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Why isnt ratethelandlord.org more popular?
Because when the deck is stacked against you with even finding a place to rent - let alone one of decent quality at an affordable price - reviews might not be that helpful?
If you're starving, a stale hunk of bread is better than none.
Can we engage on this? I feel for the people who are truly on the edge. I would also suggest that organizing those who are still housed to share information for mutual advantage is a cool idea.
What are you even talking about and how is it relevant?
Reviews are very important tools. A lot of times you don’t know how responsive a landlord will be, if they’re adequately handling health/safety issues, or how invasive they are.
Reviews are one of very few tools to help prevent people from falling into traps.
I’m not reading any disagreement with this POV from above - reviews are useful.
However, it’s also common for those looking for housing to be in a place of urgency.
In Los Angeles, it’s very uncommon to have a landlord that will let you see an apartment any more than two weeks ahead of time, unless it’s brand new and still under construction. ( brand new apartments in LA can be extremely overpriced - downtown is filled with studio apartments that will charge you $4000+ USD for roughly 30m2 of space )
Most people in Los Angeles will start looking about a month ahead of time, feel out what they’re looking for vs what they can afford, and then go on a 1-2 week long scramble at the end to find anything as their emotional and logistical clock ticks down to homelessness. The security of having a roof, especially in that stressful state, becomes far more important perceptually than previous tenants’ opinions of the landlord at that time, especially knowing that their landlord of building office may be completely different, given the inherent one-sidedness of a review and the rate at which property management changes hands.
In writing, this likely sounds hyperbolic. But this story is common, especially in the emotional space of the moment, and the inherent housing pressure upon the vast majority of prospective tenants is ( in my opinion ) so strong and so stark that the experience is really nothing like those in the market for consumable / luxury goods where the buyer has ample agency and time for making an informed decision.
A new TV is not something a person needs, it’s something that they want. They can afford the wait, the research, and the time to peruse reviews. The urgency at the time of decision is low.
Housing is something that everyone needs, where the supply and the quality are severely limited by wealth and free time.
Since the constrains and urgency at the time of decision tends to be much higher for housing, reviews - as important and as useful as they are - are one of the first things to disappear from the decision process, even when they are available, relevant, and can confidently be verified.
By the time most people have the chance and reason to read them, they’re already in too deep to truly factor them into consideration.
Thank you. This is what I meant.
It's not that reviews aren't useful information, it's that the information is of less precedence to not being homeless and a lot of people simple can't afford to be choosy (which shitty landlords take advantage of)