Teens Develop Free Tool to Find Affordable Housing in NYC: Real Realerestate.org

Genesis of Real Realerestate.org

• 💡 The idea for Real Realerestate.org stemmed from Becket Zahedi's personal experience helping his father find an affordable apartment in New York City.
• 🧠 Both Becket and Derek Webster taught themselves to code, driven by a desire to address the affordable housing crisis after learning about its impact in an economics class.

Addressing the Housing Crisis

• 🎯 The tool aims to make it easier for New Yorkers to find affordable, undervalued, and rent-stabilized apartments.
• 📊 It was inspired by the realization that millions of rent-stabilized apartments exist, yet finding them is a difficult and opaque process.

How Real Realerestate.org Works

• 🔍 The website scans public records and current listings to cross-reference them with the city's rent-stabilized building list.
• 🔑 This process helps renters identify which listings are rent-stabilized and provides more market information than previously available.
• 🗣️ Many renters are unaware of existing resources like the DHCR list, which contains only a fraction of rent-stabilized buildings and is presented in a complex format.

Innovation and Impact

• 🚀 Becket and Derek, both 17 and without prior work experience or having paid rent themselves, developed this innovative solution.
• ✅ Their focus is on increasing the accessibility of information to help people navigate the complexities of the affordable housing market.
• 💰 The site also highlights potential savings for renters by identifying undervalued properties.