What UniLet is
UniLet is a marketplace where college students hand off housing to other college students. Summer subleases, semester subleases, and full lease takeovers.
It exists because the alternative is a Facebook group. I got an internship back home after my first year at UC Irvine and was looking at eating roughly $4,000 in rent on an empty room. Finding someone to take it meant scrolling group posts and messaging strangers with no way to tell who was real. So I built the thing I wanted.
Two sides
If you have a place
Post your lease in a couple of minutes, or paste an existing Facebook or Reddit post and we fill the form in for you.
Anyone who messages you is a verified student at a real university, not an anonymous account.
Collect rent through UniLet so it arrives on schedule, backed by an agreement, instead of you chasing someone every month.
If you need a place
Browse subleases and lease takeovers near your campus, your internship, or your co-op.
Filter by price, dates, bedrooms, furnished, and more, and see everything on a map.
Message the student directly. No agents, no application fees, no property manager in the middle.
Why it's students only
Every account requires a .edu email from a recognized university. That single rule does more for trust than anything else on the platform. You know the person on the other end is a real student, and they know the same about you.
On top of that, ID verification through Stripe Identity puts a verified badge on your profile. It matters more than it sounds like: verified listers get taken seriously faster, verified searchers get replies faster, and some listings are restricted to verified users only. If you're about to hand someone your keys or send someone a deposit, the $4.99 is worth it.
How UniLet is different
Facebook groups and subreddits
Free and everywhere, but no verification, no protection from scammers or bots, and no tools. Posts get buried in a feed.
Property manager platforms
Their inventory comes from landlords and management companies, so subleasing is a feature bolted on. A student holding a lease they need to hand off is not really the customer.
UniLet
Student to student only. The listings are leases students already hold, which no property manager database contains. Money moves between students and never touches a landlord.
Paying rent through UniLet
The most common way a student sublease goes wrong isn't a scam. It's month two, when the person you handed your keys to stops answering about rent. A Venmo request gives you no agreement, no schedule, and nothing to point to.
Running rent through UniLet fixes that. Both parties accept the same written terms before anything is charged. Rent collects itself on the day it's due, straight to the subleasor's bank account. Every payment is recorded with a date, an amount, and a status, which is what you want if you ever need to show a landlord, a parent, or a court what actually happened.
It's 7% of each rent payment, out of the subleasor's side. The subtenant pays exactly the rent that was agreed, not a cent more. For a few percent you stop chasing someone every month and you stop hoping they're good for it. How it works, in detail.
What’s free
Creating an account
Posting a listing
Browsing and filtering
Messaging other students
Photos on your listing
The map and search
Three things cost money, and each one buys something specific. ID verification is $4.99 once and gets you a verified badge plus access to verified-only listings. Sponsorship is $8.99/month and puts your listing in the Featured section at the top of browse, which is where you want to be if your dates are tight. And rent through UniLet is 7%, which buys you a signed agreement and payments that arrive without you asking.
Who built this
UniLet was built and is run by a second-year Informatics student at UC Irvine. Not a property management company, not a startup with a housing division. One student who had this exact problem and got tired of Facebook groups.
Free to join with your .edu email
Takes about a minute. No password to remember.
Questions? support@unilet.app