Dealing with insurance another big headache and who knows the sort of clauses which they insert into the agreement which in most cases, always protects the insurance companies first and Speedrent next. Ambiguous terms that are almost always in their favor.

Us owners will always get the shorter end of the stick. Sad but true.

HeAted discussion here XD

Seeing potential tenant tonight from speedrent, will see how it goes.

Don't mind supporting a new business start up like this.
Hope it turns out good!

I do know some high income Earners who barely save, they spend how much they earn. Haha.. so it's possible that there isn't market for those who want to rent but do not wan to pay 3 months deposit.

If it's charged to credit card, then it should not be concern. But if it's cash term then we must judge ourselves whether we are comfortable with the tenant after seeing them.

Owner paying the same one month commission (in the name of insurance, etc)
Owner get to handle everything like tenant filter, etc
Owner cannot receive any deposit and at the end if anything need to claim insurance

Why go through all these hassle?? I rather just use agent at the end.
Tenant who can’t pay deposit = tenant who potentially will not pay rent and all responsibility at the end will falls to Owner.

It was a good idea until this stupid idea of insurance came into the picture and try to use owner’s house to make money and pass all risk to owner.

There’s no win win here at all.

A BIG NO to cash payment tenant, will trouble in future!! speedrent cheating at beginning said tenant pay by credit card but in the end he is pay by cash. make a strict deal with speedrent if tenant pay cash or cancel credit card payment just void the agreement. unless u can accept it.

I saw some feedback here and mostly negative experience with Speedrent. I believe most of them were genuine feedback but some were very wrong.

First of all, I wish to explain what Speedrent is really about.

It started with a simple frustration. I needed to lease my house in 2014 ASAP, contacted 50 agents through SMS, 10 responded, and ONLY 2 came to take photo of my unit. 1 month later, it was rented out. Towards the 4th/5th month, I've had rental collection issue, agent didn't bother to help. Fortunately the tenant was oversea and therefore didn't pay on time.

But during the moment of frustration, I thought:

What if I only SMS 10 agents and none of them responded?
Why am I paying the fees to agent when there is zero after-sales service, especially when I needed them the most?

That got me started to think.

Is there any platform that is especially designed for landlord to manage their rental house easily and deal with all the hassle, I would pay for it because property rental is suppose to be a god damn passive income! And that became the vision guiding me in building Speedrent as the dream of all landlords.

There were a lot of outdated information in this thread. And I have myself to blame for not following up this thread closely. More importantly, there is limited information on our website and everyone took all opinions here as what Speedrent is. I started responding in Aug, and we are in the midst of creating a lot of articles to explain what Speedrent is. But since it's not fast enough, I'll write few simple answers for everyone to read. My response may be aggressive in certain answers, but I wish all landlord read it with an open mind.

Click on the below links for whichever topic that you are interested in:

Customer Service False Information / Delayed Rental Payment
Speedrent not working, no tenant at all!
Speedrent = Agent? Use Agent better?
The killer No Deposit, sounds like a scam
How does Speedrent Tenancy Agreement work, esp Termination

I can be reached at wm@speedrent.com or 0192679338.

This post has been edited by wheimeng: Aug 24 2017, 05:58 AM

Great Q&A
How about if the tenant decided to terminate the tenancy halfway? Usually as landlord we have right to forfeit the deposit
Similarly if landlord decided to terminate the tenancy halfway.

Added your question to my main response, you can read here.

Great platform, will definitely give it a try when I'm looking for tenant soon.

With a bit of tweaking I think your platform will hit a market sweet spot. The rental range seems to be ok given conscious budget targeted mass market and for landlord usually this range of market the unit only comes with bare or built in fitted therefore reducing damages concern.

But I think volume (landlord and tenant) is very important so that both can get leads. Maybe you need to spend more effort (time & $$$) for exposure. Time is always essence for landlords and if we didn't get any leads, we may just give up the idea altogether.

gks, yes, that's always the plan to grow. There is a lot of new concept and the way we think about rental. And we need to do a lot of education work, as well as support from landlord and tenant!

Thanks for your encouragement and keep the feedback coming back.

More options out there is always good for the market whether to tenants, landlords and agents.

Hi Wheiming,
I see that there's also an option of online transfer instead of credit card.
What happened if the tenant does not online transfer the rental on time?
Any penalty?
For me as an owner, the most important thing is the on-time rental at the early of the month.
So just wondering how speedrent can protect owners from that.

Cause I see that the app is considering fairness and benefit for young tenants a lot,
but what about the benefit for owners?

Hi Wheiming,

As far as I know the tenant just need to pay 2 months rental before moving, which is 1st month and 12th month rentals.
1st month rental will be 10% discounted by using CIMB card.
And 12th month rental will not be given to the owner but automatically becomes the insurance and platform fee right?

However, owner and tenant both have to organize and meet up by themselves without any speedrent people around.
That is somehow a bit unsafe for us owner to meet tenant directly.
which I feel that if the 12th month rental already taken by speedrent as the platform fee and insurance, then it would be better if speedrent can also come out as a 3rd party to arrange meet up in person together with tenant and owner to ensure the safety of both parties.

