Domu serves Chicago’s renters.
Internet archeologists have traced the origins of Domu as far back as 2010, shortly before humans fell prey to algorithms and a few decades before they were replaced completely by artificial intelligence. Surviving records indicate that Noah Schatz and Andrew Porter likely met in an area of Lincoln Park known as Tamerlane sometime in early 1999 and formed a fast friendship born from mutual passions for vintage Americana, offensive banter, and real estate development. At the time, Noah was acceding to the helm of his father's development company, while Andrew was logging ridiculous hours as a litigator. In early 2005, Noah cooked up an idea to build a 41-story luxury high rise in Streeterville, and he soon hired Andrew as general counsel and director of operations of Schatz Development. After several years of intense commitment, a Helmut Jahn designed concrete and glass condominium tower known simply by its address, 600 North Fairbanks, was etched onto the Chicago skyline.
Just as the high rise was reaching completion, however, storm clouds began gathering overhead. The subprime mortgage crisis was causing upheavals in the credit markets, and previous generations of homebuyers were being replaced by a new generation of apartment renters. Meanwhile, Web 2.0 was conquering the world, and legacy print media was sucking wind. The sun was rapidly setting on the age-old process of searching for apartments by scouring the classified pages of weekly papers, and renters were now turning to laptops to find the next great crib. The opportunity to capitalize on this sea change was to invent a user-friendly, intuitive, map-based, apartment listing service that would connect landlords with tenants.
The notion was that preeminent management companies would promote their inventory on the Domu platform, individual "mom and pop" owners would show off their spare units, and real estate brokers would turn to the site to broaden their reach for prospective renters. It wouldn't cost an arm and a leg to post a listing (and still doesn't), and Domu would work tirelessly to drive leads to landlords through creative marketing campaigns targeted to reach the Chicago apartment hunting community.
Today, Domu also features an abundance of useful information about the various neighborhoods of Chicago and offers a veritable library of how-to guides and other articles about issues of importance to landlords and tenants. It also leverages its social media presence not only to highlight available apartments and the amenities that come with, but to keep Chicagoans amused and engaged with stories of interest to the renting community.
The way we see it, the national apartment listing websites are dominated by institutional property owners, and they lack inventory that appeals to tenants constrained by more modest budgets, while the websites offering free listings to landlords are fertile ground for phishing scams and other gimmicks promoting offers too good to be true, and which usually end badly for tenants. By contrast, Domu offers access to apartments of all shapes and sizes and works hard to ensure that every listing on the site is genuine and up-to-date, with no unpleasant surprises.
Try it out. Pick a neighborhood and search for an apartment. We think you'll find a place to call home.
To get in touch with Domu about:
Marketing inquiries: julia@domu.com
Business Development: matt@domu.com
List an apartment: info@domu.com
Press inquiries: andrew@domu.com
Otherwise, please visit Meet the Team for more information.