Ajay Yadav, founder and CEO of Roomi, told DC Inno it was vital for his millennial-focused company to bring their house and roommate finding app to the District. Today, Roomi is expanding to D.C. and Baltimore.
The local market is saturated with high price rentals and finding a good roommate can be the difference between being able to afford that monthly rent check and not. Roomi is already active in New York City, Austin and San Francisco, among other cities, where users tap into a mobile, social media-esque platform to securely find other people based on living preferences like: "do you smoke cigarettes and what type of pet do you prefer?"
In addition, information related to the price of rent, size of the home and other amenities can be shared, discussed and decided upon from the app. Users typically create social/public profiles that serve as their main point of contact within the community.
According to a 2014 study from statistics portal Statista, mortgage and rent was the largest budget item for Millennials (65 percent), dwarfing what they spend on food (38 percent) and pay in student loans (20 percent). Meanwhile, the average apartment rent over the past 6 months in Washington has increased by $93 (4.7 percent), according to Rent Jungle. This translates into an environment where cutting cost is key and convenience is paramount for apartment hunters.
"D.C. has the fourth largest rental market in the U.S., yet it's the least affordable of the 11 largest metro areas, so there is a huge demand for our services," said Yadev.
Roomi provides a product that is unique, according to Yadev, from broad websites with classifieds style services like Craigslist because it was designed to address the specific challenge of finding a roommate and/or affordable living situation in an expensive city. That's their only focus.
"For a long time these sites [ex: Craigslist] were the few options for finding housing or shared housing. That being said, some of these aggregator and classifieds style sites have become synonymous with security concerns," said Yadev.
He added, "[Roomi] has a verification team dedicated just to ensuring that our listings are legitimate, and we're available on all platforms so we offer the most flexibility possible in order to make our users's search convenient for their needs. We also have a large library of content and expert advice to help renters make educated decisions about their situations, as well as excellent customer support. With our carefully crafted profiles, filtering capabilities and in-app chat, the entire process is quicker, safer and more efficient."
The Roomi app, available for both iOS and Android, has been downloaded more than 300,000 times, the company claims.
Yadev explained in an email that his New York City-based startup had received a significant number of coverage requests from people in the area, which made the decision easier.
Founded in June 2015, Roomi has raised roughly $2 million in seed funding from a group of predominantly angel investors.
