College Buddys Form a Rental Website
Three college friends who grew tired of paperwork hassles while leasing property to renters
have developed an online site that modernizes the age-old deal between landlords and renters by making it electronic.
The 20-something entrepreneurs working on the fifth floor of a rented Brickyard office in downtown Tempe flipped the switch on their site, RentalSpaceNetwork.com, last week after two years of development.
Asked why someone else hadn’t come up with the idea, Zlotoff said, “You’re right. But think of all the times you have a good idea and never act on it. Surely you’ve thought of things and just figured someone else would do it.”
The partners said they funded their start-up with several hundred thousand dollars from private investors.
But the biggest investment came from the three friends themselves, who spent countless hours researching rental laws across the country, buying domain names from Scottsdale-based Godaddy.com, developing the site’s security features and creating a word-of-mouth marketing plan that rewards anyone who refers business their way.
The site is free to renters but costs landlords $24.99 per month per property, or $199 per year per property. Apartment landlords pay $34.99 a month and $279 a year to advertise their units on the site.
Image via usrentallistings
Steve Hessian on April 26th, 2008 10:23 am
Small businesses like this are the future. This is the logical extension of “find a need and fill it” type mentality.
I love it!
Tim on April 26th, 2008 7:53 pm
Now if only they could make the tenants pay up too! Too often I’ve heard excuses for not paying the rent on time. For some of our true stories, check out our real estate profits and losses series at http://TheMoneyKings.com
In any case, I think this is a good idea, I just think it has markets it’ll work well in (middle and upper class families), and markets that just won’t be able to benefit from it (low income families).
Hugh Barton on April 26th, 2008 11:13 pm
“You’re right. But think of all the times you have a good idea and never act on it. Surely you’ve thought of things and just figured someone else would do it.”
Youth can really change the world if they just put their hearts to whatever they wanna do. They just made things easier once again for businessmen like me.
Melanie D. on April 27th, 2008 12:00 am
I see future CEOs. I hope these kids come up with more businesses which will not only lessen inconvenience but will also generate new platforms for marketing.
Robert on June 28th, 2008 5:26 pm
I post my vacation rental property on Homeaway.com and vrbo.com. The other day I received an inquiry on my Homeaway.com posting, that read as follows:
“Hi, I am inquiring about your rental, my husband and I rented a vacation property near your place last year and had a wonderful time. We want to come back next year, but the gentleman we rented from informed us that he is booked during the time we want to stay. Your place looks very nice and my husband and I would like to possibly reserve it for next year. I just had a few questions. The last gentlemen we reserved from had us sign up on a website called rentalspacenetwork.com and sign an electronic lease. He also had us make our reservation deposit and payment through this site. Do you use this service as well? If not, how would we go about signing an agreement and getting you a reservation deposit? I am a little leery about sending a check in the mail. We are already registered on this website, so it would be very convenient for us…I look forward to hearing from you. Warm Regards, Carol Thomas ”
In subsequent emails, this person attempted to push me toward rentalspacenetwork.com. Here’s the problem: According to this stry, rentalspacenetwork.com wasn’t operational last year. So my question is this: Is this the marketing tactic of rentalspacenetwork.com and its 20something entrepreneurs, or is it the result of its referal incentive? Either way, it makes me very unlikely to ever list on this site.
Robert on September 2nd, 2008 7:19 pm
This is a follow-up to my posting of 6/28. It appears the inquiry I received, which was received by other vacation rental property owners in Arizona, was the effort of someone to abuse rentalspacenetwork’s referral policy. Rentalspacenetwork has since changed its referral policy to prevent this type of abuse. I’ve been assured by the firm’s COO that this was not a marketing tactic by rentalspacenetwork and they have taken necessary steps to prevent similar occurrences in the future. I believe this was a scam perpetrated by someone outside the company and that necessary measures have been taken to prevent it in the future. I would have removed or modified my original posting, but this does not seem possible.
Stephanie on September 29th, 2008 6:43 am
I also received this email about rentalspacenetwork from my Craigslist posting and decided it wasn’t a bad idea to sign up and receive payments online. The site has tons of loop holes you have to get through just to get a payment from my tenant. There is no phone # to contact support, the number listed on BBB is disconnected, and I’ve yet to receive a response to my inquiry. So far its been a toal waste of $99.
Stephanie on September 29th, 2008 8:47 am
Let me update my response…they actually responded right after my posting and offered to refund the $99 since there was a change in the terms of their payment vendor. At this time they cannot accepts payments greater than $100 so I have asked for a refund.
Caroline on September 30th, 2008 12:55 pm
I signed up for this service a few weeks ago, and so far it is working out great. My husband and I have 5 rental properties and we had two come up for rent in the past month. We were contacted from our ad on the site for one of our properties and we were easily able to get an application and lease filled out and signed online. Right now you can only accept fees for applications, but I am told that they will soon accept rent payments. They also said they will have a credit and criminal background check service on the site soon. I don’t think my husband and I will ever go back to the old paper leasing method. Anyways, I highly recommend this service to Landlords as it will take away a lot of the headache that goes along with finding a good tenant.
Denise on October 1st, 2008 5:35 pm
A friend told me about this website and I decided to check it out. As a realtor, I have to say that this is a great idea. Electronic signatures have been around for a while now, and it is about time that the real estate industry started utilizing them. I get a lot of investor clients who ask me whether I think they should hire a property management company. I always tell them no because they can be expensive and it is very hard to find a good one. With online services like this, anyone can be a do it yourself landlord. I am going to start recommending my investor clients to this site and I only hope that more real estate services will follow in these young men’s footsteps. The business world is online now and if you’re not doing everything you can to make your business more technologically savvy, then you will get left behind, especially in these tough economic times.
Tom on October 7th, 2008 6:35 pm
Thought I would give a review of this site as I have been a member for the last three months. First off, those who manage rental properties know that it can be a big pain. Running across town to meet with tenants takes up a lot of time and gas. I signed up for this site hoping that it would alleviate some of the pain I was feeling at the pump. After getting used to the site, I can now say that it is helping me in a big way. With the use of this site, my small property management company has become virtually paperless. I am spending less time meeting with tenants and have more time to focus on other things. If you manage properties and are sick of the fax machine, filing cabinet and appointments you should give this website a try. It may not be for everyone, but anyone who could use some more time on their hands should give it a try.
Donna on October 23rd, 2008 2:24 pm
This site has been great at giving my 2 Vacation Rentals exposure. It is very easy to upload your ads and the CL posting feature is great.
Robin on November 10th, 2008 11:57 am
A+ website for renting and managing your properties, one of the best values I have found online.
Thomas on February 17th, 2009 9:18 am
This site is great, I own a few vacation rentals and have booked quite a few reservations through this site. Their new vacation rental lease is great and makes my life and the lives of the people who rent from me much easier.
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