Finding an apartment in a big city can be overwhelming, as Daniel Dippold from Berlin found during his four-month search for a rental. This 28-year-old programmer faced near exhaustion before he decided to utilize his coding skills with ChatGPT to streamline the process.
"When I was exhausted from searching for an apartment in Berlin, I wondered if I could use GPT to create something that would help make finding a place easier," Dippold shared. After refining his search criteria, he successfully identified two potential apartments for himself and his girlfriend.
To optimize his search, Dippold developed a web scraper to collect names and contact details of over 100 property management companies. He personally reached out to each contact in German, as ChatGPT’s English capabilities were stronger. Furthermore, to accelerate his outreach, he had ChatGPT generate code for sending automated replies to each property manager, including personal documents like passports and pay stubs.
In the end, both apartments accepted their applications. While Dippold's experience was aided by ChatGPT, he noted that the tool wasn’t without flaws; it provided some impractical suggestions, struggled with concise prompts, and produced incorrect code on occasion. Nonetheless, this innovative approach effectively streamlined his apartment search.
In conclusion, Dippold's journey illustrates how combining coding skills with AI can simplify complex tasks, making the challenging process of finding housing more efficient.