• rumba@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    We’re missing some critical data here.

    The price is really low. Not in a value proposition way but looking at minimum wage…

    If you have an agent that drives to the rental property, talks to you let you in walks around with you for 15 minutes maybe

    That’s $5 for 10 tours. That’s $0.50 per tour.

    These have to be virtual tours, or VR tours. Or maybe the real first tired of getting stood up, or tired of people trying to see every property that exists without ever buying anything.

    There’s something strange with that.

    Edit: someone linked the actual site theyre self tours, they’re using the payment to collect data on the prospective tenants. Forcing you to pay with a non-gift card credit card means they get enough information to do a Nexus lookup on you.

    • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      we’re not missing anything. renters don’t pay for tours of units. that’s the landlords problem. this is just all kinds of fucked up.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        They’re self tours. They’re forcing you to pay a pittance with a identifiable credit card (not a gift card) which gives them your billing address The name associated with your bank account and with a quick joint through Nexus you’re approximate credit score and amount of money you make.

        At 50 cents a tour nobody’s making any money off of it they’re not even making enough money to pay for the internet connected lock they put on the door

    • GiuseppeAndTheYeti@midwest.social
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      1 month ago

      You sure? Cause nothing about what you’re talking about is critical. Part of being a renter is the cost associated with showing units and convincing people to buy. You’re lucky enough to have the capital to own rental property that’s essentially passive income. If you don’t want to put in the effort to show a unit to a potential tenant, then sell the real estate and fuck off with your money.

      “Oh, you’re interested in a desktop PC? It cost us money to power it on and show how well it runs while playing games or using it as a workstation. So to cover that cost we’re going to have to charge you $5 to mess around with a display model.”

      “Test drive a used car on our lot? You’re using 5 minutes of fuel and wearing the tires so $5 please.”

      “Welcome to your local shopping mall. It costs us money to keep the place cool in the summer and we’re tired of people coming in and not buying something so to make sure we recapture that cost, we’re charging $5 at the door.”

      FOOH

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        Yeah, gone forbid they ask you for a way that ends up giving them your legal name and your home address and a likelihood of your credit rating No one would ever want that for a rental system. /s

        FOOH Right back at you.

        • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          You do that when you submit an application, not when you are just looking. Those details are none of their business if I have a look and decide no.

          • rumba@lemmy.zip
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            1 month ago

            I agree completely. I’m not saying that it’s a good system I’m just trying to figure out how they were doing anything useful with a 50-cent charge for a tour.

            • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              It’s only 50 cents if you’re looking at 10 other properties managed by the same service. In practice, it’s $5 if you were only looking to tour a single place.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      The price at all is ridiculous. Touring a rental is a sales action. Yes you have to pay for someone to administer a tour, but that’s a cost of doing business. It’s also weird because you generally don’t pay to tour homes for purchase.

      • r00ty@kbin.life
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        1 month ago

        This is exactly it. It’s always been a risk of being an estate agent/real estate agent. You take on the up-front cost on the basis you will make it back overall in commission in the long term.

        12 or so years ago, we were looking at rental properties. And not only was there none of this nonsense. They were finding extra properties to look at, in addition to the one(s) we asked for. They wanted to sell and understood they need to put in the time up-front to get that.

        But, if you can get the seller AND the buyer to pay you for your services? Damn, is that a win for them?

    • FishFace@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      You’re missing the point, which is that estate agents already get paid by the landlord for this. Charging renters is just extra money for doing what they already did.

      And in sane places it doesn’t happen, and is often illegal.