People hate dealing with brokers. This home rental app cuts them out

Anyone renting out a property in Malaysia knows the easiest way to do it is through brokers, who, unfortunately, charge a sum for doing so little.

Wong Whei Meng experienced this first-hand when he was renting out his condo unit in 2013. Being tech-savvy, he thought he could rent it out himself by advertising on real estate listing sites iProperty and PropertyGuru. To his surprise, the sites only accepted agent listings. “I was forced to look for agents to help me. I SMS-ed 50 agents and only two bothered to help me advertise my property.”

Wong went through the motions and waited for calls from the brokers who set viewing appointments with prospective clients. After three viewings, he struck a deal and paid his agent a commission equivalent to a month’s rent, which in his opinion, was too much for a “passive” and “easy” job.

It was a problem that turned into an opportunity. If not for that experience, he wouldn’t have gotten the idea for Speedrent, an app that connects landlords directly with renters and cuts out the middlemen. Speedrent launched as Saywa in March, but recently rebranded in line with its planned regional expansion.

Matches vs listings

Wong says Speedrent is a compelling alternative for landlords and a tool that empowers them to get rid of the costly brokerage layer.

“Based on a survey we did, over 87 percent of users dislike dealing with agents. Our goal is to fill in the gap and create a hassle-free leasing service.”

An agent’s job, he explains, represents repetitive work that can be automated and scaled through technology.

Speedrent does more than you’d expect. It allows property owners and renters to chat, and facilitates appointment scheduling between them. It also sets itself apart by offering electronic tenancy agreement, which completes the renting lifecycle. Wong says other platforms operating in this space in Malaysia, such as Mudah and Propwall, stop at listings.

“Our job ends when we’ve helped both parties to match. Our ultimate KPI is number of matches versus listings, which most other classified sites love to boast of.”

Wong says they’re not planning to monetize Speedrent in the next 12 months. But when they do, it’ll be through two things: a small fee for the tenancy agreement, and commission from other services that renters may want to avail of, including moving-in and cleaning services, broadband and cable TV installations. “The tenants do not pay extra to sign up with us for said services. We’ll get our commission from respective providers.”

Finding the right team

Speedrent is Wong’s third venture so far. He started a web hosting service when he was 17 and sold it to his partner right before he pursued his undergraduate in the UK. When he got back to Malaysia in 2008, he created Aflexi, a content delivery network (CDN) solution that was acquired by London-based OnApp, a company that develops cloud management, CDN and storage software for service providers and enterprises.

Wong invested RM 500,000 (US$130,000) of his money to kickstart Speedrent. Half of it is being spent for administration costs and the team’s salaries, while the rest is going into marketing.

Though this isn’t the first time he’s getting his feet wet with startups, Wong faced a number of hurdles, the biggest of which was finding the right team.

Huge demand