Quiet, but busy!

flyrig — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:53:32 +0000

We realize it’s been a while (over 4 months) since our last post, but it doesn’t mean we’ve been dying a slow death. On the contrary, we’ve been keeping busy with various backend upgrades and improvements that will get us ready for some more cool features coming this year. Also during that time, we’ve seen a steady increase in listings (a lot of no-fee listings), traffic, and agencies posting to our site. Here’s the latest list of New York brokerages that have been posting to us:

A-List Properties	Abacus Properties	Anchor Associates Group
Bapple Inc.	Benjamin James Real Estate	Best Apartments Inc.
Bond New York	Caliber Associates	Charles Rutenberg LLC
Citi-Habitats	CitySites New York	First Residential Brokerage New York
GMAC Real Estate Metropolitan Properties	Gregory James & Associates	Hecht Group
Hyperion Realty Group	Ideal Properties Group	InFocus Realty
Key New York	Knickerbocker Village New York	Manhattan Connection
Manhattan Management Group	Nest Seekers International	New York City Apartments
Pari Passu Realty Corp.	Rapid Realty	Skyline Group
Urban Sanctuary

Chatting it up

flyrig — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:17:14 +0000

Brokers: We’ve now added the ability for you to embed an instant chat application into each of your rental listings! This will allow prospective renters to instantly (and anonymously) talk to you.

To get your chat application set up, just sign up for a free chat account at either Google Talk (you’ll need a Google account first) or Meebo. Currently, we recommend Meebo as their setup process is a little easier.

After you’ve created your “Google Chatback Badge” or “Meebo Widget”, you’ll be supplied some code which you should cut-and-paste into our system (in the field labeled “Chat Code” under “Accounts” -> “Alerts & Settings”). The last thing to do is download the Google Talk or Meebo Chat client, sign into your account, and you’re all ready to go! For those of you with iPhones, Meebo also has an iPhone-optimized version for you to use when you’re out of the office.

Below is a screenshot that has the Meebo widget embedded (to the right of the listing description):

Got an iPhone?

flyrig — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:38:34 +0000

We now have a special iPhone/iPod optimized version of our site so all you apartment hunters can keep your search going wherever and whenever you like.

We’ve simplified the interface, leaving just a search form, result screen, and an individual listing view that includes a map and photos. You can even call the contact directly from the page by clicking on the phone number. If you need to save a listing that interests you, just bookmark it!

Our sincerest apologies to those non-iPhone/iPod users out there, but we are working on another version for you that should be released soon!

Update: Check out our fancy iPhone page on Apple’s website!

Brokers: Saving time with auto-complete

flyrig — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:19:11 +0000

If you’re a broker who posts to our system, we’ve got a new addition that will save you time and increase the accuracy of your listings. Our new auto-complete feature will suggest street names as you begin typing the address for your listings. There’s no longer a need to remember how to spell “Samuel Dickstein Plaza” or type out “Canarsie Veterans Circle”. Just start with the first few letters and let our system do the rest!

Featured Listings

flyrig — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:25:00 +0000

Are you a broker looking for a little extra visibility? We’ve launched our new Featured Listings section on our homepage. You can purchase up to two available slots to showcase your best units and get your name out in front of thousands of renters.

Reserve your spot before they sell out!

Agencies in the mix

flyrig — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:56:45 +0000

We now have nearly 30 different agencies posting on FlyRig and over 10,000 listings for New York City! Below are some of our recent agency additions:

The Hunt

flyrig — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:47:54 +0000

Thank you Joyce Cohen for mentioning us in this weekend’s edition of The Hunt, a weekly column printed in the New York Times. If you haven’t read any of her columns before, you’ve been missing out! She provides great insights into the average New Yorker’s apartment hunt.

Note: We’d like to clarify one point that people may mistakenly assume from the article: FlyRig has no association with any real estate agencies. Although one of the people who helped start this site currently works at First Residential Brokerage, that agency has nothing to do with FlyRig. We are an independent company whose only interest is making apartment rentals an easier process for agents and renters. We do not share or disseminate private listing information with any agents or agencies.

Rental Exclusives

flyrig — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:22:57 +0000

There are some apartments in New York that can only be rented through authorized agents. These units are called “Exclusives”, and we’ve added a new section to our site to highlight them. If you go to the listings section, just click the “Exclusives” tab.

Finding an available unit

flyrig — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:26:44 +0000

During this time of year, you’ll find that many inquiries into particular listings will yield a “Sorry, that unit isn’t available anymore, but I do have something else similar to show you.” Most of the time, this is a legitimate response; good properties often get snatched up only hours after they’re posted. However, there are cases where this is bait-and-switch. Some brokers will knowingly advertise unavailable listings in the hopes that someone will call so they can show them a similar unit. In New York’s cut-throat real estate business, this is an unfortunate, but common occurrence.

Here at FlyRig, we’ve implemented a number of algorithms and behind-the-scenes tools to help reduce the instances of bait-and-switch. If you visit our site regularly, you may notice some large fluctuations in available listings. A big increase usually means we’ve brought aboard a new agency, and a sharp decrease means we’ve removed a chunk of unavailable units.

Unfortunately, our algorithms aren’t 100% foolproof. Here are a number of things you can do that will help your apartment hunt:

Note the “Last Updated” date - If a listing hasn’t been updated for a few days, there’s probably a good reason for it.
Flag unavailable listings - Help everyone out by flagging rented units. Doing this also provides invaluable feedback for our system.
Rate brokers and write reviews – Recommending good brokers is a great way to reward those who are playing by the rules.

Customized RSS

flyrig — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:14:28 +0000

Until today, the only RSS feeds we offered were from specific brokers and of our 20 latest listings. As a renter, it’s likely that you’re not interested in all of our latest listings, which is why we’ve created a customizable RSS feed. You can now specify neighborhoods, a price range, and bed and bathroom requirements.

There are two ways in which to get these RSS feeds:

1. Subscribe to your own personal RSS feed. If you’ve registered for a free renter account, you should already know that we automatically remember your last search. You can subscribe to an RSS feed that’s based on your current search parameters by clicking “Your customized RSS feed”, which can be found in the “Home” tab under “My FlyRig”. The great thing about this is that the RSS URL doesn’t change, but if you decide to search for something different on the site, the new search parameters will automatically be reflected in your RSS feed.

2. Generate an RSS feed from a recent search. Every time you search, a little RSS icon is displayed next to the search totals. Clicking on this will give you an RSS feed that’s based on this search.

We hope this makes your rental search easier! If you have any questions or suggestions on how to make this better, let us know!

A note for RSS experts: By default, the feed results are ordered by “Last Updated” (which basically says they’re still available). You have the option of ordering by “Last Created” instead, which helps if you’re only interested in units you’ve never seen before. To do this, just add “&show=new” to the end of the RSS feed URL.