NeighborGoods: Share/Borrow/Rent Items from Neighbors!
How many times do you find yourself in a situation where you would prefer to borrow a drill, a lawnmower, a carpet cleaner etc. from a neighbor instead of buying or renting one from the store?! Well, NeighborGoods allows you to do just that! NeighborGoods is a safe community where you can save money and resources by sharing stuff with your friends. Need a ladder? Borrow it from your neighbor. Have a bike collecting dust in your closet? Rent it out for some extra cash!
When you add an item to the NeighborGoods inventory, you choose how to share it with the community. For example, you can allow your friends to borrow the item for free and charge others a rental fee. Or you can decide to make the item only available to friends. It’s your stuff, so you set the rules.
NeighborGoods helps facilitate transactions with a reservation calendar, automated reminders, wishlist alerts, and private messaging between neighbors. Neighbors can rate each other and even flag another member’s account if something goes wrong. Through transparency and peer ratings, NeighborGoods provides members with all the tools they need to share safely and confidently.
Borrowing and lending items on NeighborGoods is free of charge. Members may charge a deposit or a rental fee for the use of their items but NeighborGoods does not charge transaction fees. NeighborGoods was started in Los Angeles and is launching nationally today!
Personally, I think that this is such a wonderful idea. What do you think?
I was JUST thinking about this sort of thing. What a pain to buy everything you need – it takes up too much space and only gets used a couple times. I will definitely look into this!
I think it’s a great idea. We need A LOT more participants in our area though…Hopefully it will catch on 🙂
Not to discourage anybody, but I have had several unpleasant experiences by letting friends and neighbors borrow my stuff. I don’t know how this program works because I haven’t joined yet.
My neighbor borrow my lawn mower and she broke the belt twice. The first time I tought maybe I was about to go out, but then she broke the new belt.
Anyways, some people don’t seem to care about borrowed stuff (at least not my neighbor).
Is it just me…or does it seem a little odd that you’d need to go through a company to borrow stuff from neighbors? We have a few friends, family and neighbors we naturally and ordinarily swap items with. I suppose it would be good if you don’t actually know your neighbors and want to borrow stuff…but even then, it seems odd to me.
That being said, I’m a HUGE fan of bartering and sharing! My friends and I swap everything from clothing to childcare, coupons and tools. I’ve bartered my writing and advertising services for other goods and services. I don’t know that I’d like a third-party to manage any of these informal interactions for me.
I’d be curious to see if this sort of program takes off or not. I don’t know if it would provide the sort of relevance many people would be drawn to. But then again…I could be wrong! (I sure have been before.) 😉
I should also add, I’d be curious to know about the safety issues with doing this too. If you have expensive tools or other items up for rent/borrowing, just exercise caution. Where I live, we’ve had a few robberies and even a murder when expensive items were advertised on Craigslist and alleged “buyers” showed up at the sellers’ residences.
this sounds like a great program. the only problem lies in getting more people involved. along the same lines iks a website called freecycle. it’s a way to give items you no longer use or want to someone locally who does. i’m posting this from my phone, so i’m not sure of the direct link but i think it’s something like freecycle.org. it helped me clean out my garage! i’ve also gotten great furniture and clothes for the kids. even a brand new golf bag for the hubby. it’s a generous way to give back to your community and benefit yourself. look into it – after all, its FREE!
I’m a member of freecycle as well!
Sounds like an insurance-scamming lawyer’s dream come true. “His ladder was defective and I fell down and broke my [insert body part here] because of HIM!”
I never thought of that, good point!
I’ll stick with the old fashioned way of borrowing from neighbors-knock on the door and ask.
Hey there! I’m the founder of NeighborGoods. Thanks for sharing the news of our launch today! The discussion you’re having here in the comments is a good one. I encourage you all to sign up and check out how it works as we have answers to all these questions built into the system! Angela and Mommareed are right to point out the similarity to knocking on your neighbor’s door. That’s exactly the activity we are trying to encourage! NeighborGoods is simply a central inventory and calendar system that makes it easier to keep track of stuff. Besides that, the same rules apply as would if you borrowed something from a neighbor without NeighborGoods. Sign up and try it out. We have some test items you can “borrow” to see how it works!
I am excited about this thanks all you