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.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
Nvidia reported a 56% increase in second-quarter revenue and a 59% rise in net income compared to a year ago.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos claims audiences don't want to watch Netflix movies in theaters, but that seems not to be the case recently.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
Cracker Barrel is sticking with its new logo. For now. But the chain is also apologizing to fans who were angered when the change was announced last week.
