Student-made app provides transparent rent reporting

After finance senior Elijah Wang Chen moved into his apartment freshman year, he said he noticed a lack of transparency in rent prices from landlords in West Campus. After finding a discrepancy between the prices listed on housing websites and the amount students actually pay, Wang Chen created RateMyRentUT, a platform where students anonymously report their rent and compare prices with other users, revealing the true cost of living in West Campus.

Since its launch in February, RateMyRentUT has garnered over 1,600 users, reporting the average monthly rent, calculated by the website, to be around $1,200. On the platform, users can also compare parking costs, amenities and rate their apartments. 

“They’re building more and more skyscrapers,” Wang Chen said. “As (the amount of them) increases, there is going to be less and less transparency. RateMyRent was always going to happen.”

A few weeks ago, Wang Chen launched his new platform, FindMyLease, which showcases rent prices holistically, giving renters an easier and more transparent way to find housing. The website compares data collected from RateMyRentUT with leasing websites and Google reviews.

“The main idea with FindMyLease is to become a better Zillow for UT,” Wang Chen said. “There isn’t really a site at UT yet that someone is manually going in and making sure that all the buildings are there, that the information is correct and that there actually is information. Most (other) sites are haphazardly thrown together.”

When Adi Hebbalae, electrical and computer engineering sophomore, found RateMyRentUT and FindMyLease, he realized he could have found better housing with websites like Wang Chen’s. Previously, Hebbalae used a spreadsheet and collected information from many different websites, which he said made the process very stressful. 

“I was looking for housing for my next year, and I was looking through all of the options,” Hebbalae said. “One thing I noticed was that a lot of these apartments are pretty predatory in the way they cater to these young students and the way they do their pricing, the way they advertise … and that disappointed me a little bit.”

Now, Hebbalae will be helping Wang Chen with the data side of the projects. Hebbalae said he hopes the sites take the burden off students with the streamlined process and transparent information. 

“Students don’t know a lot,” Hebbalae said. “They’re coming in with zero knowledge. While on the other side, the apartments have been here for five years, six years. They know everything about this process. There’s a mismatch in information between the two, and there’s a lot of pressure on … the student side, and if we could even the playing field a little bit, that would be so helpful to everyone at UT.”

At the bottom of FindMyLease’s website, a statement encapsulating Wang Chen’s purpose for building the website can be found.

“We are building the permanent record of real rents and honest reviews so the next class of students never signs a lease in the dark,” FindMyLease wrote on the website.

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