Property Entrepreneurs: How flatsharing website Weroom spread through social media
Flat sharing is great – so long as you get on with your fellow flatmates, and don’t fall out over the washing up, or who has paid the bills. But those softer issues can be hard to think about, when you’re on the hunt for a place to stay.
And it was this set of problems that led two friends to come up with the idea of Weroom, an online platform that allows those wanting to share, and those with accommodation to offer, to come together.
Thomas Villeneuve and Isabelle George launched what Villeneuve calls “the online marketplace for flatsharing” in Paris in 2013, bringing it to the UK in 2014. “I used to live in flatshares, and it was very difficult,” says Villeneuve. “We wanted to build a true platform where you have security of transactions.”
How flatshare listings look like on the website
Weroom has something in common with Airbnb, the short term accommodation platform that is currently upsetting the hotel sector. There is plenty of information, from photos to a profile of the landlord. It combines social connections, allowing each party to know something more of the other, before agreeing a deal. And that reassurance can be very powerful, when deciding who to share with.
Landlords get to list their property without an upfront fee, and can opt for tenant matching. Those looking for accommodation get a fast track viewing of the options available.
Transactions are handled through the site, too, meaning someone who wants to move in quickly can view, pay and agree their arrival date within hours. Once a match is made, Weroom charges tenants and landlords a booking fee, which is 3.6 per cent of the deposit and one month’s rent combined. And there will be further enhancements to the service, with a review system coming, as well as an offer of insurance cover for users.
Founders Thomas Villeneuve and Isabelle George
Weroom’s success to date has been around connecting like-minded folk. “We decided to focus on communities,” says Villeneuve. By using Facebook to link with groups such as those with start-up businesses, and the gay community, it has been possible to grow cost-effectively.
Having established in Paris, the pair moved across the Channel to tackle London. “It’s not easy to scale up,” says Villeneuve. “When we expand into a new market, we need local places – we have to be on the ground with a door to door presence. At the beginning, it wasn’t easy at all.”
But, having made that commitment, Weroom is gaining traction in the UK capital. Its UK user numbers have grown fivefold in the last year, to more than 200,000, while the site now lists around 10,000 rooms.
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George says the tenant mix is around 45 per cent students, and 55 per cent young professionals. “We knew we would find a lot of young professionals in London, because of the high cost of property – we know the biggest market is the UK.” With more than 3.5m flat sharers across the UK, she says, “we are just at the beginning”.
Visit Weroom.com for more.