Quinto Andar Axes Rental Guarantee Service Terminating 45,000 Contracts

The Brazilian real estate marketplace operator and PropTech company Quinto Andar has reportedly cut its rental guarantee service.

According to local news outlet Estadão, the Sao Paulo-based company confirmed that it has discontinued its QuintoCred service saying that the decision was part of a broader strategy to concentrate on other areas of the business.

Quinto Andar's QuintoCred product offers to act as a guarantor on rental contracts, paying agencies at the start of each month and managing any default from the tenant. The product's page on Quinto Andar's website was still operating at the time of writing and is offered to agencies that manage rentals as well as directly to landlords. The company has yet to confirm if both options are affected or only the agent version of the product.

The newspaper expects around 45,000 contracts held with around 3,000 agencies to be terminated by October 2nd when the 60-day notice period ends. After that real estate agencies who had worked with Quinto Andar will be forced to look for a different way to guarantee the rental contracts they oversee to comply with Brazilian law.

Estadão is also reporting that as a result of the move, Quinto Andar is to lay off 43 of its staff with others being reassigned to other business areas.

Founded in 2014, Quinto Andar had early success bringing trust to Brazil's fragmented rental market. Since then it has expanded to become a fully fledged brokerage for sales and rentals, become the region's largest real estate marketplace operator through its acquisition of Navent and attracted over $750 million from investors including General Atlantic and SoftBank.

Online Marketplaces has reached out to Quinto Andar to confirm details and will update this article if and when we receive a response.