Australian rental platform Rent.com.au has posted a loss for the last financial year. The company released its annual report to shareholders on Friday and revealed it had generated a net loss of $2,497,183 for the year ended 30 June 2019.
This was a slight improvement on the 2018 financial year that saw a $2,822,540 net loss.
The company’s main focus is on their rental portal, but also offers several tools including Renter Resume, RentBond, RentConnect, RentCheck, Rent.com.au Contents Insurance, RentPay, RentReports and more, created to simplify the renting process for renters, landlords and agents.
Rent.com.au’s key focus of renter products recorded 10 per cent revenue growth for the year which was up on the year prior, however, a difficult market generally for advertising sales and property listings saw revenue from these lines of business decline, impacting overall revenue which declined by 7 per cent.
Over the course of the year, Rent.com.au launched its first renter app on the Apple and Android platforms in August 2018 and adoption by customers was better than expected.
The app features new functionality such as lifestyle-based search features alongside more traditional suburb-based search functionality.
This lead to 28 per cent more new Renter Resumes being created last year and is a key means by which the company introduces its products to renters.
The company also continued to pursue the development of products and services aimed at renters during their tenancy rather than merely while searching for property, primarily by focussing on the integration of their RentPay product.
There had been some concerns around the company’s financial position and its cash burn given that its cash reserves decreased from $2,289,603 on 30 June 2018 to $151,534 on 30 June 2019.
However, a rights issue has provided the company with an additional $1,496,984 of cash. Going forward, Rent.com.au remains focussed on its short-term goal of being cash flow break-even, however it is also expanding its product and service offerings deeper into the tenancy period as well.
