NowRenting.com is an online property-management platform that connects prospective tenants with landlords and leasing companies. The company specializes in residential real estate and has a national scope. Launched in 2016 as a part-time effort by the software engineers who started Cyber Care LLC, the company was relaunched as a full-time effort earlier this year. Edward Giardina, a company founder, explained the business concept.
PBN: What is NowRenting.com?
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GIARDINA: NowRenting is an all-in-one digital assistant for rental professionals and landlords, to help automate and radically simplify the rental process.
PBN: How does it work?
GIARDINA: It starts with the vacancy. The goal is to provide lightning-fast tenants. With the vacancy, you enter in your listing details. We then syndicate across the web, to various partners that we’ve agreed to have relationships with. As potential applicants find the listing or the vacancy of the apartment they’re interested in, they’ll apply. NowRenting responds back with prescreened questions. General questions, [such as] “Do you smoke? Do you have pets?” Any questions the landlord or leasing agent is interested in learning before going on to the next step, [which is] interviewing the applicant. They can text message, email, voicemail through the system. Once the leasing agent finds somebody they are interested in, they can go ahead and do a background check through TransUnion. That will provide a credit report, a [criminal] background report and an eviction report.
PBN: Does the list of vetted candidates then go to the landlords?
GIARDINA: Yes, they can then schedule showings. Once someone is found, they can create a digital lease through the software. Both parties can electronically sign for that lease. You can customize a lease.
PBN: What is the advantage of using NowRenting, as opposed to a traditional real estate service?
GIARDINA: If you are interested in showing the apartment, the software can do everything else. If you absolutely do not want to show the apartment, you will probably stay with a traditional agency.
The software is one, very affordable. There are three packages. The first is free. That gives you all of the functionality in NowRenting, with the exception of your own private, virtual telephone number and the ability to syndicate to our partners. The next step is the professional plan, it’s $9 a month. That will give you everything, including a virtual phone number and syndication, but it’s limited to one user. [The business application for multiple users is] $59 a month.
PBN: If I am a prospective tenant, applying for a particular apartment, is my information or data being shared?
GIARDINA: If you submit a request for an [optimal] apartment, none of that background data is being shared. Because we do background checks through TransUnion, that data is … kept within TransUnion, and eventually dissolved [by them]. We don’t touch that.
Mary MacDonald is a staff writer for the PBN. Contact her at macdonald@pbn.com.