Honestly, i have just started using your service last month but I feel there is no guarantee for owner's safety.
Cause there was a tenant telling me that she is local Malay lady and asking me to contact her directly by whatsapp for viewing, but eventually turned out to be an African guy. As a lady owner myself who is alone, I was shocked and luckily there was a security guard around.

Probably this is a point for you guys to improve your system, since the platform fee is collected, there might be a better way to ensure the safety for both owner and tenant.

That's just my opinion after using your service.Appreciate if there is a better improvement.

This post has been edited by ken12345: Oct 6 2017, 11:20 AM

We started with credit card but found out that penetration of credit card is fairly low (20-30%). Credit card can help us to collect rental more promptly, and there are declined credit cards whenever we try to charge. So not a foolproof solution.

Credit card and cash are a mean to payment, not the ultimate solution to timeliness. Our current experience is most tenants pay on time, through online banking or cash deposit.

So yes, credit card in a generalised view has better predictability compared to other means, but it's not guaranteed (e.g., exceeded credit limit).

We do not see Speedrent as biased towards tenants. In fact, we see our solution is a better solution for both landlord and tenant. Deposit is a legacy solution that does not protect landlord well, and at the same time create financial burden for the tenants.

e.g., the deposit does not cover damages well, especially we have heard so many landlord stories on tenant wrecked the house/furniture that costs them 5 figures easily.

The insurance that Speedrent worked out with Allianz, offers superior protection to landlord (2 months rental guarantee + RM15000 damage/theft on household content + RM1000 inconvenience benefit + 2x demand letter), while at the same time removing financial burden for tenant.

It's a fairer and better solution for both parties.

Sorry to hear your experience. We will have option soon to verify tenant identity, safe, easy and transparent are the 3 key elements that we want to offer.

We expect by Nov this feature will be available to all. By then, hopefully you feel more secured in using Speedrent.

Thank you for your feedback, truly appreciate it!

p/s: CIMB discount has expired, no longer have that.

wheimeng

Can you clarify the below-

1. Fee - basically no different from using agent, just that benefit in timing (pay later rather than upon signing tenancy agreements)
2. Insurance - at landlord cost but Speedrent gets commission
3. Deposit - if tenant goes rogue, Speedrent pays using the deposit. If tenant is good, Speedrent gets to use the deposit for its investment. So it's opportunity cost to landlord.

This post has been edited by David_77: Oct 8 2017, 07:11 PM

1. How do you ensure that my property is well-taken care of and it will not be damaged by errant tenant?
2. How do you find the said tenant. Do you carry out background check? etc
3. If the tenant did not pay rental it is Speedrent will be assisting to chase for the rental? Is there a guarantee scheme if tenant run away I'll get my money back since I have to pay Speedrent 1 month of commission.

@david77

1. Fee - basically no different from using agent, just that benefit in timing (pay later rather than upon signing tenancy agreements)

Yes, that's true. But there is a big difference in later (last month vs agent first month)

Traditionally, you pay first month to agent upon finding a tenant. Speedrent you pay the last month upon tenant successfully completed the tenancy.

If a tenant, for whatever reason does not complete the agreed term, you have 1 month less. Where else at Speedrent, you don't pay for anything. Entire service is FOC to you.

2. Insurance - at landlord cost but Speedrent gets commission

Refer to 1. If a tenant doesn't complete the agreed term, insurance will be FOC for you.

3. Deposit - if tenant goes rogue, Speedrent pays using the deposit. If tenant is good, Speedrent gets to use the deposit for its investment. So it's opportunity cost to landlord.

Landlord tends to focus on the opportunity cost (losses) paying to a person who provide service. But what I wish to highlight, the real opportunity cost is leaving the house idle (1 month? 2 months or even 6 months rental losses?), not generating the cash flow (or rental yield) as a result of delayed rental.

IMO, that is where the real opportunity cost people are sacrificing.

As a property investor, rental yield / generating cash flow is the key focus. A person can potentially save a penny here and there, but losing a pound. Hope that answers your question.

What do you think?

@heavenly91

1. We like to use credit scoring as a mean to predict a person's behaviour. Is that foolproof? No, but we are emulating the process of a bank approving a loan to property rental.

2. We advertise on Facebook, Google to attract tenant. Right now we perform credit screening and background check when both landlord and tenant decided to do a deal. In Nov, we will move the credit screening process upfront, in hope to filter a poor scoring tenant before they get to you. @ken12345 asked this question too.

3. Yes, by default, all rental will flow through Speedrent before going to landlord. So that when a tenant doesn't pay rental on time, we know it and can act on it. Part of the insurance coverage also have lawyers to send demand letter to tenant when they are overdue.

And for the 1 month fee, as mentioned to @david77 - you don't pay for the fee when tenant run away because you only pay when the tenant successfully completed the term of stay.