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Redfin’s rental industry technology company, Rent, is upping its users’ ability to present themselves online.
The apartment search portal and property marketing services firm is partnering with software company Reputation to provide tools that help landlords sustain a positive online presence, according to a press release.
Reputation’s software will be the foundation of RentRep, a unified interface to give users the ability to oversee and empower social media management, listing marketing and online reviews.
CEO of Rent Jon Ziglar said in the announcement that this kind of solution is critical for apartment owners and licensed management teams to compete in the increasingly competitive environment of online search.
“A property’s online reputation is a key factor in the renter’s decision-making process,” he said. “It can improve SEO and increase qualified lead traffic.”
As with restaurants, consumer goods and movies, online reviews are becoming central to a rental community’s appeal to the market. With more amenities being implemented and rents declining, leasing agents need assistance from their marketing teams.
“Having good reviews is critical, as properties with 10 or more recent positive reviews average more than 4.5 times as many leads as those without,” Ziglar said in a statement. “This requires tools that enable an easy and efficient way to grow and nurture online reputations to drive better results across all marketing channels.”
RentRep’s features ensure FHA compliance in all aspects of online outreach and response to minimize risk and have a low learning curve to encourage quick adoption for in-house teams.
The software provides a single dashboard for looks into social media activity and online activity, which is then summarized into a Reputation Score for each property plugged into the system. It offers recommendations for improving any sub-optimal property scores.
However, RentRep is not all coded ones and zeros. Specialists in fair housing regulations help monitor public reviews and if responses are warranted, will write and publish them within 48 hours. Comments to negative reviews can be submitted to higher-level management for review before publishing.
“Residents want to rent five star properties, and our best-in-class platform will enable Rent clients to deliver this with more meaningful engagement with the communities they manage,” said Reputation’s CEO Joe Fuca in the announcement. “This will in turn create loyal residents, help increase resident satisfaction and drive occupancy rates across communities.”
Rent has made another step toward modernizing the way apartment managers market their properties with the recent implementation of a TikTok production tool.
The solution is turnkey, fully managed and a way to convert existing marketing content on the Rent network into dynamic digital branding messages, Rent said in a Nov. 1 announcement.
Rent, like Zillow, is morphing from a consumer-centric listing portal to a bidirectional technology services entity, offering innovations and resources for both renter and agent.
Activity in the “RentTech” sector has surged in the last 24 months, with an array of startups blossoming to assist single-family investors, owner-operators and institutional landlords.
