The founder of highly successful property website SpareRoom is going to America to take his flatsharing concept there.
Entrepreneur Rupert Hunt founded the site in 2004, launching a step change into how tenants had previously had to rely on small ads and cards in newsagents’ windows.
Hunt reveals in this interview that he initially tried to develop a platform for estate agents.
However, it was the flatshare offering that took off, and today the company brings in over £6m a year, makes profits of £3m and employs 70 people in Macclesfield and London.
Hunt’s business model is based on making money from its users, rather than from banner ads, while SpareRoom has grown organically, with no crowd-funding or external investment.
He has also shown great PR flair by searching for flatmates of his own to share his quirky London home, allowing them to pay what they can afford.
He is now going to do the same thing in Manhattan, where he is looking for flatmates.
With £4.9m of SpareRoom’s own spare cash, Hunt is looking to roll out SpareRoom across the States after pilots in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Good luck to him.
Comments (3)
Flats? How many spare rooms in flats are so “let” in contravention of the tenant’s tenancy agreement, the leaseholder’s lease covenants (which the tenant will, if the tenancy agreement is any good, have agreed to adhere to), and the terms of any lender? In short, many such “letting portals” are nothing more than an encouragment to people to break their contracts.
Hare & Tortoise parable spring to mind – great to see a successful UK proptech business steering it’s own course and just getting on with it without the hype….
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