1 post tagged outsourcing

In an attempt to reduce stress, save time, and find a suitable apartment without losing half of my life to craigslist, I decide to outsource my apartment hunt. Because many have asked, this is how I did it:
 
Why?
If you’ve used craigslist recently, you’ll know that the apartment section is a complete mayhem. Apartments are constantly re-posted by different agents multiple times per day.  Places are snatched up quickly, agents and owners only respond to inquiries 25% of the time, and even searching for things like a location becomes challenging as everyone is trying to game you into clicking on their listing.

I also had a number of criteria that made apartment hunting even more annoying than it typically is. I wanted a place that has an outdoor space (a yard, a porch, a balcony, or a deck), hardwood floors, laundry (in unit, in building, or close by), a very specific location (to balance three commutes), lots of light, and all of the typical apartment requirements (right size, budget, start date, etc). This was clearly the job for a human, just not a job that this human wanted to do.

oDesk
I decided to find a human who had the time, motivation, and skill set to accomplish this task. I found this human on oDesk and his name is Shahan. I setup a job, people started applying, and I was instantly flooded with bids. I received about 100 bids and the range of hourly rates was from $.83 - $12.50/hour. Yes, the low bid was 83 cents an hour. I ended up picking and working with Shahan who came in at solid $3/hour.

The Task
Shahan started looking on craigslist for 1-2 hours per day. I gave him general instructions via a google doc that I could update and he filled out apartments that met most of the criteria into an online spreadsheet. He was tasked with dedupping this monstrous list himself, I’m still not quite sure how he did it! I would spend 5-10 minutes a day looking at the results to see if we were on track.

The Results
Shahan ended up finding around 200 apartments that fit most of the criteria. He searched for two weeks totalling 30 hours of work. I spent about 10 minutes a day sorting and reviewing listings and ended up contacting about 7 listings. I found an apartment with the right price, location, and amenities after only 4 different visits. I spent $90, saved about 30 hours of my time, and navigated the ugly craigslist sea unscathed. All in all, I was really happy with my first personal outsourcing test.