HousingAnywhere Acquires Icelandic Rentmate
Rotterdam, 31 March 2020 – Housing platform HousingAnywhere is strengthening its grip on the European market with the acquisition of the Icelandic rental platform Rentmate. The acquisition follows the acquisition of the German housing advertising website Studenten-WG in January of this year, and is a further step in reaching the goal of becoming the largest end-to-end online rental platform in Europe by 2022. Djordy Seelmann, CEO of HousingAnywhere:
At HousingAnywhere, we are building an integrated rental solution that covers the entire rental cycle - from successful bookings to online payments, leveraging digitization and automation. Iceland is an emerging destination for international students, so strengthening our presence there was a strategic choice. In addition, Rentmate has a similar vision of the medium-term rental market, with a strong focus on digitization, automation, and online payments. This makes the platform a perfect match for us.
Rentmate is an online rental platform helping international students to easily find furnished apartments suitable for their study abroad, internship or other long-term stays. It is currently the largest medium-term rental platform in Iceland, with a strong local presence. Eyþór Logi Þorsteinsson, one of Rentmate's founders:
We are very pleased to transfer Rentmate to an organization that we trust can continue helping both landlords and tenants in the medium-term market. We have built Rentmate from the ground up with a strong focus on customer service and we are confident that our customers are in excellent hands on the HousingAnywhere platform.
With the acquisition, landlords gain access to a target group of nearly 8 million potential tenants via the HousingAnywhere self-service platform. In addition, users are provided with AI for fraud detection (Penelope), useful tools to determine the optimal rent (RentRadar) and smart digital payment solutions (HousingAnywhere Payments).
All new Rentmate visitors are currently forwarded to the HousingAnywhere platform, but existing Rentmate accounts will remain accessible until the end of May. The payment constructions for tenants who pay their rent through Rentmate will continue and nothing will be lost in the transition to the new platform. Seelmann:
We invite local Icelandic landlords to advertise their accommodation on HousingAnywhere. Regardless of the size of their portfolio, they can now tap into a much larger international market and arrange their own rental payments, without intermediaries and without additional costs for the payments. We are convinced that both tenants and landlords will quickly feel at home at HousingAnywhere and will be pleased with the ease of use and the wide range of accommodation available.
About HousingAnywhere
HousingAnywhere is the world's largest rental accommodation platform for young professionals and international students boasting over 50,000 active advertisements and over 8 million users in over 60 countries. The rental platform allows tenants to interact directly with landlords and enter into medium-term rental agreements. More than 150 partner universities recommend their students to use the HousingAnywhere platform. The Rotterdam-based technology start-up employs 100 people.
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