I dreamed of a Airbnb alternative to find cheaper apartments to rent so I built Caza de Casa
Background
While travelling around the world for 3 years I always found myself wanting an alternative to Airbnb which didn’t have the additional 15% on top of the price and crazy high additional fees like cleaning fees
I wanted something which connected me directly to the apartment owners / real estate agents and would let me arrange viewings before agreeing a deal to rent the property
In April after making the decision to move to Medellín for a year I decided to commit to exploring what it would take to build an alternative to Airbnb
Facebook Groups advertising properties to rent in the city are frequently recommended here as the alternative and to me that felt like a problem waiting for a better solution
I found local websites which offered furnished apartments at a cheaper rate to Airbnb but all of them were in Spanish which would make it difficult for those who didn’t know the language and decided to gather these apartments, translate the information to English and put them in an easy to use app for people to find them
On August 9th I decided to quit my job and work on this full-time using the money I've saved up the past couple of years to try and bring to life a great alternative to Airbnb
On 23rd October I launched Early Access for Caza de Casa and ever since I have been gathering valuable feedback from the users from Reddit and Facebook groups who signed up to the waitlist
What makes Caza de Casa different
1. No fees - I hated the Airbnb model of increasing the price by adding an additional 15% on top
2. Feature preferences - Rank the top 6 features most important to you and the matching features will be shown in the short summary card
What’s changed since Early Access started
Since inviting the first group of users to the app I have:
- Added a dev environment to help prevent any major mistakes during development from affecting the experience of the users
- Added 4 ways for the users to sort listings in the app - newest added, oldest added, cheapest and most expensive
- Added the ability to view measurements in ft² in addition to the original measure unit of m²
- Added an admin section of the app to allow me to manage listings on the go and in the future review newly submitted apartments
- Created a tool to generate social media images of the listings along with a text description which I use to post to social media
Why is it only available for Medellín?
I am currently based in Medellín and so it made perfect sense to learn about the market here to solve the problem for myself first and then test the waters to see if it was popular enough to expand and bring to other cities around the world
Are you wanting this to come a particular city? Feel free to send me a message or fill out the Waitlist form and let me know
What city will you add next?
As of the time of posting it is still undecided! I’ve added a question in the form to gather opinions on this.
I’m thinking either Bogotá or Cartagena next as I wouldn’t have to add another local currency.
It takes time to research the city and find the alternative websites / apps which advertise the properties available
What’s next?
The plan is to keep Caza de Casa in Early Access for the foreseeable future.
There are two main reasons for this:
- I want the early adopters to have the best possible experience and gather feedback from each of them and use that to improve the app before more users are added
- I don’t want to exceed the free tier of some of the services too soon and only pay for it when I truly need it and not only start paying because there was a short term spike
What we will be working on in the next couple of months:
- A way for property owners / estate agents to submit their properties
- Analytics on the performance of listings for property owners / estate agents
How can I get access to the app?
At this time we are seeking only those wanting to rent in Medellín, those planning to rent in the next year in Medellín or those who want to advertise properties to rent in Medellín.
If you want to join the waitlist you can find it on the website: https://cazadecasa.xyz/
Want to follow my journey?
I build in public sharing the progress I make with the app
Feel free to follow me on any of my socials:
