How I Built InstaRent: From Frustrated Renter to Founder

The idea for InstaRent came to me during one of the most frustrating experiences of my life—trying to find a rental property in the Netherlands. With so many seekers and so few available homes, I realized the key to securing a place was being the first to react to new listings. I thought, “Why not automate this?”

I started by hiring a developer to build a web scraper that could gather rental listings in real time. But that was just the beginning. I wanted to create a tool that was easy to use, with notifications and personalized matches, but I had zero coding experience.

To bring my vision to life, I bought a Next.js boilerplate to set up the project framework and began learning Next.js from scratch. Supabase became my go-to backend solution—it’s user-friendly and incredibly powerful for someone without a coding background.

A lot of my progress came from leaning on AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude. Whenever I hit a roadblock, I’d ask for help and learn as I coded. Slowly but surely, I built InstaRent while figuring it all out along the way.

Today, InstaRent is helping people like me find rental homes faster and with less stress. It's proof that even without a technical background, determination and the right tools can turn a problem into a solution.