User:Nesterly/sandbox

Nesterly, Inc. is a privately held company that operates an online marketplace for intergenerational homesharing. The Nesterly platform connects households, Hosts, who have spare space with people who are seeking a place to stay for longer than one month, Guests. Nesterly provides user screening, a customizable homesharing agreement, automated payments, and on-going support.

Mission
Nesterly is a social enterprise whose mission is to build intergenerational connections while increasing access to affordable housing.

Product Overview
Guests

Guests can search for spare rooms using filters such as dates, location, and price. They are able to contact Hosts through a secure messaging system. Before confirming a booking, Guests must provide character references, payment information and go through a background check.

Hosts

Hosts provide prices, photos and other information for their homeshare listings. Pricing is determined by the Host with recommendations based on the city's market rate. Hosts can indicate whether they would like to incorporate task exchange into their homeshare. A typical reduction in rent per month is $150 for approximately 2-3 hours of help per week. Incorporating tasks including grocery shopping and technology assistance is an optional Nesterly feature that can be tailored to meet the needs of each homeshare.

Legality of Homesharing

Homesharing with one Guest for a period of more than 30 days is legal in most circumstances. In many cities it is legal to Host up to 3 Guests at a time.

Safety

Nesterly provides a variety of safety mechanisms to ensure the online community is secure. All users go through a multi-step screening process, which includes a background check, a complete application, and at least two character references. Nesterly contracts with Checkr, Inc to obtain a background report for US citizens who sign up to join the platform and wish to confirm a homeshare. The report inclues a National Criminal Search, a Sex Offender Registry and Global Watchlist Search, as well as an address history search and social security check.

History
While attending MIT's Masters in City Planning program, students Noelle Marcus and Rachel Goor became interested in innovative approaches to the housing affordability crisis. Inspired by the late Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, an organization of intergenerational activists, and one of the early proponents of age-integrated housing, Marcus and Goor immersed themselves in studying the intersection of the sharing economy and affordable housing.

Marcus and Goor developed their initial ideas of the Nesterly platform while attending MIT and obtained seed funding as a winner of the original cohort at DesignX. Shortly after, they were a winning team in the IDEAS Global Challenge, were semifinalists of the $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.

Upon graduation, Marcus and Goor launched a local Nesterly pilot in 2017 and formalized a partnership with the City of Boston.

Noelle Marcus, the current CEO of the company, describes Nesterly as a "social enterprise" with an agenda to make housing security obtainable for everyone.

Corporate Information
Locations

Nesterly currently operates in the Boston metropolitan area in partnership with the City of Boston. The platform has plans to scale to additional cities in the next year.

Locations

NYC Big Apps IDEAS Global Challenge Design X