Nextdoor

What: Nextdoor is a social networking site that allows you to post items for sale, find a job, lend or rent your personal items, ranging from camping equipment to carpet cleaners. 

Commissions & fees: none

Husl$core: $$$

Expected Pay: NA

Where: Nationwide

Requirements: None

Review:

Nextdoor is aimed at allowing neighbors to chat with other neighbors for both commercial and purely social purposes. The site encourages users to invite their friends and post local information about everything from lost dogs to crime. Consumers can use the site to organize a group or remind each other about community events, such as city council meetings and crop swaps, too.

Nextdoor also has a commercial side, where you can advertise items for sale or rent and where you can attempt to find a job. This is probably not the right venue to seek work as, say, a television producer. But if you want to work as a gardener, nanny or in elder care, your chances of finding an interested neighbor are not bad. People selling their household goods also say Nextdoor can be a nice place to advertise. 

The site generally limits communication to a relatively small geographic area to make sure the communication is between neighbors, which means your advertisements won’t go to a huge audience. That said, posting an ad is free, so there’s nothing to lose in the attempt.  Eventually Nextdoor plans to monetize its operation, which may mean it will start to charge for posting advertisements. Until then, this is the equivalent of a mini-Craigs List, (mostly) without the scammers. 

The biggest complaints about the site Is that conversations are monitored by neighborhood “leads,” who can be arbitrary about what they allow users to post. The site’s guidelines about what’s acceptable are vague.

The site discourages ardent political speech and some commercial posts in the main discussion group. (Though you’re welcome to set up business pages.) Otherwise, the only site guidelines are to remember that you’re neighbors and treat each other with kindness and respect. Some leads have used that broad mandate to cut off conversations that they don’t like.

What their users say: (From SiteJabber)

I love this site and all the great information and business sources provided!”

“Nextdoor.com is a great tool to use when rules are the same across the board. Unfortunately, I don’t understand why nextdoor.com allows rules to be flexible and allow racial discrimination.