Rent.com.au Sees Revenue Rise 8% in Q2

The ASX-listed rentals portal company Rent.com.au has seen revenues increase 8% year-on-year despite a listings slow down according to its latest market report.

The Western Australia-based company saw overall revenue climb 8% on the corresponding period of 2021 to A$795k while seeing a 6th consecutive positive EBITDA quarter for its core business.

“Strong performance for what is typically our quietest quarter of the year, to achieve 8% YoY revenue growth is pleasing given the sudden Omicron surges that impacted people’s ability (and desire) to move in our largest cities. It will be interesting to see how the market moves forward as we reach a point where “living with Covid” becomes more of the norm. Whilst property listing volumes remain below pre-Covid levels, we are seeing very positive signs for the coming quarter with new daily sales records being set for those of our products that help people prepare for their move,” said company CEO, Greg Bader.

Aside from its core portal offering, Rent.com.au has also been developing its flagship RentPay product over the last few years and earlier this month announced a A$2.5 million round to help fund a marketing effort for the new FinTech product.

Launched in May 2021 after 18 months of development and several years after its original conception, RentPay lets tenants pay their rent via an app while enabling them to build a reliability scoring and a 'buffer' amount to protect landlords.

“RentPay continues to occupy much of our focus. We recently announced new partnerships with several real-estate agencies, and we will commence onboarding their new and existing customers into the platform this quarter. Penetrating the consumer side of the market remains a priority and our recent capital raise allows us to accelerate the implementation of our learnings from the past 6 months, including a revamped onboarding flow that will halve the number of screens a customer needs to navigate to activate their account. This will make it easier for a customer but also expands their choices and functionality at the same time”, continued Bader.

The company expects that with a tight rental market across much of Australia, its suite of renter products such as its RenterCheck (ID and history check) as well as RentBond (move now, pay later) will continue to see high uptake and fuel adoption of other products.