A Belleville, Ont. company may have come up with a solution to help inexperienced landlords solve one of their biggest challenges — finding tenants who can pay the rent on time.
There is now an App for that.
Thanks to a shortage in available affordable housing in southern Ontario, landlords don’t have a problem finding applicants. Finding out which ones will make good tenants, is another matter.
Chad Guziewicz is a Belleville entrepreneur who believes he has the answer to the housing crisis, which is to encourage homeowners to share their space using an App that helps inexperienced landlords financially vet perspective tenants.
“We want people to come and be a part of the revolution that will help us solve the housing crisis,” says Guziewicz, owner of Rentify.house.
In the current market, small landlords looking to rent a room, basement apartment or even their entire house, have no way of accessing the financial records of potential tenants, to validate the information they provide.
The financial risk can be high.
“Today the process is broken,” says Guziewicz. “If you went for a loan from the bank today you would have to be stress-tested, they would check and see if you could afford the place. And landlords should be doing the same thing if tenants are moving in.”
Guziewicz demonstrated how the App works on his desk top computer. “So if the tenant decides they wanted to rent the property they would either click on the link below, down here, or the apply now button.”
The App, called Rentify.house, can be added to a rental ad, requiring the potential tenant to have their financial history checked. But they have to agree to it.
“They’ll be able to see what their income was, what their closing balance was, if they’ve been paying their rent.”
From the perspective of the inexperienced property owner, the soon-to-be-launched App will give them the resources that large rental and property companies already have.
“The problem has been getting accurate information from our perspective,” says Jamie Troke, owner of Ekort Realty Ltd.
Troke is a property manager, who looks after single units and houses, as well as multiple units in apartment buildings.
The Rentify.house App will be launched in the spring of 2020. It will cost a landlord under $100 to vet up to 40-rental applications, giving landlords more due diligence and some comfort in choosing the best tenants.
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