Categories: Tips & Tutorials

Roommate-Finding Apps: Tips and Recommendations

If you’ve ever made the plunge to move into your own apartment, you may be familiar with the difficulties involved in finding a roommate. Roommate-matching apps seem like an efficient solution but are these apps actually that efficient, and more importantly, safe, to use?

Luckily, the app store has seen an increase in roommate-matching apps to help apartment hunters find a compatible living partner. Some choose apps like Roomster, which claims to “connect people at all price points, in 192 countries,” to find someone to fill their empty room or sublet. To use Roomster, users begin by filling out general information such as which city you’re looking for an apartment in, as well as whether you’d like to rent one room or an entire unit. Users can also detail information about their lifestyle habits, including their sleep schedule, dietary restrictions, smoking habits, and more.

Other roommate-matching apps, like Symbi, take the work out of finding a roommate by importing select information from your Facebook profile into your Symbi account. Others prefer Roomi for its simple, Tinder-like interface and secure communication options.

But, as the saying goes, if it’s “too good to be true,” it likely is. Unsatisfied users report that such apps are “hotspots” for scams, noting that some apartment listings on these databases include Google images and other fabricated information. These ploys to gain information like bank details from vulnerable users are common, which is why it’s important to protect your personal information during your roommate search.

Falling for a common Internet scam can make the already-stressful process of finding a roommate even more difficult. Besides protecting your phone from malicious apps, you should also protect your personal information, and be wary of apartment listings that feature apartments for price points which are uncommonly low for the area. It’s worth repeating: if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

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The dfndr blog is an informative channel that presents exclusive content on security and privacy in the mobile and business world, with tips to keep users protected. Populated by a select group of expert reporters, the channel has a partnership with dfndr lab's security team. Together they bring you, first-notice news about attacks, scams, internet vulnerabilities, malware and everything affecting cybersecurity.