Rental Beast Hands Agents Their Own Pair of Binoculars, Putting Profits in Focus
The rental industry has always been challenged when it comes to empowering agents. That’s how the idea for Rental Beast, an MLS for rentals to make agents’ lives easier, was born, says CEO Ishay Grinberg. The agent-turned-broker became well-acquainted with rentals during the start of his career, and quickly isolated the pain point: a fragmented marketplace in which agents were unable to truly engage and succeed with rentals.
Grinberg’s first commission was a testament to the work that needed to be done from within the industry. After working three months as an agent, he made $182.50—little reward for someone who spent his first months on the job working as hard as anyone could work.
“In my view, this wasn’t a 9-to-5 job. It was eight days a week hustling as hard as I could, and that low commission was very deflating,” he says.
And that’s why he set a goal.
“In any market we exist, we want to provide 100 percent of the total inventory of the rental marketplace. By doing that, we can supercharge careers,” says Grinberg. “Commissionable transactions happen in three days instead of three months, or nationally six months—with immediate income, instead of an eventual $9K in first-year commissions.”
The biggest value-add for agents is in the data Rental Beast provides.
“No other company has a robust, multi-sourced, constantly evolving repository of all things rentals. Our database is like a powerful pair of binoculars. With them, we see further down the road than anyone else,” says Grinberg.
With easier access to this information, today’s agents can better leverage their tenant and rental listing prospects to build a profitable business.
“In this way, Rental Beast makes a real estate career a reality,” says Grinberg. “When you use the rental platform, you close rental deals in a few days and make exponentially more income. Agents’ commission income increases by 50 percent all the way to 500 percent, with an average increase of 102 percent over the first 12 months. We’re pretty excited about that.”
Through Rental Beast University—an online education platform that helps agents maximize the software and their interactions through boot camps with one-on-one coaching, recorded webinars and resource guides—the true earning potential is highlighted. The key is taking advantage of the natural transition from renting to homeownership.
“Ideally, we’re teaching agents to see themselves as a business and think like a business,” says Emily Trainor, director of Training and Education at Rental Beast, who adds that the majority of clients weren’t receiving any rental training. Of top priority is helping enlighten agents to the value of rentals in the current marketplace, and how business can quickly ramp up when a tenant chooses to buy. But this also means teaching them to thrive in a market that can quickly shift.
“The home sales cycle is going into a bit of a down cycle,” says Grinberg, “so in the short term, agents need to be equipped to have sustainable income, even in a down market.”
According to Trainor, most of the agents completing the flagship course are closing their first rental deals and getting their first clients “right away.”
“Emily is doing a great job in providing a helpful and nurturing environment for agents to hone their craft,” says Grinberg. “She’s built our library of coursework, as well as an interactive community with forums and content for agents, of any experience level, to build and enhance their skills.”
Trainor says the agent role is always top of mind for the company, which offers the only end-to-end platform that helps agents close efficient and profitable rental transactions.
“We’re constantly thinking about everything an agent has to do, and how we can make that easier for them,” says Trainor, who adds that they continuously survey agents at various customer touch points, broker events and conventions. “Agents have great ideas on how they want to improve and what they need to have more success in the real estate market.”
“Within the platform lives a never-ending client feedback loop,” says Grinberg. “It drives our innovation and is the motivation for constantly improving on what we deliver to our customers.”
This constant goal of agent improvement has helped set Rental Beast apart within the rental space.
“We’re about to roll out a set of powerful tools for listing agents,” says Grinberg. “They’re designed to help agents be successful when working with landlords and investors. Agents will have access to comp reports and sophisticated marketing tools, including syndication options, presentations and marketing materials with slick designs that agents can plug-and-play and give to a landlord, and much more.
“We have a pretty simple philosophy when it comes to product innovation,” adds Grinberg. “We let our customers guide our continuing innovations. We want to help them generate commissions faster, to get a piece of the $12 billion in annual available rental commissions and build a robust pipeline of renters turning into homebuyers. Our first ground rule for the platform is that it must facilitate that.”
For more information, please visit www.rentalbeast.com.
Liz Dominguez is RISMedia’s associate content editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at ldominguez@rismedia.com.
