Let's talk about student housing.

If you're looking to live in an off-campus property (like 87% of college students), you'll be signing a contract for the full calendar year. Unfortunately, the academic year only lasts around 36 weeks.

• Getting a summer internship? (60% of students)
• Studying abroad? (16% of students)

Chances are, you'll have to find someone to sublet your place while you're gone. Unless you like throwing money away, of course.

You would think this contractual misallocation has produced a thriving secondary market across the United States. It hasn't.

Want to sublet your apartment? Facebook sucks. So does Airbnb.

Bad for sellers.
According to our surveys, over 20% of off-campus dwellers have failed to find a sublessee. Using Airbnb is off the table, since you need to get permission from your landlord. They probably aren't interested in turning their apartment complex into a timeshare.

Turns out, Facebook Groups aren't that great for renting an apartment. Since posts have no clear ordering, it's very hard to get eyes on your listing. Using Marketplace isn't much better, due to an abundance of spam and lack of useful search filters. This is designed to be ineffective: Facebook actually benefits from making users spend more time on their platform for ad revenue.

Buyer beware.
Inefficiency is well documented on both sides of the spectrum: our data shows that summer interns spend an average of 20-30 working hours looking for a place to rent. Why not use a proven housing solution like Airbnb? Price.

Airbnb is designed around short-term stays. This ethos is reflected in the marketplace economics: in metropolitan areas (where most internships are located), property owners liberally jack up their rent. They can do this because their primary tenets are vacationers and business travelers. Unfortunately, most of these prices end up being unreasonable to be covered by a relocation stipend.

Tl;dr

• Airbnb owners are trying to make money.
• College students are trying to break even.
• Facebook Groups are inefficient.
• Marketplace doesn't have search functionality tailored towards interning away from home.

So, what did we build?

EZ Lease: a subleasing marketplace for students.

Our features make sense.

1. Identity verification: Real students. No bots. No spam.
   
   
   
   
2. Peer-to-peer: Everyone here is just like you.
   
   
   
   
3. Powerful search: Details matter. We've got your back with filters that are important to you.
   
   
   
   
4. Payments with Stripe*: No need to worry about phony contracts, Venmo, or Cash App. Everything's automated, on time, and hassle free.
5. Roommate parties*: Trying to split payments with a roomie? No problem, create a party.

Our tech stack.

EZ Lease is coded in Angular and uses a GCP/Firebase backend. We find that a vertically integrated stack is more convenient for our needs—for now. Plus, have to make use of free GCP credits somehow, right?