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The global eMarketplace to rent or lease anything with the option to buy it.
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Rent2Buy Acquires HiGear

February 28, 2012 Posted by Sandie under Uncategorized
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Rent2Buy recently acquired HiGear, a San Francisco-based, private car-sharing club for luxury and sports autos. Collaborative consumption is growing rapidly, and we believe the combination of HiGear and Rent2Buy will create a unique platform successfully serving all areas of car sharing and buying.  Take a look at the Rent2Buy site to view the additional inventory just added in the San Francisco and Los Angeles markets, and try out the new platform for yourself!

Rent2Buy’s new car-sharing platform goes beyond sharing by facilitating the purchase of the cars that consumers share or rent through the program. This allows you to truly “get to know” a car before you buy and obtain a great price on the vehicle. For individual car owners and dealers, Rent2Buy helps generate rental or sharing income on cars that are waiting to be sold, including hundreds of cars often found sitting on deal lots.

The addition of HiGear will make our service much more valuable, adding a large group of loyal customers and high end inventory. Given the 35 years combined experience of Rent2Buy founders Moti Kahana and Todd Daum, Rent2Buy is clearly positioned to resolve the complexity around peer-to-peer car sharing and make this a valuable, mainstream service.

Starting today, HiGear members will once again be able to use the high end car sharing service as before, following a pause of the service late last year to ensure appropriate consumer protection tools were in place. Rent2Buy will be implementing a new set of best in class procedures to make car sharing easier and more accessible to the average consumer.

So what does Rent2Buy’s acquisition of HiGear mean for you? A bigger and better site with more opportunities to share, rent, and buy the cars you love!

To read more about Rent2Buy’s acquisition, check out the following articles in: TechCrunch or the Auto Rental News

Peer-to-Peer Carsharing Gains Popularity

July 1, 2011 Posted by Sandie under Uncategorized
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Car sharing as a concept in the auto industry has been gaining popularity over the past year. Out of the more than 1 billion cars in the world, approximately 250 million sit idle 93 percent of the time. It’s no wonder why startups across the globe are taking advantage of the opportunity to turn idle vehicles into rental cars.

Startup companies vying for a space on the car-sharing stage are trying to change peoples’ perceptions of car ownership. By making groups of cars available for rent, these companies are trying to shift the norm from owning one’s own personal vehicle to making use of a shared network of cars.

How does the peer-to-peer car sharing process work? Both renters and sharers sign up on the web. They either make their car available or express their desire to rent from others. Each car owner comes up with his own hourly rate, and the web company is responsible for covering the insurance.

What makes new car sharing sites such as Getaround and Buzzcar different from already existing car sharing companies such as ZipCar is that they are looking to expand the fleet of cars available to users. By turning every single idle vehicle into a vehicle that’s available for rent, both car owners and car renters get an opportunity to reap the benefits.

According to Buzzcar’s founder, Robin Chase, “People who live in tiny towns or out in rural areas can add their cars into the network. Then, when a neighbor needs a pickup, or their adult children are visiting and they need another car, or their own car in out of commission, they can rent a neighbors car.”

Click here to read more.

2 New Social Media Tools: TwentyFeet and Postling

February 25, 2011 Posted by Sandie under Uncategorized
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Two new social media tools have launched on the web recently. Both TwentyFeet and Postling allow users to monitor their social media efforts. These two new social media tools can help real estate agents and brokers alike monitor their brands or personal social media networks. Finding a social media monitoring tool that works for you is important for the efficiency of your business, as it will ease your workload and allow you to track and monitor the content you’re putting out there and what other people are saying about you on the web.

TwentyFeet

TwentyFeet is a social media tool that allows users to track analytics and aggregate all of their information in one place. Depending on what you want to use TwentyFeet to monitor and how many social media accounts and platforms you use, the cost of membership will vary. A basic account is free, and anything from there on up will come at an additonal charge. An interesting feature of this social media monitoring tool is that they “nudge” you if there is a unique shift or jump in any of the analytics you are measuring. Pretty cool!

Postling

Postling is a social media monitoring site geared towards small businesses and/or personal use. Like most other sites of its kind,  Postling allows users to track various aspects of their accounts on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, etc. Postling also allows users to schedule updates on their various accounts. What we like best about this site is that it allows users to both post updates to social media accounts and monitor these accounts all on one easily navigable platform.

Rent2Buy at LeWeb 10: Day 1

December 8, 2010 Posted by Sandie under Uncategorized
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Hello from Paris!

A few members of the Rent2Buy team are currently in Paris attending Europe’s biggest internet conference, LeWeb. The conference is off to a great start so far. We’ve had the opportunity to meet interesting people, hear about exciting new ideas, and get inspiration for how we can continue to expand and improve the Rent2Buy site.

