Key people Lee Lin, Lawrence Zhou Launched February 2009 | Website www.renthop.com | |
Type of site Real Estate, Apartments Alexa rank 16,189 (September 2015) | ||
RentHop is a web and mobile-based search engine that allows users to search for apartments in New York City, Boston, Chicago, and other major metropolitan areas. The site delivers real-time listings and uses a unique sorting algorithm that ranks apartments by quality. Searches can be refined by bedrooms, monthly rent, amenities, availability of floorplans, and specific keywords. The website also helps inform and educate renters by featuring price heatmaps, trends, and statistics for each metro area and neighborhood.
History
RentHop.com was launched in early February 2009 by Lee Lin and Lawrence Zhou. The company was created to solve the problem of finding an apartment in New York, where low vacancy rates and fast-moving inventory made the hunt extremely difficult. Early on, it focused primarily on no-fee apartments in New York City. However, following Y Combinator, RentHop expanded to all apartment and house rentals nationwide. It has since rolled out additional features such as agent check-ins and on-demand appointments for mobile renters.
The company was initially funded by Y Combinator in the Summer 2009 batch. It received a subsequent round from Two Sigma Ventures (the venture arm of the Two Sigma Investments, a quantitative hedgefund).
The company was the subject of a 2012 Harvard Business School Case Study "Killing Craigslist". It was nominated for a Webby Award in the 2014 Real Estate Category along with Zillow, ZipRealty, Foxtons and "Start Fresh, Buy New".