Rent.com.au Sees Record Quarterly Revenue Despite Slow Market

The Australian rental portal and services provider Rent.com.au has recorded record quarterly revenues in its FY21 Q3 results released to the Australian stock market earlier today. The Perth-based firm saw quarterly revenue of AU$ 797,000, representing a 25% year-on-year improvement.

The quarterly revenue gain was largely down to the continued success of the company's core portal advertising business which recorded its third straight EBITDA-positive quarter despite an inclement market climate with restrictions on inter-state travel hampering the rentals sector in Australia.

Commenting on his company's results, CEO Greg Bader said: “We’re gaining increased traction in the market and this has allowed us to post significant growth in revenue and profitability during what would otherwise be tougher market conditions, as higher proportions of people use our products,”

Like many portal companies, Rent.com.au started out with a pure-play advertising model but has been moving into adjacent revenue streams over recent years. In addition to a successful portal business, the company has several products to smooth over renting transactions including its RentCheck tenant referencing solution and its RentBond move-now-pay later product.

The company has also embarked on an ambitious project to launch a platform named RentPay which will act as a virtual wallet to let renters pay their rent and bills, track payments and deal with all aspects of their tenancy in one place. The project was started in February of 2020 but had to be halted until September due to the pandemic. RentPay is said to be weeks away from launch and Bader was enthusiastic in his comments around the new offering:

“With our core rent.com.au business continuing to build its profitability, and given the size of the RentPay opportunity, we’ve continued to invest in developing RentPay. In addition to software development costs of $517k which were capitalised, we spent a net $227k during the quarter on pre-launch branding/marketing, research and compliance activities for RentPay to give ourselves the best opportunity we can when we launch. Despite this additional expenditure, on a group basis we have still improved our EBITDA position by $100k (34% improvement) compared to the same quarter last year”

With a core business that is now firmly established as a profitable endeavour and with influential investor Bevan Slattery on board, Rent.com.au seems set to continue its growth and truly join the list of companies around the world bringing renting online and into the twenty-first century.