The LeWeb theme this year is platforms, which could not be more appropriate. The Rent2buy e-commerce platform can definitely benefit from the ideas, techniques, and strategies we’re being exposed to here at LeWeb.

We’ve received a lot of great feedback from other businesses, journalists, and tech-savvy conference-goers. There is a lot of enthusiasm about the rent to buy concept and its ability to transform the way we rent and purchase items.

Something that distinguishes Rent2Buy from a lot of the other companies at LeWeb is our attempt to connect buyers and sellers in unique and creative ways that will help individuals achieve their goals despite the hardships of the current economy. Rent2Buy is not just a business; we are a platform attempting to offer creative solutions that meet the needs of both merchants and consumers.

Our vision for how we can transform the rental and purchase space coupled with our passion for helping people achieve their goals will continue to drive the development of an ever-improving Rent2Buy platform.

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Shop Like a Celebrity – Try It Before You Buy It!

November 23, 2010 Posted by Sandie under Fashion, Rent2Buy Concept, Uncategorized
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You’re at the mall with your friends, trying on clothes in the fitting room. Everyone else is done; they’re just waiting on you. You try on a red cardigan and ponder it in the mirror. You think you like it, and your friends say they like it too.

It does seem to fit well. But do you really need it? And the coloring looks kind of funny in the harsh lighting of the dressing room. If only there was a way you could wear the sweater at home for a little while, take some time to think, and see if you still like it in a day or two.

With Norma Kamali’s try before you buy concept, you can. Anyone can shop like a celebrity!

How it works:

  • Order what you want online
  • You have 48 hours to try out whatever you like
  • Keep what you want, send back the rest

The try before you buy concept allows customers to order whatever clothes they may be interested in without having to commit to purchasing them. Unlike with typical online shopping, you can test out the clothes you ordered and see what you like and what fits. After you’ve had a chance to try out the clothes and decide what you want to keep you just send back what you don’t want via courier to Norma Kamali.

There are many benefits of being able to try the clothes before you buy them. Shopping online, though quick and convenient, can be a real gamble. You never know which clothes are going to fit you; the process is so hit or miss. The risk of buying clothes that don’t fit properly and that you’ll never wear is completely eliminated if you can try out the clothes before you buy them.

The try it before you buy it process is both risk- and stress-free. You won’t risk buying clothes that don’t fit or that you just plain don’t like. On top of this, you won’t have to deal with stressful trips to the mall where you have to make split-second decisions in the dressing room about whether or not to purchase that red cardigan you think you like.

Norma Kamali makes the dream of shopping like a celebrity accessible to anyone. It’s really worth considering the possibilities of the ‘try it before you buy it’ concept as it applies to clothes shopping, or anything else for that matter.

Click here to try before you buy at Norma Kamali.

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Hong Kong Rent-to-Buy Initiative to Improve Housing Market

October 14, 2010 Posted by Sandie under News, Real Estate, Rent2Buy Concept, Uncategorized
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In Hong Kong, a two-tiered solution to the skyrocketing home prices experienced over the few years has been proposed. The country will stop offering residency to foreigners who buy property. The second part of the proposed changes to Hong Kong’s policy is the implementation of a rent-to-buy program.

The new rent-to-buy program will offer 5,000 units for first-time property buyers. Buyers will able to rent for up to five years before eventually purchasing.

Cusson Leung, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, commented that “many of the policies announced today may have only limited impact on the property market in the near term.”

“Take the rent-to-buy scheme,” said Leung, “a lot can still happen over the next few years.”

The rent-to-buy program will let first-time property owners rent a house for up to five years at a fixed rental cost. Half of the total rent paid during the rental period will be put towards a down payment to buy the home.

According to Wong Leung-sing, a research director at Centaline, Hong Kong’s biggest privately-held property broker, “These are good measures..I think this whole policy address is a move in the right direction.”

The first stage of the project is scheduled to be completed by 2014, and will include 1,000 units in the Tsing Yi district. Officials hope the new rent-to-buy initiative, coupled with a cease in residency offers to foreigners buying property will cool home prices and allow the housing market to settle. Only time will tell.

To read the original article on Bloomberg,  click here.

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Life After Foreclosure: Dealing With Bad Credit

October 4, 2010 Posted by Sandie under Uncategorized
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More and more people are losing their homes to foreclosure or short sales. As people are unable to make payments on their home loans, their credit gets worse. The amount of homeowners faced with bad credit as a result of their inability to make the necessary loan payments is increasing. According to a study by a research firm called CoreLogic, almost 2.8 million Americans have gone through “distressed sales” since 2008.

NPR’s Yuki Noguchi talked with borrowers about their experiences with foreclosure and bad credit. She discusses the repercussions of having bad credit and the difficulties associated with loan modification.  Listen to the story on NPR, here.

Gameloft offers try before you buy HD games for Android

August 31, 2010 Posted by Sandie under Uncategorized
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Gameloft offers Android users an option to try before they buy certain HD games. There are currently 11 games that can be tested. Anyone with a capable device has the option to try out the available games, which range from high-intensity shooting games to adventure games such as Hero of Sparta and Gangstar.

Consumers have access to ‘try before you buy’ Gameloft games through the gameloft.com website. Users who navigate to the Gameloft website on their Android are then redirected to a list of games available to try before you buy.

Instead of distributing applications in the Android Market, Gameloft has decided to sell directly to consumers. Though distributing their games using the Android Market would be easier, Gameloft has decided that selling the games themselves allows consumers who may be hesitant to pay out cash without protection an opportunity to try before they buy risk- and worry-free.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTw2KQXjMvU&feature=player_embedded]

The types of situations and services for which providers offer customers the option to try before buying is expanding. Even in the context of cell phone games, it is clear that the option to ‘try it before you buy it’ is a valuable way to test out a product/service before handing over the cash to purchase it.

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Harper Teen Allows Readers to "Browse Inside"

August 17, 2010 Posted by Sandie under Uncategorized
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Harper Teen is a subsection of Harper Collins publishing company geared towards teenaged readers. On the HarperTeen website, teens can “Browse Inside” books before they decide to purchase them.

The “Browse Inside” section of the website has two subsections: one titled “full access,” and one titled “sneak peak.” Books in the full access section can be viewed by readers in full. The sneak peak section allows readers to view certain chapters or sections of the book before making a purchase.

The idea of ‘try it before you buy it’ as it is applied to the Harper Teen website enables teens to get a feel for the writing style and content of a book before deciding to buy it.

Click here to check out the “Browse Inside” section of Harper Teen.

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Stan Kroenke Makes Offer to Rent-To-Buy St. Louis Rams

August 9, 2010 Posted by Sandie under Announcements, Rent2Buy Concept, Uncategorized
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Stan Kroenke has made an offer to buy the St. Louis Rams. He wants to use the rent to buy process to purchase the team in two pieces instead of all at once. Under this arrangement, he would pay interest to the current owners for holding onto the other piece for an agreed-upon amount of time.

Members of the nine-member NFL finance committee met via conference call to discuss Kroenke’s proposal. Sources say they are upset with the offer he made.

Stan Kroenke currently owns the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets. League rules state that owners can’t own an NBA, NHL or MLB team in another football market. The finance committee has already accommodated Kroenke by stretching the limits of the league’s cross-ownership ban.

In an attempt to deal with the committee’s qualms, Kroenke has proposed shifting ownership of the Avalanche and the Nuggets to his children. However, this solution is seen as problematic because Kroenke has built provisions into it that would allow him to cover potential operating losses and guarantee debt. It is unclear whether the league will actually sign off on that.

Stan Kroenke’s offer to rent-to-own the St. Louis Rams widens the scope of possibilities for the rent to buy industry. If his offer is accepted, Kroenke will have the ability to essentially try before he buys the St. Louis Rams. If someone can rent to buy a major sports franchise, the possibilities for the ‘try it before you buy it’ rent to buy concept are limitless!

NFL owners will meet on August 25th in Atlanta to discuss the proposal and have a final vote on Kroenke’s offer. Check back with us after August 25th for an update on how the process “plays out.”

Click here for a link to the full article in the St. Louis Business Journal.

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Recent Posts
  • Rent2Buy Acquires HiGear
  • Peer-to-Peer Carsharing Gains Popularity
  • Upper East Side Sees Increase in Vacancies: New Market Trend or Census Data Flaw?
  • Real Estate Market Shifts: Buyers Seek Smaller Houses
  • Start planning your next getaway; TripAdvisor ranks top vacation rental hot spots for 2011
Recent Posts
  • Rent2Buy Acquires HiGear
  • Peer-to-Peer Carsharing Gains Popularity
  • Upper East Side Sees Increase in Vacancies: New Market Trend or Census Data Flaw?
  • Real Estate Market Shifts: Buyers Seek Smaller Houses
  • Start planning your next getaway; TripAdvisor ranks top vacation rental hot spots for 2011
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  • Brittany on 2 New Social Media Tools: TwentyFeet and Postling
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  • Joshua on New Energy Efficient Code Benefits Building Owners and Occupants
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