From left: Rently co-founder Siebren Kamphorst, COO; Tarik Stafford, CPO; and Dominic Schacher (Photo: Samuel Isaac Chua/EdgeProp Singapore)
SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) – When Swiss national Dominic Schacher, co-founder of proptech start-up Rently, moved to Singapore in 2015, he was put off by the lack of transparency and lengthy administration process of apartment rentals.
New to the local real estate market, he didn’t know how to find a good agent and had to rely on recommendations from friends. He was also worried about the high deposit, as he wasn’t sure the landlord would pay the money back. “I remember handing the check to the agent, who I didn’t know,” he says. “I only had his business card and (hoped) he was trustworthy.”
Since then, other problems have emerged, such as the rise in rental fraud involving fake listings or fake landlords. Schacher observes that traditional rental listing platforms are becoming more expensive for agents and increasingly outdated. “The same apartment can be listed multiple times on these platforms, making it difficult for potential tenants to view the actual apartment,” he says. “We spoke to the CEA (the Council for Estate Agencies) about this and they said it was a big problem for them too.”
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Another problem Schacher has noticed is new agents using nonexistent listings to get potential renters to contact them. Such listings can artificially inflate the number of listings on a website.
These problems prompted Schacher and four others – Tarik Stafford, Chief Product Officer (CPO); Siebren Kamphorst, Chief Operating Officer (COO); Emeric Martin, Head of Design; and Turan Kutlay Kunbi, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – to found Rently in 2022. Rently is a start-up that aims to simplify the rental process through digitalization and make it more transparent and secure for both tenants and landlords.
Financial supporters
Officially launched in February 2023, Rently is a centralized platform that handles the entire rental process from start to finish. It starts with rental offers for different apartment types from single rooms to entire penthouses, offers insurance, facilitates the payment of security deposits and mediates in potential disputes between tenants and landlords, even after the lease has ended.
There are also checks in place to verify that landlords and listings are genuine and tenants are reliable. The platform is integrated with SingPass to ensure user authenticity, including checking a tenant’s background and creditworthiness.
Currently, the platform has a total of between 1,600 and 1,800 units listed – of which 400 are still available for rent. The company is currently in its start-up phase and is financially backed by multi-family office Aument Capital Partners, of which Schacher is the founder and CEO. Other investors in Rently include Dieter Schlosser, the former CEO of SoftwareOne, who has been on the board since January. Schlosser is also a major investor and chairman of Web Inclusion, a European technology provider for digital accessibility software under the Eye-Able brand. Dhruv Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of REA India, which owns several digital real estate platforms in India, is also an investor in Rently.
Deposit-free service, dispute resolution
Rently’s deposit-free service is the first of its kind, says Schacher. “Nobody was offering this service,” he claims. It’s a gap that a proptech company like Rently can fill. “From my personal experience, deposits can be a big problem,” he adds. “When I first came to Singapore, I found it difficult to pay for them.”
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Rently offers security deposit financing and dispute resolution services through a monthly subscription called Rently Care that covers the entire rental period. Any renter can subscribe to the service, even if they did not rent through a listing on the company’s platform. Subscription fees are not standardized and differ for each renter, depending on factors such as the type of property rented, the monthly rent, the length of the lease, and the renter’s creditworthiness.
Schacher points out that subscription fees make up about 80% of Rently’s revenue. The company also makes money from the service fees charged to rental partner owners. Unlike other listing platforms, Rently does not charge rental owners any fees to list their properties.
Rently’s new business model was initially slow to catch on with tenants. “They thought it was too good to be true that the company was willing to take on the risk of paying deposits,” Schacher says. But the last three months have seen a turnaround and an upswing, especially after Rently entered into partnerships with established hospitality providers such as Far East Organization and Frasers Hospitality, as well as co-living operator Habyt.
Another aspect of Rently Care is the dispute resolution service. Subscribers are required to take lots of photos of the unit for documentation purposes, which are stored in Rently’s inventory. In the event of a dispute, Rently can use these photos to determine whether a landlord’s claim is legitimate and use these photos as evidence if the dispute is brought before the Small Claims Tribunal.
According to Schacher, conflict management has been effective so far, with only three or four cases being brought to court. “With corporate mediators and financial support, this generally ensures that everyone stays honest,” he adds.
More diverse rental offer
The company plans to expand its reach in Singapore by offering more listings through further partnerships. Currently, its partners are institutional landlords, but Rently also wants to open its platform to individual agents who specialize in rental properties.
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The down payment financing service is a good proposition for agents as it has increased the lease conversion rate by 20-30% compared to traditional listing platforms. “Conversion of users to renters is higher because we take the down payment,” says Schacher. “We also fully insure them and manage the inventory online, eliminating all the paperwork and making renting stress-free and easier for renters. Aside from not having to pay anything to list, agents can also close deals faster through our platform.”
However, the selection process for agents will be rigorous, so only qualified agents will be listed on the Rently platform. Of the 35,251 agents registered with the CEA in January, only a few are active, full-time rental specialists. “There are many good agents in Singapore,” says Schacher. “We want to open our platform to these high-quality partners and agents to make it attractive for renters to choose us over other platforms.”
Schacher is expanding the platform beyond housing. In March, Rently partnered with coworking operator The Working Capitol and cloud kitchen provider Smart City Kitchens to offer access to workspaces and central kitchen spaces. “Anything related to real estate, be it residential or commercial, suffers from similar problems like finding the right place, paying the security deposit, paying rent on time and getting the security deposit back when you move out,” he explains. “For us, cloud kitchens and coworking spaces are very similar to housing in the problems they face.”
Expansion plans abroad
In addition to expanding beyond the residential rental sector, Rently also intends to diversify its services geographically. The company hopes to enter the United Arab Emirates in the second quarter of 2024. Schacher believes that the UAE suffers from similar issues such as a lack of transparency and financing problems in rent payments.
“The UAE has a good regulatory framework like Singapore, with courts that can handle rental disputes between landlords and tenants, which is why our business model can work there,” he says. “It’s a very similar market to Singapore, only bigger and faster.”
After launching this year, the company plans to begin its A round of funding sometime in the second half of 2024. “We’re careful about how quickly we move forward,” Schacher notes. “We’re focused on maintaining quality as we grow. We can easily release listings and ask brokers to list them on the platform for free. But the quality you get in return is very poor.”
In the future, he hopes Rently will be a reliable and trustworthy one-stop shop for all types of rental properties. “We want landlords to turn to us to list their properties online, where they have access to credit lines and a property management system,” he adds. “On the renter side, we want to be what Booking.com is for travel, so if you want to rent something, go to Rently.”
His goal is that in five years, anyone new to Singapore who needs to rent a room or an apartment will be told, “Just go to Rently,” he says.
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