Redfin-owned RentPath Rebrands to Rent. and Reveals Upgrades

The U.S. rental portal operator RentPath has announced that it has rebranded as Rent. as the Redfin-owned company releases a raft of UX improvements.

RentPath operates rental portal domains Rent.com, Rentals.com and ApartmentGuide.com in the United States. The name change has been undertaken to simplify the company's brand according to CEO Jon Ziglar:

“We have been building towards this moment for a long time, and this announcement marks a major step in the evolution of our company, delivering on our vision to enable property management clients to reach renters through every digital channel,”

Alongside the rebrand, RentPath has rolled out a series of new products and features to help renters and its rental agent and landlord customers, including:

• Integration with Google Business profiles
• RentEngage - a lead nurturing service with call centre support
• RentRep - an online reputation management service that helps agents' SEO and manages reviews
• RentSocial - a social media tool to help find potential renters through third party platforms

“Property managers can now easily reach those renters by enabling one or more of Rent.’s search, targeting, social, reputation management, or rental engagement products — all of which are powered by Rent.’s proprietary first party data and integrated systems,” the company said.

RentPath was bought by Redfin last year after a protracted and ultimately unsuccessful courtship from U.S. commercial data giant CoStar which also owns several rental portals. The FTC ultimately kiboshed CoStar's $587 million proposed deal saying that it would "eliminate price and quality competition".

With RentPath on the verge of bankruptcy, Redfin stepped in as a buyer in April 2021, paying $608 million for the company. According to Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, although the brokerage company specialises in real estate sales, Redfin wanted to engage with the new generation coming into the property market at an earlier point in their real estate journey i.e. renting.