| URL | http://www.hotpads.com/ |
|---|---|
| Slogan | The Place to Find Your Place |
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Real Estate, Apartments, Foreclosures, Hotels |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available language(s) | English |
| Launched | 2005 |
| Current status | Active |
HotPads.com is an map-based rental housing and real estate search engine. Launched in November 2005, the site allows users to search for housing using a graphical map. Listings are displayed at their addresses, allowing users to conduct a location-based search. Through the graphical interface, users click on individual property listings depicted by animated building icons. Whereas many websites are mash-ups of other mapping applications, like Google Maps, HotPads uses its own original mapping application.
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HotPads was founded in 2005 by Matt Corgan, Douglas Pope, and John Fitzpatrick. The site currently lists 4 million for-sale properties and 400,000 rental properties,[1] with its most densely listed areas being New York City and Washington DC. Based on information from 2006, HotPads operates with a staff of 10 people out of Washington, DC.[2] The company’s business model is based on advertisements and listing enhancements.
Other features include heat maps (help visualize data like foreclosure rates, household incomes, age distributions, and population densities), free syndication of listings (listings created on HotPads are distributed to over 15 partner sites), analytics dashboard where users track interaction with their listings, interactive school attendance zone maps, a buy vs. rent calculator, real estate question and answer community, hand drawn "lasso" search (which allows users to draw a lasso around specific areas on the map), and a blog called HotPads Daily.