1. FOC for landlord, 10% for tenant.
2. We hate to call ourselves as guarantor, but yes.
3. We have been in market since June 2015. I've personally pump in RM500k into the company.

Some background:

http://property.sinchew.com.my/node/3387
http://www.bloombergtv.my/video/australia-...radar-says-ceo/

1. Tenants can't pay 3 months deposit.
2. Tenants pay 10% extra rental.
3. Tenants reduced savings because pay extra rental.
4. Reduced savings, tenants can't pay 3 months deposit.

Hmm, seems like a vicious cycle in the making. Kesian all the tenants. This arrangement like only benefit owners and Speedrent.

My personal opinion on this system:
For landlord:

Advantage:
- It may make your unit easier for rental due to "easy entry cost" because potential tenant pay less initial cost for renting your unit
 
Risk/disadvantge:
- Instead of getting one lumpsum of deposits (2+1) at the start of tenancy, you only will get it at the end of tenancy, on monthly installment basis.

Example: Rent is RM 2k/month. Landlord instead can collect a big lumpsum RM 6k (2+1 month deposit) at the starting of tenancy, now need to wait till the end of tenancy only can collect the RM2k at last 3 months.   

- If the guarantor (speedrent in this context) not being able to pay you the deposit at the end of tenancy due to some unforseen circumstance, then GG. Although it is unlikely, but landlord to bear this risk.       
For Tenant:

Advantage:
- Easy entry to rent a house, no need to have high initial commitment to rent a house. 

Example: Rent is RM 2k/month. Instead need to pay all the initial deposit cost RM 6k, now just need to pay RM 2.2k then already can rent the house.
Disadvantage/Risk:
- Tenant need to pay 10% extra for this service. I am not sure this 10% is for first month or for additional consecutive months. It just like someone borrow you cash to pay the deposit and charge you 10% of it. 

- This system is leveraging the future credit card repayment capability of the tenant. If tenant already committed to the rental due to low entry package but not able to service it in the upcoming period, then GG.

I suppose the guarantor (speedrent) in this context shall pay the landlord the deposit in three months time, no?

Erm, no die lah, if speedrent still can pay you. But all this hassle can be mitigated if the deposits are collected upfront.

like that u take deposit 6 months oso cannot do anything liaoo...criminal case edi..report police kowtim edi    

I am just looking out for the tenants also ma.
1 month 50% discount then 11 months +10% so its still 60% increase assuming tenancy agreement is 12 months.

No agreement stopping tenant from moving out? Tenancy agreement?

Before I start, disclaimer I'm working for Speedrent, but I always been the negative/abuse guy in the company, finding loophole to exploit most of the time This will be my own fair share of opinion.

First, bad tenants are expected in some way or the other and we try our best to address this. This is bound to happen, so the 3 months guarantee is similar to you receiving your 2+1 deposit. We tackle this issue by volume, if we get let say 50 houses, and 2-3 bad cases, we still able to absorb(staying in green) while you as the landlord couldn't do so.

Second, it's a trade off, pay 10% extra or pay 2+1. I'm 24 and I'm able to pay for my deposit but some people prefer to have extra cash on hand to do business/for any emergency uses while paying an extra 10% fees for this flexibility. It depends on how you value your "stucked" cash. A 1.5k unit means you will have 4.5k stuck to your landlord and as a previous tenant myself, sometimes getting back the deposit from certain landlord isn't a pleasant experience.

Low entry cost is the key point here which means you might deal with more problems as per said. There is a credit card upfront, which means you will need to pass your credit score check upfront, so that saves us a hassle, as the bank already do the job for us.

Early proper warning is another key point to take note here. Some tenants can make up excuse like I'm overseas etc, but you can't lie when your credit card can't be swiped. But then, people like you and me, will say they can say it's issue with bank etc. Remember the 3 months guarantee? Speedrent will transfer you your monthly rent(1st day of the month) regardless if tenant already pay or not, so the stress is actually on Speedrent to get back the cash. Think about it, you don't care anyhow also, you still guaranteed 3 months on-time rent.

It's actually more stress on us to get this to work out and trust me, I been throwing a lot of loopholes/negative feedback for months before we finally come out with this. It's a risky business for us, not much on landlord/tenant side.

What's the worse abuse I can think of? To steal everything then cancel off their card(which already in red, so they need to clear before they can cancel it anyway). Then we turn 1 big round, come back to all the original problem you would face when you renting out your place normally with 2+1 deposit. If they don't cancel it, we still able to charge the card for extra damages they had done, so there is an extra way to get more from your tenant now, instead of just 2+1.

I see a few tenancy agreement questions so I try address it here. We have our own digital signing platform(http://startsign.speedrent.com/), its a normal tenancy agreement with extra clause on no deposit scheme. This is of course by the law, legit, all drafted by our lawyer.
As a point from business, you need to look at this, not as a conventional business way, it's more towards startup style, where we trial and error and pay for our losses as a fees for the experience and continue refining our service to meet the market demands. We probably looking at like 5-10% bad cases which led to the negative view on having bad tenants. Just to tackle this issue, the whole industry decide to implement such regulation, but indirectly it makes house harder to rent out, tenants not able to even rent place even tho they can get the cash flow to finance the monthly rental. We understand it's a huge change to how the industry works, which is why it probably going to be a rough ride and will take a lot of effort just to get this thing to work. It's a very sleepy industry isn't it, very old school way of doing stuff, so time to breathe some fresh air?

Thanks for all the feedback, I try to respond to every query possible because this helps us to strengthen our business case.

@max_cavalera – we are raising money now ☺

@cybertechmkteo – we are very transparent. We launched 3-4 weeks ago, and on a very low profile manner. So far we closed a few deals. On ½ month rent – by using Speedrent, landlord and tenant deal direct without hiring agent. The 1-month commission is saved. We encourage landlord to incentivize tenant to rent direct. From tenant POV, rent through agent or direct? I think it’s an easy choice.

@natman – yes, it’s 3 months, just like your cash deposit buffer period.  There is tenancy agreement. And if they move out in a month, our guarantee kicks in. there is no charges to owner.

@jianninety – it’s a trend that younger generation prefer lifestyle. Just because they pay less 10% does not necessary equate to 10% savings in bank, but I don’t deny your logic. We are currently thinking of NCD sort of discount, if good payment record, following years will get reduced rates. The vision is to build a safe, transparent and automated rental platform where everyone be a good actor.

@samkps – you rightly pointed – regardless how nasty tenant, whether you get cash or speedrent scheme, your risk exposure is the same. And we are raising $ from investors to make sure we have great credibility. Speedrent pays on time regardless if we successfully charge credit card or not. I personally put in RM500k into it to get this running, so hopefully it’s sufficient. We will have ways to deal with defaults later on.

@maraippo @satrianeo-x – I’m not sure if you have kids, but I suspect my kids will have problem saving money because it’s just hard to save now. But do I think my kids would be bad tenants? I don’t think so. It’s just an unstoppable trend. I do know many people voice the same opinion and I respect that. Point taken. 

@psyduck89 – just residential only.

@shadow_walker – why not? ☺


      good one i hope you a great success ahead
@kira90 well, even if it’s not through speedrent, we still can do it somewhat.

@hello hello -