{"id":617,"date":"2009-08-21T18:55:46","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T22:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/?post_type=qa&p=617"},"modified":"2023-07-24T13:47:45","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T17:47:45","slug":"learn-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/learn-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Frequently Asked Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"
Lots of sites have endless pages of apartment listings. Each of the listings purports to be wonderful \u2013 but how do you know which ones are real, much less which one is best<\/strong>? Worse, how do you know whether the person who posted the listing will get back to you, or if they\u2019re even a real person?<\/p>\n We\u2019ve developed a proprietary algorithm (we call it the HopScore) to help answer these questions. The HopScore sorts and ranks apartment listings on our site based on several different factors. Those factors fall into three categories:<\/p>\n 1)<\/strong> The quality of the listing (e.g. its completeness, its accuracy) The score goes from 0-100. The higher the HopScore, the better the listing!<\/p>\n Wherever you view a detailed listing for an apartment, you\u2019ll see a blue number next to the price. That\u2019s the HopScore!<\/p>\n Also, when you look at search results obtained at our search page<\/a>, the HopScore for each listing will be prominently displayed on the listing. If you roll your cursor over the HopScore you\u2019ll see the components of the HopScore (quality, freshness, manager), so you can get a better understanding of how we arrived at the overall HopScore.<\/p>\n The \u201cfreshness\u201d component of the HopScore for a listing goes down over time. This reflects the fact that the longer a listing has been on the site the likelier it is that either it\u2019s been rented already or that there\u2019s something off about the listing. The lower the HopScore the further down in the search results the listing will be.<\/p>\n Good question. Each listing has a HopScore; there is no HopScore applicable to an individual manager. That said, information about the manager who posted a listing is used to compute the HopScore applicable to that listing.<\/p>\n You can look for apartments either from our search page<\/a>.<\/p>\n From the search page, you can specify which neighborhoods<\/a> you\u2019d like to search, the number of bedrooms or bathrooms, minimum\/maximum rent you\u2019re willing to pay, and which amenities you\u2019d like. Your results will appear in list form sorted by HopScore. From there, you can click on any listing and get more detailed information, including photos, the manager\u2019s description of the apartment and additional information from RentHop about the listing.<\/p>\n On each listing page there is a contact form located on the top right. Be sure to provide your contact information so the manager can respond to you! The manager should respond to you shortly through our site using the contact information you provided.<\/p>\n First, we apologize. We know that apartment hunting is hard enough already. Second, send the manager another email through the site (or call them, if they\u2019ve provided additional contact information). If you still haven\u2019t heard from the manager after a couple of days, send us an email. We\u2019ll attempt to get in touch with the manager and see where things went wrong.<\/p>\n Unfortunately the apartment rental market (especially in New York<\/a>) is extremely competitive \u2013 often apartments in New York will be rented within hours after a listing appears online.<\/p>\n We use advanced algorithms to judge the quality of apartment listings (this is what the HopScore does), but we don\u2019t control the content of listings or whether a listed apartment is actually available. It\u2019s up to the managers who post listings on our site to remove listings for apartments that are no longer available, and to update listings to reflect changes to price\/amenities.<\/p>\n If you think you\u2019ve been the victim of a scam, let us know<\/a> as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
\n2)<\/strong> The \u201cfreshness\u201d of the listing, which refers to how long it\u2019s been on the site and how many times other users have clicked on it.
\n3)<\/strong> The performance of the manager (the person who posted the listing) on our site.<\/p>\n2. How do I know what a listing\u2019s HopScore is?<\/h2>\n
3. Does the HopScore change over time?<\/h2>\n
4. I\u2019m confused. Does the HopScore apply to each manager or to each listing?<\/h2>\n
5. That\u2019s all very interesting, but I need an apartment. How do I find great listings?<\/h2>\n
6. I found a listing I like! What do I do now?<\/h2>\n
7. The poster didn\u2019t respond. Now what?<\/h2>\n
8. The poster told me that the apartment I liked cost more\/wasn\u2019t available!<\/h2>\n