Rental property website rent.com.au has reported improved earnings for the 2018/19 financial year, amid a slowdown in the property market nationwide.
The company had a net loss after tax of $2,497,183 for the year ended 30 June 2019. This was up from the previous year by 8.7 per cent, however topline revenue was lower by -6.9 per cent.
Established in 2007, rent.com.au is focused on delivering products and services that make the renting process easier for agents, tenants and landlords. Outside of rental listings, some of the products the company offers include RentCheck, RentBond, RentConnect and RentReport.
Rent.com.au’s core offering of renter products recorded 10 per cent revenue growth for the year, however a difficult market generally for advertising sales and property listings saw revenue decline. Advertising started recovering in the final quarter of the year and remains a key future source of revenue.
During the year rent.com.au put in place several initiatives to deliver future growth. They launched the first renter app on the Apple and Android platforms in August 2018 and adoption by customers has been better than expected. The app features innovative new functionality such as lifestyle-based search features alongside more traditional suburb-based search functionality and is highly-rated within the various app stores.
This has been the key driver for 28 per cent more new Renter Resumes being created during the year. The Renter Resume is the major way they are able to introduce products to renters.
Rent.com.au also entered into a new long-term agreement with a finance provider for their RentBond finance solution, where renters can finance a wider range of moving costs and repay this over a longer period, allowing them to match the repayments to their lease term
The company also continued to develop products and services aimed at renters during their tenancy rather than merely while searching for property, primarily by focusing on integration of RentPay which had been acquired in the final quarter of the previous financial year.
In the coming 12 months, rent.com.au remains focused on its short-term goal of cash flow break even, however it is also expanding its product and service offerings deeper into the tenancy period as well as across adjacent websites. The company expects that these additional activities will see it achieve its cash flow break even goal in the short term while also setting itself on the course to greater profitability in the future.
