Florida Real Estate Professional Finds Continued Success With Rental Beast
At 22 years old and in the real estate business for just over half a year, Jason Jeremiah of CENTURY 21 Beggins Enterprises in Florida found that he wasn’t often the go-to real estate professional for those looking to buy a home.
“Everyone was talking about buying and selling, but because of my age, more renters were attracted to me,” says Jeremiah.
That’s when he made the strategic decision to concentrate on the rental market. Jeremiah, who works in the Tampa, Fla., area and serves hot rental markets including Apollo Beach, Brandon, Riverview, Saint Leo and Tampa, soon found his plan successful.
To build his business, Jeremiah has relied on Rental Beast, a SaaS platform designed to simplify the leasing process and that maintains the most comprehensive and up-to-date database of rental listings in the country.
“I’ve found rentals to be a quick cash flow and a great way to build my brand while obtaining homebuyers down the road,” says Jeremiah, who continues to explain that agents who exclusively use the MLS to locate rentals are often rewarded with only $50 or $100 per transaction. “I went in to see how I could maximize the way in which I was helping renters, and that’s where Rental Beast came in.”
Because Rental Beast works directly with landlords, the database allows Jeremiah to access rental listings that are not found on his local MLS and have no co-brokers attached.
“That definitely piqued my interest,” says Jeremiah. “I had renters who were attracted to me anyway, so I thought if I could conquer this database, I could excel my commission and rewards. It would help me grow my business, as those same renters would most likely come back to me to buy one day.”
Jeremiah set out to contact the landlords representing Rental Beast’s local listings and work on his negotiating skills.
“Many of the owners don’t want to pay a fee, which is why they don’t get involved with an agent, but I’m able to explain the value of my finding a qualified tenant, and how it can be done quicker,” says Jeremiah. “If it’s been listed for 60 days, and applications keep failing because unqualified people keep coming to you, I explain that it’s worth the one month’s rental fee so that the property doesn’t sit vacant.”
Within his first two weeks of joining the Rental Beast platform, Jeremiah was able to match a lead provided by Rental Beast with one of the nearly 100,000 Rental Beast-sourced listings in Tampa. In addition, he became listing agent for a property and closed a second rental deal. He’s also turned a few more no’s into yeses—and some into commissions.
A licensed pharmacy technician at a veteran’s hospital, Jeremiah was looking for opportunities to invest in his future, and found real estate. Though his goal is to make his first direct investment in real estate by next year, he loves being in the industry and plans to continue renting and selling properties.
“Some people are going to rent forever, but a lot of them will eventually want to purchase a home,” concludes Jeremiah, who believes that building rentals into his business will create a pipeline of future buyers. And while he’s beginning to increase his home sales clientele, he’ll continue to work with rentals, too.
For more information, please visit www.rentalbeast.com.
Keith Loria is a contributing editor to RISMedia.
