Real estate technology startup Turbo Tenant is expanding on a national level as it bids to transform the long-term rental process. Founded in 2015 by real estate agent and landlord Sarnen Steinbarth, the free software is designed to benefit not only landlords, but also tenants, real estate agents, and property managers too.
Steinbarth acknowledged in an interview with Real Estate Tech News that landlords often face major challenges that are specific to managing properties on a long-term basis, and said that’s what Turbo Tenant is looking to address. According to Steinbarth, until he developed Turbo Tenant there was no viable software program on the market to help landlords manage these challenges.
Steinbarth, who has previously taught property management courses to landlords, property managers and real estate agents, said that his experience showed him that individuals are often confused about the leasing process. That helped him to understand what the market was missing – specifically, an easy-to-use software solution aimed at landlords that helps them to screen tenants, rental applications and take advantage of numerous tried-and-tested rental marketing strategies. In future, Turbo Tenant will also add online rental payment features as well.
One of the key aspects of Turbo Tenant is the marketing strategies it offers, said Steinbarth. For example, once a vacant listing has been created for a specific property, Turbo Tenants can help landlords to create a professional listing website, design flyers, and automatically post the listing onto dozens of popular rental websites. Additionally, Turbo Tenant provides tools to easily post these listings onto Craigslist too.
By doing everything online, Turbo Tenant overcomes one of the biggest challenges for landlords – that of connecting to prospective tenants, who are usually much younger than landlords, Steinbarth said.
Although originally focused on landlords only, Turbo Tenant offers features that can benefit tenants themselves, too. For example, it allows prospective tenants to complete an online rental application within just a few minutes. It also offers state of the art security for tenant’s personal information, and online payments.