Rent.com.au Sees Adjacent Product Growth Amid Continued Slowdown of Aussie Rentals Market in Q4

The ASX-listed rentals portal company Rent.com.au has released an update to the market on its activities for the fourth quarter of the Australian financial year. Highlights of the Western Australia-based firm's operations during the three months ended June 30th include:

• Quarterly revenue stood at A$707k, 20% less than the comparison period. Revenue for the year was down 17.8%.
• The number of RentPay customers increased by 35% to stand at more than 6,000.
• Record performance for the company's financial product RentBond which financed $3.5 million worth of loans in the quarter.

Rent.com.au is a specialist rental portal company 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 and has seen the performance of its main portal-based advertising revenues drop significantly over the last 12 months.

Despite the adverse market conditions, company CEO, Greg Bader was pleased with his company's performance in the quarter:

"I am pleased with the results we've delivered in the last quarter, with both parts of out business growing. We have delivered our largest ever RentPay quarterly growth, driven by consumer marketing via social media channels and continued strength in demand from real estate agents."

In addition to its core portal business, Rent.com.au has several other consumer-facing convenience products including its RentPay product which lets tenants pay their rent via an app while enabling them to build a reliability scoring and a 'buffer' amount to protect landlords.

RentPay's user base stood at 6,066 at the end of June with the service facilitating around A$2.5 million in rent per week.