Renting out a house or apartment is a gamble: Nightmare tenants abound. Second Porch for Facebook aims to make subletting or renting a little safer by overlaying your for-rent ads onto your social graph. This is a great idea, assuming, of course, your friends are not the type to smash things up.
When you create a listing, it goes out on your wall and appears as a News Feed item to friends. Presumably, that increases the chances for a "friend of a friend" tenant who'll be a safe choice. Should none of your friends bite, you can use Second Porch like a regular listings service, with the option of making your ad viewable to all of Facebook. If you use Second Porch's for-pay service, available soon according to TechCrunch, the app will let you link to information like Flickr albums, other Facebook pages, property Web sites, and other promotional sites.
Second Porch seems aimed more at second properties than subleases, which raises a few issues. If you use Facebook as a professional tool, you may want to think twice before advertising that your second home is for rent--or that you even have a second home. On Facebook, appearances are everything, and publicizing your real estate dealings might just be giving away too much.
Related Stories: | Topics:Technology, facebook, app, real estate, Web, social graph, second homes, Facebook Inc., Science and Technology, Technology, Internet, Social Software and Tagging |
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Recent Comments | 4 Total
October 7, 2009 at 12:52pm by Sylvia Guarino
I'm not sure what the last paragraph of this post is alluding to (I am a marketing consultant and I also own vacation rental properties and have never found my marketing clients at all put off my second stream of income), I think the post is right on target. Facebook and Second Porch provide a credible visibility for vacation rentals that no traditional VR portal can do. I am affiliated with Second Porch as I believe that Social Media is the wave of the future for vacation rental promotions. It can always be enhanced by VR sites but the confidence in renting for both owner and rental guest rests in the transparent nature of social media.
October 7, 2009 at 12:53pm by Sylvia Guarino
I'm not sure what the last paragraph of this post is alluding to (I am a marketing consultant and I also own vacation rental properties and have never found my marketing clients at all put off my second stream of income), I think the post is right on target. Facebook and Second Porch provide a credible visibility for vacation rentals that no traditional VR portal can do. I am affiliated with Second Porch as I believe that Social Media is the wave of the future for vacation rental promotions. It can always be enhanced by VR sites but the confidence in renting for both owner and rental guest rests in the transparent nature of social media.
October 10, 2009 at 9:23pm by Jerome Janvier
A better service with similar idea is www.soolars.com
October 25, 2009 at 9:51am by Sylvia Guarino
Please advise on what makes this service better? I went to the URL linked and only found 4 homes listed. Any explanation will be appreciated.