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wo 17‑year‑old New Yorkers, Beckett Zahedi and Derrick Webster Jr., have turned their free time into a mission: Realer Estate, a website that simplifies the search for affordable rentals in a city where housing costs are a constant struggle. After quitting basketball and spending their last two summers away from school, the duo poured hours into podcasts, YouTube tutorials, and AI tools to build a platform that merges public housing data with current listings. The result is a user‑friendly interface that flags rent‑stabilized apartments and units priced below market value, cutting through the usual maze of paperwork and endless searches.

    Their journey began with modest coding skills; Zahedi recalls spending two months just getting two neighborhoods online, often crashing the server with syntax errors. Webster focused on outreach, creating an email automation that notifies users whenever the algorithm spots a match to their preferences. The project grew out of personal experience—Zahedi’s parents’ divorce and his father’s relocation highlighted the difficulty of finding affordable housing, a lesson reinforced in their 11th‑grade economics class at Brooklyn Friends School.

    Since its launch last summer, Realer Estate has attracted roughly 27,000 visitors and hosts between 4,000 and 5,000 listings. The teens are now looking to add features such as information on government assistance programs for homeowners. “Helping people has always been my passion,” Webster says, underscoring their commitment to making a tangible difference for New Yorkers every day.