The past couple of years have been a tumultuous time for everyone: global shutdowns, quarantines, and the new normal of working from home. Even the definition of “home” has changed for many – it’s now the place where we live and work. We’re all spending much more time at home than we ever have before.
At SplitSpot, we’ve been focused on helping people find their home. We’ve been furthering our mission of making apartment rental easier, more convenient, and more affordable. Here are some highlights and milestones our team accomplished this past year:
Making Flexible, Affordable Apartments a Reality
In 2021, the average rent price on the SplitSpot platform was just $1,078. That’s less than the national average of $1,691 for a studio apartment, especially impressive given that SplitSpot’s apartments are located in highly sought after places like Boston and New York City. In New York, SplitSpot’s average price is $1,200. Compare that to the average New York studio rent of $3,237!
Affordability has been a core component of SplitSpot’s model since its inception. We recognize that the housing crunch is not going away any time soon, and we believe coliving is the answer. That’s why our platform is built around making it as easy as possible to find a home, meet potential roommates, get a virtual tour, review flexible lease terms, and sign paperwork. SplitSpot lets you complete the process entirely online, from wherever is most convenient.
And given that convenience, it’s no surprise that over the past year we coordinated thousands of 3D tours and virtual showings, matched over 1,000 roommates, and grew the number of rooms available on the platform by over 300%.
Improving Experiences for Renters and Landlords Alike
That growth was fueled, in part, by our commitment to ensuring a smooth, virtual experience: from the start of the apartment search to move-out. We invested in our capabilities to offer 3D tours and virtual showings and expanded these options to nearly every single room available on the platform. The SplitSpot team also improved our virtual roommate matching process to make it quicker and easier for potential roommates to meet.
We’ve also been listening to feedback from both tenants and landlords. In 2021, we:
- Improved our website (with much more to come in 2022!)
- Established valuable partnerships with local vendors to make the moving process easier
- Restructured our customer support team to better address our users’ needs
- Updated our renter and landlord agreements to make the process more clear and streamlined
Raising Funds & Expanding to New Markets
Last April, we announced that SplitSpot had raised $2 million in seed round funding, a huge milestone for us. These funds have enabled us to significantly increase the number of rooms on the platform, expand and deepen our geographic footprint, improve our customer support, and continue to optimize user experience.
After setting down our roots in the Boston area, we’re thrilled that in 2021 we expanded our platform into Seattle, New York City, Washington, D.C. These are three more hot housing markets where people want to find flexible coliving arrangements, fueled by a digital-first experience. SplitSpot’s flexible lease cycles (ranging from 4 to 12+ months) are especially appealing in these urban areas that attract college students and young professionals.
SplitSpot’s remote-first model is built for easy scalability into new markets, and we’re looking forward to continuing our rollout across the country throughout 2022.
Growing the SplitSpot Team
Flexibility is a core tenet of SplitSpot, both for our work model and our business plan. The past year and a half has shown us that the business world can function, and oftentimes flourish, while providing workers the flexibility they desire. We’ve grown our team in Boston and beyond, and now have SplitSpot team members in eight different countries: United States, Nigeria, Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Pakistan, Spain, and Mexico.
Our vision has always been fueled by an entrepreneurial mindset, and we want our employees to exemplify that. We’ve partnered with an organization called FutureFounder, a social impact venture that connects budding entrepreneurs with startups looking for talent. We’ve had nearly ten brilliant colleagues from across the globe join us for a year-long fellowship program, and they have become invaluable to our team. Some have even stayed on full-time after their fellowship.
We’ve also been able to build a global customer success team that can troubleshoot issues remotely – allowing us to intake resident issues 24/7, triage them for landlords, and in many instances solve them before any escalation is needed.
We’re looking forward to growing our team even more in 2022 (and if you want to join the team, let us know!)
Looking Ahead to 2022
For renters
With SplitSpot, renters love the flexibility of our leases, which give them the ability to stay as short as 4 months, or as long as they’d like. When searching for an apartment, renters can easily schedule as many virtual tours as they’d like in seconds. Once you’re ready to sign, we conduct a roommate vetting process that ensures everyone feels comfortable in their new home. SplitSpot helps renters find roommates, split rent and utilities, and easily request maintenance requests.
For landlords
Marketing properties and finding acceptable tenants can take significant time and resources. Once apartments are filled, you have to manage individual renters and handle things like maintenance requests and rent collection. If a tenant leaves, the landlord has to start the entire process over. SplitSpot helps landlords ensure a high occupancy rate, utilizing our marketing expertise and market analysis to position each apartment appropriately and find tenants quickly. On average, it takes just 2.6 weeks to fill a room once listed with us!
As the world looks for more flexibility in working and living arrangements, we’re excited about the opportunity to bring SplitSpot to more people in more places. Rent or list an apartment with us today!