As if letting agents don’t have enough competition, there’s a new way for landlords to fill vacant properties: pay the outgoing tenants to find their replacement. Mashroom – the company that recently bought Emoov for the grand sum of £232,500 – rewards outgoing tenants with up to one week’s rent for liaising with prospective renters and carrying out viewings. If tenants are leaving, the landlord (or tenant) can upload property details and images to Mashroom. Mashroom then advertises the property on the major portals. The outgoing tenant can then manage enquiries and viewings with interested parties on the Mashroom platform, which will then make an offer to the landlord. Once the landlord accepts an offer, Mashroom will make the necessary checks before the landlord and new tenant sign a tenancy agreement. After the new tenant has moved in, the outgoing tenant will receive their financial reward and the landlord can enjoy a quicker turnaround of tenancies as well as lower ongoing management costs. “By redistributing platform income to tenants and saving landlords money, Mashroom creates an integrated community that will produce a behavioural shift in the way people find and let their properties in large cities,” says Stepan Dobrovolskiy, Mashroom’s founder. “The current system of tenancy changeovers can be expensive and slow with a lack of transparency and communication between landlords, tenants and intermediaries. By getting the outgoing tenant involved in the process, and rewarding them for doing so, we feel our lettings community provides a much-needed solution to a long-standing problem.” Mashroom’s goal is to create a product that allows landlords to retain more of their income. It charges landlords just a flat fixed upfront fee of £149 which covers advertising, offers, agreement, deposit registration, tenant referencing payment and first month’s rent collection.
Mashroom is offering landlords an alternative to the use of letting agents by incentivising outgoing tenants to find their own replacements. The company allows landlords to upload properties to its platform, with the tenant offered up to one week’s rent in payment to manage enquiries and organise viewings. Once a replacement has been found, Mashroom will then conduct all the necessary checks before a tenancy agreement can be signed. The system aims to make the moving out process more rewarding for both landlords and tenants, reducing management costs and cutting out the use of third parties.