The Barometer Online

Issue date: 3/3/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Cory Reed Alex Neighbors, a senior in computer science, and Marques Alexander, a senior in political science, founded yourcampusrent.com, a website that helps students find housing and roommates.

Yourcampusrent.com has gone from catering only to Corvallis students for alternative housing to expanding to more than 600 other universities and colleges nationwide.

Marques Alexander, a political science major at OSU, and Alex Neighbors, a computer science major, are the creators of the site. They have been working on the project for over a year and started supporting other schools in January 2009.

"We wanted to provide students with online information where they can find housing and roommates," Alexander said.

The list ranges from University of Washington to Ball State, and each individual link is presented with the school colors, along with local businesses, a roommate search and a variety of rentals posted by numerous people within the community they live in.

The site was an original concept by Wesley Mahler and Alexander, but Mahler remained in the background as Neighbors teamed up with Alexander and became the "soul proprietors of the website." Alexander purchased about 100 domain names in the beginning and now has over 633 additional names for this project.

BeaverRent.com was the first name used for the site, but the founders were "attacked by OSU, because of a trademark on the word 'Beaver'." After the name change, the site has become even more successful.

"It's like a social-networking site with a different approach," Alexander said.

The aspect of the website is similar to that of Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, but the creators wanted a more local feel, so that incoming students can have "an idea of what the Corvallis community represents."

Alexander talked about a "bad experience" he had as a transfer student coming from New Mexico State University, and he didn't want the same thing to happen to other students, which in turn might deter them from living in Corvallis.

Neighbors started by working on the roommate search engine for the site and also added other functions. He has not been on the project for very long, but everyone has "worked as a team to develop it," Neighbors said.

Alexander has started on his second project titled "Business Is Good Here," which is an introductory site for entrepreneurs and business people in order to show them why Corvallis is the right place to start their business.

He feels that Corvallis is in a "challenging state" and hopes that this site will attract entrepreneurs, so that Corvallis doesn't end up like a "retirement community."

Alexander is modest about the success of the rental website and explained that it "is nothing special," but they are giving "people the opportunity to use it as a vehicle to gain experience and to promote economic development within the community and to serve the students."



Theo Hendrickson, staff writer

news@dailybarometer.com, 737-2231

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