Today we’re introducing the first set of changes in a long-awaited update to the look and feel of SpareRoom. Whilst this change is, evidently, cosmetic; it also marks a turning point in SpareRoom’s journey. SpareRoom started 15 years ago by taking flatshare seekers away from local newspapers and onto the internet, and we rapidly became the market leader in the UK and now have an ever-growing presence in New York City (where we are leading the pack) and in other major metropolitan areas around the US too.
SpareRoom’s brand has naturally evolved over time, but the last update to our look and feel happened around 7 years ago. In this time we’ve seen the emergence of mobile, a shift to very different social medias, and we’ve launched across the whole of the US.
SpareRoom circa 2006:
Over time, our customers have changed too. The people we first attracted to SpareRoom 15 years ago are (probably) no longer flatsharing. However, our current SpareRoomers are a complete contrast as they face ever-growing challenges and struggles with home ownership in the UK. I don’t think 15 years ago that the large majority of our users would be thinking about renting forever...
SpareRoom circa 2011:
The internationalisation of SpareRoom coupled with the changing pressures on young people and their housing aspirations, has meant that we wanted to modernise SpareRoom with this at the very front of our minds. We wanted to create a brand that stood up on both sides of the Atlantic and focus the brand around the very real and universal notion of ‘home’. As such our brand idea, ‘Find Home Together’, was born. Find Home Together couples the three bastions of SpareRoom together: finding somewhere to live, finding a great place you can call home, and also calling out the togetherness that you can find when you live with other people.
SpareRoom today:
Home is encapsulated by the experiences you have within its four walls. These experiences, often shared with others, are the things that keep writers writing stories and groups of friends sharing hilarious anecdotes. It’s that moving in feeling, that sense of making somewhere your own, that sense of permanence and that sense of belonging. It’s that first dinner with your flatmates, that time it spiralled into a late night adventure, that first time you clicked. It’s also that time you had to sort out a few differences, knock at their bedroom door with an apology, and that time you had to text someone to let them know you had finally got home.
Living with people is a unique opportunity to create incredible friendships, grow within yourself as you meet new characters, and most importantly have a lot of fun. Some of the best memories we have come from living with other people. SpareRoom is here to help our users celebrate this wonderfully unique aspect of sharing, whilst staying honest about some of the challenges of living with people you often don’t already know. As we mature as a business, we want to help people realise that living in a swanky apartment really isn’t the be all and end all – if you don’t enjoy living with the people you’re sharing it with. Our aged internal mantra that ‘living with the right people beats living alone’ has never been truer than it is today as we hear about the reported rise of loneliness in our society. We’re here to help change the perception that sharing is a compromise as we see it as a life-enhancing phase of your life.
Our shift towards people complements the thing we know people value more than anything else: choice. With over 90,000 rooms currently available for rent on the platform, we are the go-to site and app for when you need a new person to move in or you need a new place that you can call home.
Start your journey with us. Get ready for that first takeaway pizza, the 'you probably had to be there' in-jokes – the chance to live with great new friends. Find Home Together now with SpareRoom.
