Rentberry is a decentralized long-term rental ecosystem that will use blockchain technology to make the rental process less costly and more convenient and secure. The transparent ecosystem with verified information on renters and landlords fosters trust between the parties. Rentberry’s proprietary auctioning technology reduces traditional frustrations, scam rates, time delays, and friction points in the rental process to benefit both tenants and landlords. Also, the Rentberry ecosystem will o er the ability for community members to help back quality tenants, unfreezing millions of dollars tied up rental deposits in the process.
The World Needs Rentberry: Here’s Why
Technological evolution has led to the disruption of multiple sectors in recent years. The long term (six months and longer) rental industry has remained relatively stagnant.
Despite so many other industries having been successfully disrupted in recent years (retail, social media, transportation), the long-term property rental space remains mired in tradition and lacks comparable innovation. The process of long-term rentals still results in frustration and lost time for both the owners of rental properties who are looking for additional income and potential tenants who are looking for a place to call home. There has not yet been technological disruption significant enough to usher in a new—and better—way to rent. Here at Rentberry, we aim to change that.
Rentberry claims renting has become an economic and lifestyle choice for 41% of Americans, 55.5% of the Swiss, and 39.9% of Germans, to name just a few countries. Currently, there are over 641 million rental units worldwide and around 2.3 billion people living in long-term rentals. According to the most recent statistics from the UN, there are over 244 million international migrants living worldwide, which creates a large pool of potential users who are likely to benefit from a transparent universal rental platform.
According to a recent Harvard University study, long-term rental behavior has increased among all income groups, age groups, and household types. According to projections by the Urban Institute, as many as 59% of new households to be formed by 2030 will be renting homes instead of buying them. Renting has become the new normal and we believe this trend will continue to hold true for other countries around the world.
Open and Transparent Rental Platform
Rentberry will use blockchain technology to streamline the entire long-term rental process by making it possible for tenants and landlords to complete all rental tasks in one place. These tasks include:
• Searching for properties;
• Making o ers / bids via the Rentberry auctioning platform;
• Screening prospects;
• Selecting the best / most suitable candidates;
• Negotiating the terms;
• Unlocking rental deposits;
• E-signing contracts;
• Paying rent;
• Submitting maintenance requests;
• Hiring third-party service providers (e.g., handymen and plumbers); and
• Enabling landlords to stay connected with tenants.
Benefits for Landlords and Tenants
Duplicated e orts, protracted bureaucratic processes and financial friction are common friction points within the long-term rental market. Rentberry’s platform benefits landlords and tenants as follows:
a. Landlords
Listing Marketing & Syndication
Landlord benefits will include the ability to list any property on the platform with a specified asking price and include detailed information on the given rental unit. Using BERRY tokens, landlords can promote listings on rentberry.com or syndicate to additional rental sites for increased reach and visibility. The fee for property promotion will be dynamic and will depend on the number of other landlords promoting their properties at the same time.
Rental Price Auction
All rental applications will be collected in a user-friendly format with the option to accept or reject any application with a single click. Rentberry’s auctioning technology (described below)
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ensures transparency and fair competition, and it will also ensure that landlords are able to:
• Reduce vacancy rates by seamlessly addressing pricing in depressed market
conditions;
• Capitalize on hot markets by extracting the most value from their properties; and
• Select tenants based on data points beyond the amount they are willing to pay.
The Rentberry Scoring Methodology
As Rentberry evolves, the platform will allow tenants and landlords to rate each other by submitting reviews, and will also allow both parties to assess each other by reference to those reviews and an immutable record of rental activity stored on the blockchain. This information, coupled with publicly available data (e.g., credit reports, background checks, etc.), will be analyzed and processed by Rentberry’s proprietary scoring technology. The Rentberry methodology will be more advanced, decentralized, secure/immutable and intuitive than vertically-focused solutions that analyze only one aspect of a renter’s history (such as Experian credit reports in the U.S.). In addition, since the Rentberry scores are part of the tenant and landlord profiles on the Rentberry platform, they can be used internationally. This will open a number of new possibilities, including by allowing:
• Landlords, in addition to the actual tenant application data, to use the Rentberry scoring system to choose the best tenant for the property;
• Members of the Rentberry community to use the Rentberry scoring system to identify quality tenants they want to back by helping them fund their rental deposits, in return for certain rewards; and
• Tenants to use the landlord scores in addition to open-house visits to find the properties with the best landlord.
Rent Collection and Use of BERRY Tokens
All payments on the platform will be executed in BERRY tokens. Landlords will be able to collect rent in BERRY tokens seamlessly and securely and use it for other services on the platform, such as to:
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• Pay for property promotion and marketing which will feature their properties at the top of search results and highlight them in a di erent color on the map of available rentals;
• Use BERRY tokens to help quality tenants by covering a portion of their rental deposits
in exchange for rewards in the form of BERRY tokens;
• Hire third-party service providers, such as house cleaners, handymen, plumbers,
electricians, etc.
Crowdsourced Rental Deposit Coverage
The Rentberry community (tenants, landlords, friends family ) will have the ability to utilize their BERRY tokens to cover a portion of rental deposits for selected tenants in exchange for rewards in the form of BERRY tokens (i.e., an interest rate type return, paid in BERRY tokens, as a reward for having funded part of the rental deposit). This will allow otherwise-qualified tenants who might otherwise not be able to a ord a rental deposit to rent an apartment, and by having others contribute to their rental deposit, providing them with better reputational and financial credibility with potential landlords. This will also give landlords access to a larger pool of qualified applicants and increase their ability to rent apartments.
Rental Contract Execution
Tenants can securely and safely execute a legal contract which is signed by the parties using their blockchain keys / identities and then immutably store that contract on the blockchain. This can be done in seconds without wasting paper or crucial time. Execution of the contract will lead to an automatic settlement (transfer of BERRY tokens) under the terms of the smart contract, reducing the friction, time and reconciliation issues associated with confirming initial deposit and rental payments.
Maintenance Requests
Once the property is rented, tenants will be able to conveniently submit maintenance service requests to the landlords. All requests will be stored in the system and will be able to be accessed at any time in case of disputes in the future. Tenants who record this activity on the Rentberry blockchain platform will have proof that they reported issues in a timely manner,
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thereby reducing the potential for liability for additional damage that they allegedly failed to report promptly, or not at all.
Security of Tenant Information
All of a tenant’s relevant personal data (e.g., financial, rental history, credit rating, references and reviews) will be secured immutably on the blockchain. This data will be wholly owned and controlled by the tenant and only made visible to the landlord when the tenant makes a rental application using their private key / wallet on their mobile and/or web app.