York Student’s accommodation rating website makes finals of Santander competition

A new business venture set up by a former College Chair has reached the final round of a national competition.

Tara Annison, former head of Goodricke JCRC, set up RateMyUniHouse.co.uk as a platform for students to be able to review their rented student properties and warn potential future tenants about any problems they encountered.

Creating an account on the site requires a university email address, ensuring all reviews come from genuine students.

The website has reached the final stage of the Santander Universities 60 Second Pitch Awards and has the chance to win £1500 of funding if it receives enough votes from the public.

Annison told Vision: “After having around £1000 taken off my deposit in second year, I became frustrated that there was no way to warn the next tenants about our crooked landlord and his ruthless approach to deposit deductions.

“What I felt we needed was a Trip Advisor™ style website where students could leave a review for a property they have rented whilst at university. This would provide other students with more information so they could avoid those properties with dodgy landlords and bad agencies and find those hidden gems which were great to rent.

“It’s run entirely by three Goodricke students who have had both good and bad experiences renting in York and has already gained funding through the University of York Careers department and will be jetting off to Dublin for Web Summit 2015, Europe’s largest tech start-up conference, where we’re on their Alpha Start Programme.

“We’ve had a great response from students so far and heard some horror stories about renting properties in York. What we’ve also uncovered though is that there are some great agencies and landlords out there and we’d love to promote them more so that students can avoid the bad properties and find the best ones. I’ve had awful experiences renting in York and want to help other students avoid those properties!”