How To Start And Operate A
Room-Mate Finding Service

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The average income for owners of this kind of business is around
œ200,000 a year!

Best of all, here's a business that you can start with an absolute
minimum investment.

Practically anyone who lives in a city anywhere in the country can
expect to do just about as well, and with a bit of imagination,
mixed with some business sense, you should be able to do even
better!

Income and market potentials for a service such as this are truly
fantastic!

Rent increases that have far outpaced wage increases have brought
about a tremendous need for a method to alleviate the cost of
housing.

Also, many apartment complexes are being converted into expensive
condominiums.

These two factors have created a problem of gigantic proportions
for millions of people who are concerned about keeping a roof over
their heads.

You can make big money solving that problem with your own Room
Mate Finding Service.

We're going to tell you how.

Many of the nation's leading economists are predicting this kind
of living arrangement to be the "money saving answer" for
apartment dwellers for the rest of this century.

Others are predicting the room mate finding service to become as
popular as the employment agency in the near future.

This is an ideal absentee owner business.

Most of those operating have a woman doing the managing -
sometimes as just the manager, and sometimes as the owner-manager.

This apparently has something to do with the nature of the
business, and how most people seem to naturally trust a woman to
find the right room mate for them.

As to the fee structure, I suggest something similar to the
successful employment agencies.

Charge everyone a œ25 registration fee to start the ball rolling
towards finding them a suitable room mate.

You take a Polaroid snapshot of each registrant, have them fill
out an appropriate application card which will indicate the kind
of room mate they'd be happy with, and start searching through
your files or people with similar likes and dislikes.

To get started, you'll want a bank reference; a legal reference, a
telephone;' a business name, letterhead, paper, envelopes, and
business cards - and office supplies such as 3 x 5 index cards;
typewriter, file cabinet and a printed questionnaire application
form.

You'll also need a responsibility disclaimer, which can be
combined with the applicant's agreement to pay contract.

Once you've found a room mate for your prospective client, you
should have it spelled out in your agreement that each of the
"matched room mates" will pay you 15% of the first month's rent.

You could charge a bit extra for particular requirements, and
perhaps somewhat less for older persons, or for persons with
handicaps.

The approval or disapproval is left up to the parties involved.

You simply look through your registration card file, pull out five
or six apparently suitable room mates, call each of them on the
phone and arrange separate meetings for them with your client.

Your client reports back to you, and tells you of his or her
decision, and you call the person chosen and finalise the deal.

Good advertising will play an important part in getting this
business off the ground.

Make up a good circular or "flyer" detailing your room mate
finding services, and listing your phone number.

Get these flyers on as many bulletin boards in your area as
possible.

Get them in grocery stores, barber shops, community colleges,
beauty salons, bowling alleys; the list of places to "billboard"
your flyers is endless.

Another ideal to set up "take one" boxes in as many retail places
of business as you can.

Don't overlook the value of placing your flyers on car windscreens
- particularly around apartment complexes, and in the parking lots
of the colleges in your area.

You might even pay the downtown parking lot attendants to slip one
under the windscreen wiper of each car he parks on a Monday.

If you do a good job with the make up of your flyer, and use your
imagination in getting them into the hands of your prospective
clients, you'll have no trouble moving your new business into the
black quickly.

Even so, you'll need to run regular ads in your area newspaper.

The best headings to run your ads is under the Personal Columns.

Your ads might read:

Need A Room Mate? We'll find the ideal room mate for you!
Everything handled on a strictly confidential basis. For details,
call Jan, Mary or Carol on 123456.

Within only a couple of months, you should be well enough
established, and with an income large enough to afford an office
location.

When you establish your office, do some publicising of your
business with press releases to all the media in your area, and
plan some fanfare that will bring attention to your services.

Tacking up on your office walls the enthusiastic testimonials of
people you've matched with room mates is a very good idea.

Later on, you might want to input all your client information on
computer, and take video pictures of each client for showing to
prospective room mates.

In the final analysis, once you have your business underway, your
further success will be limited only by your imagination.