Flatsharing Made Simple, Safe, and Entirely Online

BARCELONA, Spain - April 22, 2014 - PRLog -- There's no denying that people these days are turning more and more to flatsharing as they try to either live closer to where they work or save up to get on the property ladder. With more and more households struggling to make mortgage payments and foreclosures at an all time high it's easy to see why more homeowners are opening their houses or flats to lodgers as well.

It all seems very straightforward, but according to a trio of entrepreneurs from England and Ireland there's still something missing. “The process for renting a room in a flatshare is outdated, while there are many flatshare websites available, none of them allow you to complete the process of finding a room and agreeing the rental entirely online.” according to Thomas McKeown, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Roomsby Ltd.

This is unfair for renters for several reasons, first they have to spend a lot of money on transport and communication with prospective landlords and flatmates. Secondly, a lot of flatsharing websites charge a fee to receive contact info for their listings and in many cases this does not guarantee a room will be found or that the listings are updated. This is usually alright if you live in the same city where you're searching for a room but what if you're moving to a new city or even a new country? Then there's the added cost of a hostel or hotel for who knows how long to factor in.

“We've known this was a problem for a while.” Says Alex Smith Co-Founder and Marketing Director. “We wanted to make it possible for people who moved area to view rooms for rent, contact the person offering the room and agree to move in and pay a deposit entirely online. When they reach their new city, all they have to do is move in.”

So how does it work? Well, Joe Barr, CTO of Roomsby explains: “Users register to either advertise a room or search for a room, once they've found a room they like, they contact the advertiser and request to move in, if they're accepted they will pay the first months rent online to Roomsby. Once the renter has moved in and checked the room is ok, we then pay the first months rent to the lanlord minus a small fee.”

According to Joe the benefits of operating in this way are numerous for both those offering rooms and those searching for them. “Instead of paying a subscription fee to find out the phone number of someone who might have had a room last week or paying a website to put your advert in bold type, users of Roomsby will only pay a small fee when some agrees to rent their room or someone agrees to let them a room, or to put it another way: when we've done our job correctly”