Rent.com Prepares for Small Buildings
Go to the Manage Property section of Rent.com and they are accepting your email to notify you when they offer service for apartments with less than 20 units. The June 2007 decision to stop servicing this market was blamed on preparation to release services to support this segment.
Being responsible for fewer than 20 units, a property manager may have enough time to find potential residents on CraigsList. Their needs may not be all that different than what Rent.com already offers. The difference is that the property manager may be more intimate with the tenants and offer them a reward larger than $100 to not report the lease, saving them $289 net. Though this is against the user agreement, it is a hole in the business model. Rent.com will lose more in administration of threatening litigation than it could hope to recover, especially considering a risk-reward average of the efforts.
Does anyone have any speculations on what Rent.com will offer?
