San Francisco-based short-term rental management company Rentl on Wednesday launched ‘Powered by Rentl,’ an end-to-end backend platform that enables brokerages to launch branded short-term rental programs for homeowners in their market at no cost.
Rentl CEO Scott Drexel
Rentl co-founder and CEO Scott Drexel says the global short-term vacation industry is slated to generate $170 billion by 2019, and that ‘Powered by Rentl’ allows brokerages to expand their client base by applying their real estate knowledge to the rental industry.
“The vacation rental market has exploded in recent years, but it’s largely marginalized the single most knowledgeable real estate resource in any market — the agent,” said Drexel in a press release. “That’s left brokerages with two suboptimal choices: build their vacation rental program in-house, or turn away potential clients.”
“Powered by Rentl allows them to leverage the brand they’ve worked so hard to build, and enhance the services they provide to clients, without having to take resources away from their core business,” he added.
To launch a ‘Powered by Rentl’ site, brokerages must sign a master agreement with Rentl that gives the company permission to build and operate a custom-branded short-term rental program on behalf of the brokerage. Once the agreement is signed, brokerages can begin inviting homeowners to use their site using branded collateral provided by Rentl.
Drexel says the agreements don’t stipulate how long the brokerages must use Rentl’s services, and brokerages are free to cancel the agreement at any time.
“We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for brokerages to step into the short-term rental market,” he said.
The site will bear the brokerage’s name (e.g. John Smith Realty Vacation Rentals powered by Rentl), and Rentl will be in charge of all operations, which includes properly pricing listings using their proprietary demand-responsive pricing algorithm, cross-channel marketing on sites such as Airbnb, HomeAway, VRBO, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com, guest vetting, the check-in and check-out process, listing maintenance, and payments.
Rentl says brokerages will be able to generate revenue through an unspecified property management fee split between Rentl and the brokerage. Beyond the fee split, brokerages have the opportunity to create new leads as rental guests begin booking properties through their site, said the company.
Although Rentl’s short-term vacation management platform for homeowners is currently only available in North Lake Tahoe, South Lake Tahoe, Truckee, and Greater Palm Springs, Calif., and Breckenridge and Vail, Colo., the ‘Powered by Rentl’ platform has been optimized for rapid deployment in any market, Drexel told Inman.
“We have built our technology to be quickly scalable and replicable from market to market, so that we can manage new markets from our HQ in San Francisco, and seamlessly coordinate with service providers on the ground,” he explained.
