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Comment by arkitaip | Hacker News Reader

Yes, just hand the keys to someone's home to a complete stranger, what could possibly go wrong.

Here you have to sign a contract (so competitors or the owner don't sell it cheaper to you) and they take a copy of your passport and proof of residency. So not exactly strangers. And in this cases where I asked for the keys, they were local realestate agents I went to school with. Not that anybody locks their door over here; it's just often not clear what the location is to prevent personal negotiations.

> it's just often not clear what the location is to prevent personal negotiations.

Oh no, we had a bug once when our software uploaded the property to the web with the address unlocked. The place got swarmed by people who would just enter the property at any time, not giving a damn about the owner's privacy. They were ringing the doorbell, asking about the price and if they could see the place right then and there. Agents are the first line of defense against shitty people.

Eh, with security cameras for ~$20 per camera, you can buy a lot of security cameras for the 25k commission.

Heck, you can buy over 1000 security cameras and still save money.

There was a now deleted reply to that, probably intended as a joke, about how the cost of electricity for all those cameras would wipe out the profit.

I was curious and did the math. I'm using motion sensitive security cameras that only record and upload when motion is detected. At the places with the most expensive residential electricity in the US or the EU 1000 of those cameras would need under $5 of electricity per year. There's also the thing that the cameras upload to. I don't know how much power that uses, but it is powered by a 5 W USB power supply so can't be more than $22/year.

This is the most cliched HN thought pattern I've ever seen.

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