With soaring rent, your bank account may be missing a few zeroes but not everyone is up in arms about it. For rental payment company RentPay (ASX: RNT), it has been a period of growth.

Australia’s website made for renters has achieved a significant milestone of $100 million in rent paid through its platform since it’s relaunch in May 2021. 

Rent.com.au CEO, Greg Bader, commented, “We have a strong belief that RentPay is a vehicle by which we can empower renters to build a better financial future while at the same time also building a better financial outcome for our shareholders.” 

Most renters pay as per the agent’s schedule—a “long-accepted norm” in the industry. After all, it was designed to help an agent maximise efficiency by aligning payments to their internal processes. 

RentPay, however, places power in the hands of the renter. An agent still sets the payment schedule but a renter has the flexibility via RentPay to shift their payments to suit their needs. It is a bit of a mind shift, but, as per the Company, a growing percentage of renters are paying when they want to, with all different timing combinations being used by customers. 53% of renters who are utilising the time shifting functionality are doing so to sync their rent payments with their payday, taking care of their biggest expense first.

The Company did not mention how the homeowners feel about this flexibility though.

Bader added, “Our marketing efforts are having a positive impact, both in terms of general awareness and generating accelerated growth in active customers. With the majority of our customer base being younger tech-savvy professionals, marketing is predominantly being conducted via social media channels (via Meta i.e. Instagram and Facebook, as well as Tik Tok), with additional content and formats to come to amplify this.” 

“These channels lend themselves to accurate measurement of results and we’re continually optimising our marketing mix to ensure we’re getting the best return we can on our marketing spend.” 

RentPay states that it is a two-sided marketplace, benefiting both renters and those managing rent rolls.  The priorities for those managing a rent roll are firstly to ensure that they receive the rent that is due in full and on time. Secondly, they need to do so efficiently. RentPay is attractive to them because it streamlines rent collections, and agents don’t need to chase renters for payment. 

Also, by offering features that provide flexibility and cashback to renters for managing their payments, RentPay leads to better than industry default rates. As a result, besides its marketing efforts, the Company is visiting positive feedback from agents. 

In the ongoing inflationary environment, flexibility is a gift. However, too much flexibility could hurt agents’ experience on the platform, but being on the renters’ side is proving profitable for the Company. While Rent.com.au is its main arm, it has been suffering a decline over the past few months, with its revenue falling from $788k to $595k between Q1 FY23 and Q3. On the other hand, RentPay has been seeing increased adoption thanks to more aggressive marketing efforts and adoption. 

Plus, the ongoing housing crisis sure makes for good word-of-mouth.