Lived There was formed in early 2006 with the aim to improve the Student Letting Market through the use of reviews in much the way trip advisors does for Holidays. This site was born out of pure frustration with the state of some properties we found as students, some students seemed to be very lucky in there accommodation some very unlucky. Even properties on the same street could vary so much in the upkeep and maintenance that even a recommendation of a “Student Area” wasn’t much good.

So as a techie I decided the way to resolve this was with technology! Setup a simple site with a few forms and searches and launched the site to the world and the rest is history as they say. The site has grown over the time it has been gathering more momentum in 2008 with more visitors each week.

Commercial v Independent
The site’s aim is NOT commercial in its focus but over the last few years has cost quite a lot to develop and maintain not least with more visitors comes more hosting costs etc, so we have now introduced a few adverts to help the site fund its self and pay for us to advertise the site more widely to increase the number of reviews. We are still 100% independent and don’t allow advertising from Landlords or Agents as this could skew our reviews and our focus is still to be a resource for all renters to find good property which others have lived in and liked!

Just for Students?
Our first aim was for the student market as that was what we know, but it has become apparent over the years that more and more professionals are renting for longer periods of time and the site is becoming more widely used by the professional market.

Other Rating systems
Many Universities and Student Unions have “Approved” schemes for Landlords which ensure that they compile with all the legal regulations etc, and LivedThere is NOT a replacement for these schemes but is more of a complementary service which reviews what it is really like to live on a place rather than the legal aspects etc.