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RentSpree has two million users registered on its platform.
The rental industry technology company shared news of the milestone first with Inman, stating that its user count doubled in fewer than two years. It took five years to reach the first million, CEO and co-founder Micheal Lucarelli said in a statement.
The user mark represents a 598 percent, three-year revenue increase and the notoriety of being named to the Inc. 5000 list of the country’s fastest-growing private companies.
“This is a testament to the power of our platform, our prolific industry partnerships and strong demand for smart rental solutions,” he said.
RentSpree provides software for a wide range of property management business needs, such as tenant screening and online applications, document automation and e-signatures, denial and approval communications, and property landing pages extending into tenant services such as digital payment methods and maintenance requests, as well as a suite of tools for real estate agents to track renters as they evolve into buyers, promote themselves and their listings.
Along the way, RentSpree paved new pathways into demonstrating to residential sales agents to value in working with renters as an eager lead pool and relationship foundation.
To date, RentSpree has raised $28 million in two rounds of funding after a seed stage of $620,000 in 2017. The company has put that money to use coding a system of features to collapse the many analog workflows that have long been connected to the rental industry, as well as forge a number of strategic partnerships with the nation’s community of multiple listing services, including three of the five largest, a strategy that likely drove the recent, rapid growth. It continues to flourish within a sales environment bogged down by high prices, low inventory and interest rates deemed unfavorable to the buying public.
The company said that July of this year was a record month for the number of business actions facilitated through its software, 485,000 in total. Those actions include uses such as tenant screenings, listing profile submissions and renter reviews of agents.
Renting is being viewed as a long-term alternative in light of the market, which does not seem to be breaking its awkward stride despite September’s unexpected jump of 1.1 percent in sales in the face of another interest rate bump.
“Despite the slight gain, pending contracts remain at historically low levels due to the highest mortgage rates in 20 years,” Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist said in a statement. “Furthermore, inventory remains tight, which hinders sales but keeps home prices elevated.”
Renters have seen a reprieve of late, as rent has dropped for the fifth consecutive month. According to an October 23 report released by Realtor.com, rents for studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units fell 0.7 percent between August and September, with median rents in the 50 most populous United States cities hitting $1,747, down $29 from the peak seen in July 2022.
“Even with an influx of new apartment units coming onto the market and putting a lid on rent growth, renters are claiming these new apartments faster than prior to the pandemic,” Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said in a statement. “Those considering new housing options will want to do their research on their desired neighborhoods, determine their priorities, and set their budget well ahead of time if possible, so they’re ready to move quickly when the time comes.”
In April, RentSpree PRO came on the market, a multi-faceted marketing product for residential agents, which combines transaction and marketing tools, linking them into a single, simple package. Agents can use the software to publish individual profile pages to promote services, locations and success stories.
Additionally, RentSpree built a system for soliciting and collating reviews from clients, also ideal for inclusion on profile pages, which will be available via custom URLs and indexable to augment search engine prominence, according to the company.