Two Teenagers Took On NYC’s Housing Challenge — And Built A Solution

January 3, 2026

Two 17-year-old friends are helping people finding affordable housing in New York City.

Beckett Zahedi and Derrick Webster Jr. / ABC7NY

Beckett Zahedi and Derrick Webster Jr. have created a website called Realer Estate, a platform designed to help renters more easily find affordable and rent-stabilized apartments in a city where housing costs often feel out of reach. Their goal is simple but powerful—make hard-to-find housing options more accessible to everyday New Yorkers.

According to the original news report, the project has become an all-consuming passion for the teens. Outside of school, they’ve poured their time and energy into building the site, even giving up basketball and spending their last two summers working on it.

Realer Estate brings together public data and real estate listings, allowing users to quickly identify rent-stabilized apartments and units priced below market value. What is typically a confusing and time-consuming process for renters is streamlined into one easy-to-use platform.

The idea for Realer Estate grew from personal experience. Zahedi said that seeing how difficult it was for his father to find an affordable apartment after his parents’ divorce opened his eyes to how serious the housing crisis is. That understanding deepened in an 11th-grade economics class, where both teens learned more about the scale of the problem.

While they acknowledge their site is just a small step toward solving a much larger issue, the teens remain focused on making a real difference—one renter at a time.

"I've always loved helping people," Webster said.