Housing search goes digital with RicksHousing.com
- posted: 11 Dec. 2007
- scrollcampus@byui.edu
Looking for approved housing in Rexburg is not always a piece of cake. Students consider price, location, amenities, availability and other factors when looking for housing.
A few entrepreneurs at BYU-Idaho are making that process a lot easier.
Trent Clawson, a senior studying business, identified the need for more efficient tools and information for finding housing in Rexburg when he and his wife were looking for a place to live.
Clawson said the process was “frustrating.” It was difficult to evaluate their choices when they didn’t know what each complex offered, where they were or what they looked like. It took them about two weeks to get a contract.
After that, Clawson began formulating the idea for a Web site marketplace for buying and selling housing contracts.
“If we created a Web site that had all of the owners listed. It was free for the students, and it had really good tools, it could make this process much easier,” Clawson said.
Clawson then pitched the idea to Coltan Bohman, a sophomore studying Spanish education, who became his business partner. Bohman had also identified the need and was eager to help.
“Our generation is mainly on the Internet; that’s how we work, how we shop. That’s how we do a lot of things,” Bohman said.
The two organized ideas and sold the idea to complex owners and signed them up. With free advertising until January and a relatively low price afterwards, they have had few rejections.
“We aren’t charging very much. We’re not looking to get rich,” Clawson said.
The site launched Nov. 15. Now students can post and sell contracts, access information and add themselves to apartments’ waiting lists all online. Students can sign up for free at www.RicksHousing.com.
Clawson and Bohman are still working to add features to make the site even more useful, such as making apartments searchable by price and location. They also hope to expand to other universities in the future.
“It’s been tons and tons of work, but we have been learning so much about business and how to accomplish our goals,” Bohman said. 
