About Domu

Internet archaeologists 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 entirely by artificial intelligence. Surviving records suggest that Sead Odzic was driving a client on an apartment tour through Rogers Park when a CTA bus rolled past bearing the words, “I’m too sexy for this dump. Time to move. Domu.”

At the time, Sead was fresh off a college basketball career at USC and Illinois State and job hunting in the worst economy since the Great Depression, though apartments were hardly foreign territory. His family immigrated from Montenegro when he was four, and his parents spent their weekends dragging him and his sister through Chicago buildings while they painted, patched, and cleaned vacant units. He did not just grow up in Chicago. He grew up inside its housing stock.

Domu was the brainchild of founder Noah Schatz, who believed Chicago needed its own apartment rental marketplace, one built specifically for this city and not copied from somewhere else. Domu spent the next 15 years quietly establishing itself as Chicago’s leading local rental platform, even as national giants like Zillow and Apartments.com went on acquisition sprees, absorbing competitors and vacuuming up traffic. The industry consolidated. Options narrowed. Algorithms multiplied. Domu stayed independent.

Meanwhile, Sead was building his own résumé. He earned his managing broker’s license, became a franchisee of I Dream of Falafel in Oak Brook, and later served as Head of Acquisitions at Becovic, where he spent six years underwriting and evaluating multifamily deals across Chicago’s North Side. Through it all, he kept posting units on Domu because he believed in the platform and relied on it in real time.

When Noah began looking for the right steward to carry Domu forward, he was searching for someone who understood Chicago block by block, who knew landlords and renters firsthand, and who respected the ethos that made Domu different in the first place. The connection was natural. Last year, the story came full circle.

Today, Domu features an abundance of useful information about Chicago’s neighborhoods and offers a veritable library of how to guides and practical resources for both landlords and tenants. The platform has not stood still. Domu is expanding into a mobile app, investing heavily in social media, and rolling out new features designed specifically for Chicago’s rental ecosystem, including direct apartment feeds that automatically update listings and credit report tools that empower smaller landlords to screen tenants with confidence.

What makes Domu different is not just the technology. It is the restraint. Every listing is reviewed by a human being. Phone calls are answered by a human being. Try getting a national listing conglomerate on the phone and see how that goes. Domu has always believed that real estate, especially at the neighborhood level, benefits from actual people paying attention.

The national apartment listing websites are largely controlled by institutional players with inventory geared toward institutional budgets. On the other end of the spectrum, free for all listing sites often become breeding grounds for phishing schemes and too good to be true offers that rarely end well. Domu occupies the middle ground. Independent. Chicago focused. Committed to keeping listings genuine and up to date. No bait and switch. No mystery fees. No unpleasant surprises.

Looking ahead, Domu intends to leverage emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, to build tools that rival national platforms in sophistication while remaining tailored to the realities of renting in Chicago. The goal is not to become the biggest player in the space. The goal is to remain the most Chicago one. Independent. Local. Adaptive.

Because the Chicago story is the Domu story.

Try it out. Pick a neighborhood. Search for an apartment. We think you will find a place to call home.