HostelFinder - Nigeria's Student Accommodation Portal

Designed with basic concept but with full functionality
We just made making money out of your room or hostel easier.

For Students/Agents/Landlords
Just follow these 5 easy steps.
1: Log on to www.hostelfinder.com.ng and register. (takes approximately 20 seconds)
2: Login to the platform and go to your profile by clicking on your name
3: Go to the submit hostel section, take pictures of your room (Focus on the selling point)
4: Name your price and upload.
5: Wait for calls.

Isn’t that cool?

SIMPLE AND TOTALLY FREE

So the next time your on on holiday, IT break or just broke and needs little cash, Log on to www.hostelfinfder.com.ng and make some money.
Tell someone to tell some one to upload his/her room NOW.

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Nice… Though the UI is not friendly to the eye.

The pictures showing the apartment could be more detailed not just showing the compound and the picture of the agent looks like it was stretched.

my 2 kobo

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Thanks for your comment.

This platform was developed in such a way that anybody can advertise his/her hostel

On the detailed property image, this can be made better if students/agents upload their hostels themselves.
Stock images can be provided to include these features but we need the platform to be as open as possible.

The agents image being streched, we appriciate you pointing this out.
In order to make the platform light as much as possible and maintain the exact uploaded image, the image quality (i.e. HxW) is forced to fit into the designated box thereby resizing the image.

We are still working on improving certain areas still.

Thanks one again.

Hi, @HostelfinderNg . I think you should read this first :point_down:

For emphasis

Only humans can post.
All entities other than humans such as companies have to be verified.

To your website:

I found it amusing to have only Uniben on your option list, with success stories from UNILORIN and UNIABUJA.

This is taking spiritual connection to a whole 'nother level…

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Thanks for reaching out to us.

Sorry for voilating the NO marketing rule.
This project and post is actually managed by an individual
The intention was just to get reviews, comments, suggestions etc from experts on this forum

Regarding the UNILORIN and UNIABUJA students being on our success strories might seem coincidental but its not.

Hostel Finder project has been active since 2015 on another platform. The current portal was recently redesigned this year.

Students have been reached out and helped to secure accommodation via WORD-OF-MOUTH for sometime before coming up with the platform.

Based on having just two states on the search field,
This current system was designed to list only the universities hostels has been uploaded on to reduce ambiguous search

@HostelfinderNg dude just change @hostelfinderNg to @{your name goes here}

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Thanks for the insight.

Changed as suggested.

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The concept is great and so easy to grasp. i hope smart students embraces this. But have you considered exclusive management of hostels?

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Rather than providing a negative comment without any form of encouragement and review, why not focus on making your own project (studacom) perfect by fixing the glitches pointed out by people?

An objective and candid observation should be bereft of offence words. You called his developer “Shitty”, That is inappropriate and appears to tend towards immaturity. You mentioned “interface” without categorically pointing out in clear terms what is wrong with it. I dont see how that helps either. At any rate you are entitled to your opinion but it helps all parties to keep it objective and constructive.

Thanks but no thanks

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I am personally disgusted of proud people and you know what? I am beginning to get that feeling. I chose to check out your website. I think you are a genius.
Ride On

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Yes we are all learning. Putting each other down is definitely not part of the process. When you talk down on his choice of developer and go the length of visiting the developers website to prove your point. I hardly see what you want us to learn in that. All the same, I see you are very uncomfortable of being called a genius. That’s relieving,at least it shows you understand no one is perfect, hence we should put in more effort towards encouraging one another.than doing otherwise.

Thanks but no thanks

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I had an idea to do something like this (when i freshly graduated from UNIBEN) but I did not follow through.
I love the interface and I saw your banner at Osasogie gate.

Here are my suggestions (What I intended to do).

  1. Create a hostel management platform where landlords can view their tenants, collect rent, keep track of lease durations. Tenants can raise tickets for mainenace issues, and mark them as resolves (revenue made through percentage of transactions)
  2. On the other side of the site is the hostel listings (what you have now) any hostels using the Management software are “featured” and appear higher in the lists. (revenue by ads). Also, you will be able to say precisely if space is available.
  3. You have to be agressive, use your own two legs to walk from hostel to hostel and collect the agent’s numbers if necessary.
  4. The users can rate and review each hostel.

I never thought of the roomate thing but that’s also cool. In this sharing app era you could use this to gain a lot of traction.

P.S. It’s weird that both your agents are in lagos but all your hostels are in UNIBEN.

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Start with just one person. ONE!!!
If it is any good the person will see the usefulness. and by good I mean that it actually makes the person’s job easier.
Focus on convincing One person to use it.Once one person is on board, ask the person for referrals, then ask the satisfied referrals for referrals.

Of course, this is Nigeria. People (especially older people which most of the landlords will be) are reluctant to embrace new tech. Go and meet the first set personally to convince them (another reason why the agents should not be in Lagos). Show them the use, the ease, the greener pastures.

If it will actually benefit them, before you pitch to 20 different people (50 if you have to) one will agree to be you guinea pig. It may also help if you know him/her personally.

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Thanks for your suggestions

Actually at this point in time, We have done lots of ground work by gathering enough data from agents and landlords. All this data can be uploaded but due to certain factors regarding agents (no point going into details) and internet related lags, we decided to take our time with uploading those contents for now.
That’s why we encourage students to upload their rooms for now themselves.

Thanks for liking the interface. We have a reason for coming up with such a simple platform that seems not-so-attractive graphically and logically. This I believe you’ll figure out if you consider who the major end users are.

So thats why the system was designed in the simplest of form to provide the needed functionality that can be thought of. This simplicity can permit students/ agents/landlords (both tech inclined and less tech inclined) to easily navigate the web interface and get their work done without stress.

The issue of users rating and reviewing hostels is a nice feature that we’ll surely consider implementing on the platform.

I really appreciate these points.

Thanks

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Wonderful reviews.

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This concept is so cool, i can actually sublet my room to out of towners for a fee. Thumb up