Meet the Founder

I'm Ben, a sophomore at WashU, and like most students here, I had to figure out off-campus housing the hard way.

When I started my search, I was bouncing between Zillow, Facebook groups, Apartments.com, and random landlord websites just to see what was available near campus. Listings were outdated, landlords ghosted me, and there was no way to compare apartments side by side on the things that actually matter to students — like how far it is from campus, whether semester lease terms were available, or if other students lived nearby.

The worst part? There were no reviews. No way to hear from students who'd actually lived in these places. I wanted to know whether the landlord was responsive, whether the apartment matched the listing, and what the experience was really like. You'd sign a lease and just hope for the best.

I talked to friends, classmates, and random WashU students and heard the same story over and over. So I built Proximity, a single platform where WashU students can browse off-campus listings near campus, filter by what actually matters, read honest reviews from other students, and make a confident decision without the chaos.

Proximity is the tool I wish existed when I started looking.