Australian Rental Listing Giant Releases Quarter Report Ended September 30, 2020

Australian rental listing giant, Rent.com.au Limited has released its quarterly report on activities for the quarter ended September 30, 2020. 

Top of the report, the company has announced a record quarterly revenue of $753k thanks in part to a Renter Products growth of 41%. 

Rent.com.au CEO, Greg Bader, said:

“We are seeing a tiered market starting to emerge. Our two largest cities (Melbourne, Sydney) have vacancy rates greater than 2019 but most regions are seeing the opposite, with some cities experiencing record low levels of stock availability. This creates a more competitive market in which to secure a property, meaning renters who can differentiate themselves and provide evidence of their good standing have an advantage. This is where our Renter Products shine.”

The company has pumped more investment into its RentPay product. Its core digital wallet feature has been completed and most of its payments integration layer has been fully developed, and ANZ has signed on to provide transactional banking services to RentPay.

Bader explained:

“The RentPay ecosystem aims to transform the way rental payments work in Australia (and beyond) by giving renters more control and flexibility over their payments, while still being able

to deliver value to the agent/landlord side of the transaction. At the same time, it builds a sustainable annuity revenue base for our business.”

Other key points include positive EBITDA recorded this quarter and $2.3 million left over after oversubscribed placement. Rent Resume has grown 33% in use, RentCheck has increased 30% during this period, and overall traffic visiting the rent.com.au site is up 12%.

However, the company has reported that due to the effects of COVID, advertising has been affected with revenue for ads down and RentBond has grown weaker. 

Bader and his company are not deterred. 

“Our team continues to pull out all stops to deliver the best results we can. This quarter we delivered our strongest ever revenue and EBITDA results while also completing an oversubscribed placement to raise $1.5 million (before costs). This sets up the business to complete the development of RentPay and launch our move into the tenancy period.

“We know revenue drops off during the December quarter due to seasonality (no one wants to move house over Christmas) and any further COVID impacts are unknown. We will manage these as best we can while continuing to focus our efforts on completing the development of RentPay ready for what we expect will be a strong March quarter if restrictions continue to ease.”