Rent.com.au Sees Revenue Drop 26% In Q3

The Australian rental portal operator Rent.com.au has released results for the third quarter of its financial year 2023. Notable points from the company's operations for the three months ended March 31st include:

• Revenue of A$631,000, representing a 26% decrease compared to Q3 of 2022.
• A record 30% increase in customers of the company's RentPay convenience product compared to the previous quarter.
• Revenue of A$60,000 from RentPay product.
• A$2.6 million cash in hand as of 31st of March.

Rent.com.au is a specialist rental portal company operated from Western Australia that competes with the likes of REA Group-owned Realestate.com.au and Domain.

Like other Australian real estate portal operators, Rent.com.au has been suffering from a soft housing market of late with CEO, Greg Bader admitting that the company needed to improve its advertising sales.

"Whilst the softness in our advertising sales is obviously an area we need to improve, and we are, it is worth understanding that the key fundamentals of our portal business are as strong as ever and we are confident that the current revenue shortfall is cyclic and will recover in line with the building industry and our continuing efforts to diversify."

In a separate missive to the market, the company also announced that it had reached the milestone of processing A$100 million through its RentPay platform.

Launched in May 2021 after 18 months of development and several years after its original conception, RentPay lets tenants pay their rent via an app while enabling them to build a reliability scoring and a 'buffer' amount to protect landlords.

Rent.com.au has put considerable time and resources into the product and last quarter reported around 4,000 users on the platform and Bader said that the customer pool is growing as the company signs up real estate offices:

"The strong customer growth is of course pleasing and shows that the dual focus on both the consumer and the agent side is starting to pay dividends. I am also excited about the developments we have in the pipeline which build on our theme of 'putting your rent money to work' as we aim to deliver value across our community and ultimately assist those looking to transition to home ownership."