Rentsync Buys Spacelist to Move Into Commercial Real Estate

Canadian rental portal operator Rentsync has moved beyond its residential comfort zone, acquiring Spacelist,  one of Canada’s leading commercial real estate listings marketplaces, in a deal that extends its platform into office, industrial, and retail space search across the country.

Announced via a company blog post yesterday, the transaction will see Spacelist’s marketplace folded into Rentsync’s existing stack of marketing automation, listing distribution, and workflow tools. The goal is a single platform that supports both residential and commercial listings, giving Canadian landlords, brokers, and managers one place to run marketing and leasing across asset classes.

“This acquisition positions Rentsync to bring the same level of innovation, transparency, and efficiency to commercial real estate that we’ve long delivered to the residential market,” said Max Steinman, CEO of Rentsync. “Spacelist has built an exceptional platform and community, and together we’ll provide brokers and landlords with better tools, better data, and a more powerful way to market commercial properties.”

Based in Toronto, Rentsync is a long-time specialist in rental housing software and marketing. The company also owns and operates the Rentals.ca Network, a cluster of leading rental marketplaces.

Spacelist, founded in 2012 and headquartered in Vancouver, aggregates for-lease and for-sale commercial listings nationwide. According to the release, bringing that inventory and user base under the Rentsync umbrella gives the buyer immediate scale in commercial search, rather than building a marketplace from scratch.

The deal is also the first major M&A move since Rentsync secured a significant growth investment led by Silversmith Capital Partners earlier this year, capital that was explicitly earmarked to fund technology expansion and strategic acquisitions. It follows Rentsync’s 2023 merger with Building Stack, which added resident and operations management capabilities and pushed the business deeper into SaaS.

Below: Rentsync CEO, Max Steinman, talks to the PPW Pod