Over the past few months, there has been a huge surge in blockchain startups trying to revolutionize the way we live our lives – from changing the way we play games and use social media, to the way we work and structure our careers.
Now we’re about to witness the launch of something completely new – and it could completely transform the way the long-term rental system works.
The Issues with Long-Term Rentals
Right now there are more people renting than any time since 1965. Combine this with the fact that the number of US households grew by 7.6 million over the past decade, and we have more people renting than ever before.
The problem is, renting comes with some significant drawbacks for both tenants and landlords.
The process of renting is long and arduous. Unresolved maintenance requests, long and arduous application processes, and missed rent payments are common. In popular areas, high-security deposits are common. For many, these are unaffordable and thus lock tenants out of potential housing opportunities, leaving them with a little option about where to live.
Not to mention, many of the rental platforms available today are vastly outdated. Many listings are merely simple classified ads that provide a very limited experience and little value. Often, the information in rental listings does not accurately reflect the property.
Most notably perhaps, is the fact that there are billions of dollars frozen in rental security deposits worldwide belonging to people who desperately need access to this money and can’t afford to have their access blocked.
Meanwhile, US checking account interest rates are plummeting faster than ever.
Solving the Problem
One startup that is already taking steps towards revolutionizing the entire process is Rentberry – the long-term apartment rental platform.
The US-based startup has an extensive list of thousands of houses and apartments for tenants to choose from. It’s available in several different states all across the US and is designed to standardize the apartment rental industry across all states in America.
It provides a completely transparent application process that allows all prospective tenants to negotiate their rental offers with landlords. Tenants can now customize their offers based on their surrounding competition. It is hoped that this change will enable tenants to rent long-term at a fair and accurate price.
The platform has already established itself in the US and has been running smoothly since 2015. But now the team behind Rentberry are pushing to take it yet another step further through the use of blockchain technology.
There is Currently Over $500 Billion USD Locked Away in Rental Security Deposits
The addition of blockchain to this fast-growing platform is designed to increase the social-mindedness of the community.
There is over $500 billion USD currently locked away in rental security deposits, rendering it completely inaccessible to those who need it the most. Rentberry plans to solve this problem.
The platform update now presents tenants with the option of paying only 10% of their security deposit. They can then utilize Rentberry’s community to crowdsource the rest of what they need. In return for their assistance, the community will receive interest from the tenant as a reward.
For example, if a tenant is required to raise $3,000 for a security deposit, they will now have the option of instead only having to raise an upfront payment of $300 and paying an estimated $7 per month to the community members who backed them to raise the remaining $2,700.
Investors are backing the idea with force. They have already provided the team with $4 million USD in seed funding.
Future Plans
As the platform takes off, the team behind Rentberry have plans to incorporate even more new features in the future. This includes an option that will allow tenants to pay their utility bills online along with their rent, and also a scoring system for both tenants and landlords.
The Rentberry team also have plans to expand the platform to become available in Europe and Asia in the near future.
Rentberry’s public ICO commences on the 5th December 2017. There will be a fixed limit of 30,000,000 BERRY tokens, created, which users can purchase with ETH. 1 ETH is equivalent to 2,500 BERRY tokens. The sale will run until 28th February 2017.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos
