Massachusetts-based rental portal grandcentralapartments.com, which was established in May 2003 by President and CEO Ishay Grinberg, has relaunched as rentalbeast.com in order to expand to other US markets.
rentalbeast.com’s interesting “user pays” business model warrants some investigation.
On the company’s website it explains:
“Apartments for rent in Boston, MA usually come with a high price tag. Boston is a community where the renter generally has to pay the broker fee for securing a lease, which is often a full month’s rent fee! That’s in addition to first, last and security deposits that are often required. Could that fee be spared? Rental Beast thinks so.
Rental Beast was established to provide people with a more stress-free, streamlined, comprehensive service for those who are hunting for apartments in Boston or any city in Massachusetts. Rental Beast accomplishes the goal of finding an apartment with the least amount of time and money possible.”
rentalbeast.com claims that it lists between 50 and 300 new apartments each day, and that its website receives over 100,000 hits per month. It’s free for landlords to place listings, but users have to start an account to use the service, with a fee that ranges from $89-$295 (with a money-back guarantee). The company argues that this is significantly less than the usual one month’s rent as a broker’s fee, and that users have access to all the same listings a broker would.
Users choose search criteria, elect a moving date and set up email alerts with rentalbeast.com.
Close to 600 management companies and over 50,000 private owners have already rented their properties with rentalbeast.com.
As a combined rental advisor/portal, rentalbeast.com’s possible expansion into other US markets outside of Massachusetts is worth watching.
Advertising Partner
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I admire Rentalbeast’s determination to try a new listing model, but I don’t see why users will register and pay money before viewing property details. Listings are free which should encourage agents to list their property, however, if the site doesn’t achieve a significant volume of traffic and new users then this interest from agents may die off and thus feed the downwards spiral to less users, less listings, less revenue.
To be fair, this chicken-and-egg problem exists for all new property sites, but charging users of the service when it specifically relies upon the network effect means the site has an uphill struggle from day one.
Mike
i know i worry alot.but i would like for rental beast to call the apartments. and make the apartments with the section 8 voucher and 3what ever.