As rental vacancies spike in New York City amid the coronavirus pandemic, a mobile app called Openigloo is launching to give tenants a helping hand choosing their next apartment.
"Landlords are eager to fill empty apartments, so for the first time tenants can take a breath," Allia Mohamed, CEO and co-founder of Openigloo, told Cheddar. "They can take longer than 10 minutes to make a decision."
The app will combine open-source data with first-hand information sourced directly from tenants about their landlords and buildings.
"Tenants can go onto the platform, search for their address, anonymously leave reviews, but also access real-time city data about their buildings, so things like open violation data, bed bug complaints, eviction history, and more," said Mohamed, who got the idea for the app after enduring her own difficulties securing an apartment in the city's notoriously tight market.
Much of this public data comes directly from the municipal agencies, she added, that collect a significant amount of information about the housing market but don't organize it in one place.
"One of the great things about New York City is it's really sophisticated in the way it organizes the data about apartments and landlords, but unfortunately it's spread to various different data sets," Mohamed said. "We've taken out a lot of the guesswork."
This could include information about a building's cleanliness, pest control, heat, and water pressure. Comments could also address how a landlord is managing the coronavirus pandemic, in terms of building safety measures or even lease terms for those economically impacted.
The outsized rent burden in New York City, where more than 44 percent of tenants pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent, is also a selling point for the startup.
"We really want to make sure that we're giving tenants as much information as possible before they make a really big financial decision," Mohamed said.
Spain's government has fined Airbnb 64 million euros or $75 million for advertising unlicensed tourist rentals. The consumer rights ministry announced the fine on Monday. The ministry stated that many listings lacked proper license numbers or included incorrect information. The move is part of Spain's ongoing efforts to regulate short-term rental companies amid a housing affordability crisis especially in popular urban areas. The ministry ordered Airbnb in May to remove around 65,000 listings for similar violations. The government's consumer rights minister emphasized the impact on families struggling with housing. Airbnb said it plans to challenge the fine in court.
Roomba maker iRobot has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but says that it doesn’t expect any disruptions to devices as the more than 30-year-old company is taken private under a restructuring process. iRobot said that it is being acquired by Picea through a court-supervised process. Picea is the company's primary contract manufacturer. The Bedford, Massachusetts-based anticipates completing the prepackaged chapter 11 process by February.
Serbia’s prosecutor for organized crime has charged a government minister and three others with abuse of position and falsifying of documents related to a luxury real estate project linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The charges came on Monday. The investigation centers on a controversy over a a bombed-out military complex in central Belgrade that was a protected cultural heritage zone but that is facing redevelopment as a luxury compound by a company linked to Kushner. The $500 million proposal to build a high-rise hotel, offices and shops at the site has met fierce opposition from experts at home and abroad. Selakovic and others allegedly illegally lifted the protection status for the site by falsifying documentation.
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