't allow subletting, we cannot accept the apartment.
Really interesting idea! I think you guys @eyaltoledano are already subletting in Quebec city, right? Is there a minimum period? We have a nice home in down town and are leaving for 2 months, really thinking about trying this!
p.s. AirBnB would have been to much pain to dealt with, dont want to spent time finding someone to take care of guests, cleaning up, etc ...
@plehoux Hey Philippe! Yep, inventory in Quebec / Montreal area is the meatiest across the board. The minimum period is two months, or more specifically availability between May 1st and end of September. In other words, we build inventory ahead of the summer (tourism) months.
I'd be happy to forward your property to our Expansion team. Perhaps we can squeeze you in. :-) Feel free to email me at my first name dot last name at flabook dot co - happy to help you out.
Oh this looks pretty awesome. Would I be able to use Flatbook even if I am renting the flat? I mean, even if I am not the "owner" @eyaltoledano?
@tcailhol So long as everything's cool with the landlord (he doesn't mind subletting), no problem.
I should note that we only accept full apartments (not single rooms). The minimum time for availability is two months and ideally the date range would sit between May 1st and end of September.
I had to rent out my and all my roommates rooms one summer bc they were studying abroad. It was terrible. Great Idea
Damn. I literally need this right now (I'm already out of the place, but my current sublet leaves in a month) - but you don't accept individual rooms. :(
@iamfledge Unfortunately single rooms aren't good candidates. We really try to focus on full apartments in the right areas. Sorry!
@michaelrbock We anticipate SF will be in our next expansion phase. We went from 0 to 12 cities in 2014, and are going from 12 to 30 in 2015.
It's really important that the whole thing be as polished as can be, so that we can meet the expectation of our San Francisco customers (and the state of real estate there).
Hey ProductHunters!
We're really excited to be introducing Flatbook to ProductHunt today. In 2013, our team set out to solve the subletting problem. After enabling hundreds of people to save over $500,000 in rent last year alone, we realized that the true vision of our company is actually to remove the need to sublet altogether.
Flatbook pays your rent while you're away, guaranteed. How are we able to do that? We've written a short Medium post to go over Flatbook in greater detail and you can take a look at it here.
One last thing:
We're happy to provide ProductHunters with an exclusive cash bonus offer granting you an additional $100 on top of your rent paid this summer. All you need to do to lock that in is make sure to apply before April 15th.
Applications for Flatbook's North American Subletting program close on May 1st. Applications for Flatbook's European Subletting program close on June 1st.
@sempler they re-style the apartment, photograph it better, rent out the place at a greater per night rate than your monthly rent and keep the difference. Ugh. Why didn't I think of this? Pretty cool.
@sempler Airbnb is one of many booking platforms. Flatbook leverages Airbnb as well as other platforms to offer the inventory it builds over the year (through sublet applications for instance) at nightly rates.
We're different from Airbnb in that fundamentally our businesses are not the same. Our goal is to distribute the authenticity of the best vacation rentals with the standards of the best hotel brands by taking control of that experience, leveraging the best local flavors of its properties and utilizing a sophisticated operations workflow to give you that Hotel consistency while retaining the look and feel of an Airbnb.
Our Subletting Program (http://flatbook.co/sublet) solves the pain of having to sublet. Our Leasing Program (http://flatbook.co/leases) removes the need to sublet altogether.
Hopefully that answers your question! :)
@eyaltoledano Are you in Atlanta, Georgia? Also, how do you handle making sure the guests abide by any rules of the building (i.e. no smoking, quiet hours, etc)... the kind of rules that can cause big issues for the lease holder/owner if they are not followed by their guests?
@eyaltoledano @rogerhuang. I have had the most unbelievably poor experience with flatbook. My lease ends at the end of this month. The current tenants, found by flatbook, have taken it upon themselves to not let the brokers involved with the management company to show the place to prospective new tenants. They (flatbook found) tenants literally will not let the brokers inside.
I realize that sometimes things go wrong -- however, the major issue is the entire lack of accountability or responsibility on the side of flatbook. They decided to completely ignore all my calls, texts, and emails. The customer service team has been equally unhelpful. She directed me towards to customer service line -- which of course robotically told me there was an error and promptly hung up on me.
@eyaltoledano @rogerh1991 fyi, there's a typo on https://flatbook.co/leases - additional (instead of aditional) - http://d.pr/i/174fT
seems like huge operating costs & logistics.
remove people's furniture, pay for storage, and then reverse it at the end of summer. why not just act as the rent guarantor without taking on the extra physical logistics burden
@l1ad Hey Liad, we put a lot of work into making sure that all of the guests who stay in our spaces have an amazing hospitality experience, so we can charge the rates we need to grow the business :)
That process involves a lot of love from our logistics and interior design teams that you wouldn't see elsewhere.
@l1ad For subletting, the furniture stays put and make sure that it's maintained in good condition. That greatly reduces our logistics burden.
For places we take on directly from landlords, the furniture is a necessary part of our business, as @Rogerh1991 mentioned.
Product Hunt