Rent. Introduces New Feature To Help Renters Live More Cost-Effectively

Online rental marketplace, Rent. has introduced a new feature called Total Cost of Renting to help renters simplify their move with easy budgeting, per Business Wire. The new feature will provide a detailed breakdown of the entire financial commitment for renters, including all the associated costs such as monthly utilities, parking fees, and more. This is the first-of-its kind feature from a rental marketplace that is set to help thousands of renters across the U.S.

Rent. operates under the Rent Group Inc., a subsidiary of Redfin Corporation. Rent.'s network also includes other websites such as ApartmentGuide.com and Rentals.com as well as platforms like Realtor.com. The new feature is now available on every Rent.com listing and it will soon be coming to all listings on ApartmentGuide.com as well. "We make it easy to find a rental that fits your budget and lifestyle,” said Nishant Phadnis, Rent.’s chief product officer in a release.

How does the new feature help renters?

The “Total Cost of Renting” empowers renters with a deeper understanding of all the associated costs for them to make informed decisions about where to live. Prospective renters can also avoid unexpected costs as the new feature clarifies all the expected costs that they will need to pay upfront, including charges that mostly go hidden and crop up over time.

When a renter on the platform clicks on the Total Costs & Fees tab on any rental listing, information on two cost estimates will be provided to them. The first is the estimated total monthly cost that includes the rent, amenity fees, utilities, pet rent and parking fees a tenant can expect to pay each month. The second represents the one-time fees that renters will need to pay before moving in. These costs include security deposits as well as application and admin fees. The feature also supports property managers and owners by helping them to maintain transparency with tenants and promote accountability. By providing all the cost information up front, property managers can appear trustworthy, which will allow them to fill vacancies faster.

Solving an ongoing issue

The feature addresses a longstanding issue in the rental market, which is the transparency regarding the costs of renting a property. Renters often get hit with hidden charges and costs, once they have committed to a property, causing them to fork over more money. Thus, the new feature aims to eliminate all of the surprise fees and enable renters to budget more effectively for their move.

Earlier, short-term renting platform, Airbnb also introduced new features to help increase transparency between city officials and property owners. Airbnb updates its City Portal, allowing the officials to access greater data insights and use new instruments to help them enforce their short-term rental laws.

With the new update, city halls, and tourism officials can get data on the number of guests in a given month, aggregated insights into where guests are traveling from, survey data on the average amount of time a guest spends in the city and local business recommendations from hosts, among others.

Airbnb stated that the new portal update is a part of the company’s efforts to work collaboratively with cities by allowing them to search for listings in their registration system and take action on listings they believe violate local short-term renting regulations.