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Property management software company RentRedi has agreed to a deal with home maintenance services company Thumbtack, Inman has learned.
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“The collaboration connects RentRedi landlords, property managers, and tenants with access to Thumbtack’s community of 300,000 local service businesses to help with home repair, routine maintenance and improvement projects,” according to a Dec. 18 statement.
The company said the partnership is also another way to provide flexibility for all stakeholders — tenants and owners — in a rented property.
Thumbtack’s mobile task scheduling and consumer-first real estate care solution overlap well with RentRedi’s iOS and Android applications by offering landlords and tenants a consistent vertical user experience.
A survey of 3,500 landlord-users conducted by RentRedi found that “at least 80 percent of them plan to invest in home improvement projects for their rental properties” and “a little more than a quarter of respondents (28 percent) plan to invest in smaller projects costing between $1,500 and $4,999 per rental property.”
This is Thumbtack’s wheelhouse.
In the announcement, Michael Kim, vice president of business development and commercial programs at Thumbtack, said its application will help landlords flatten the many processes involved with fielding and completing repair requests.
“We can help streamline every step of the property management journey, reducing a lot of the stress that comes with managing a home,” Kim said. “Our network of skilled home service pros can help with everything from TV mounting and house cleaning to landscaping and HVAC repairs, providing landlords and tenants alike with peace of mind.”
Inman reviewed RentRedi in 2023, making note of its ease of use and per-property banking functionality.
“The software allows for granular control of each property, allowing the user to attach separate bank accounts to different properties, link leases to individual tenants in the same property and accept, respond to and track maintenance requests per unit. This gives the landlord a clear way to easily manage every repair and its related expense, something that Excel or a notebook and pen would make this important practice a great deal more challenging for most individual landlords,” the review stated.
Thumbtack launched a real estate-specific product in August of this year to help consumers, through their agents, stay on top of the ever-increasing myriad of tasks required to buy and sell a home. The co-branded experience lets licensed professionals deliver an intuitive workflow for task management, from moving company provisioning to room renovation.
“Partnering with Thumbtack provides RentRedi landlords with a simple and easy way to find the quality home service professionals they need to get their home projects done well,” RentRedi co-founder and CEO Ryan Barone said in a statement. “Tenants can also use the service to find painters, electricians, landscapers and more to personalize their property and make it feel like home.”
The partnership also suggests that property managers and independent landlords could be seeking methods to fully outsource maintenance operations to their tenants, an idea that could be filtering up to institutional multifamily owners as a way to alleviate salary burdens, maintenance overhead and workflow oversight.
RentRedi also linked up with Lessen this month, a technology company focused on institutional property management. The plan, according to a Dec. 4 statement, is “to enable landlords to offer on-demand, no-hassle maintenance and repairs to their tenants.”
Lessen’s growth has been impressive given its market segment. It’s ranked No. 2 on Inc. 5000’s list of America’s fastest-growing companies. RentRedi, no slouch, earned the No. 180 spot, as innovation for property management grows in unison with a lackluster housing market.
