Roast my marketplace: rent-to-own

[inahava26]

I've been working on validating Alquilist lately. I'm curious about your feedback. Here we go

The marketplace was built using #nocode in less than 1 week so I could focus on validating and getting people on board. Properties are still 'fake'. It would start operating in Spain.

Problem:

1. Difficulty saving for a down payment
2. Burned-out investment month after month
3. High maintenance costs for landlords

Solution:

A platform where users can sell their properties through rentals.

1. Access homeownership through renting.
2. Save month by month with Alquilist plan.
3. Create an incentive for the tenant to take care of the property.

Market validation:

1. Housing prices have increased 7.6x faster than incomes since 1965.
2. 58% of Spaniards prefer renting as a housing option.
3. 46% of young people under 35 years old who are looking for housing prefer renting with an option to buy.

Market size:

1. 2 million rental contracts in Spain in 2021.
2. 5 million rental properties in Spain in 2021.
3. €29.6 billion allocated to rentals in Spain in 2021.

Product:

You can check out what's already built here: https://www.alquilist.com/

Business model:

Alquilist gets a 3% of every transaction. Taking into account 503.000 apartments were sold in Spain in 2021, imagine a 0,1% could be sold from Alquilist. If we assume that the average housing price is 200,000 euros, and Alquilist takes a 3% commission on each transaction, with 503 houses sold, it would result in an income of around 3,000,000 euros for Alquilist.

Competitive analysis:

In Spain exist marketplaces with no possibility to rent-to-own. Nevertheless a new model has emerged where you go to them with the property you want to sell, they buy it from you and offer it back to you as a rental with the option to buy. However, they don't have a marketplace.

Competitive advantages:

Our competitive advantage lies in having the marketplace, as we are not property owners and we don't have the properties ourselves. This allows for flexibility for the customer, lower costs for the customer, and a complete focus on intermediation.

Team:

Just me as a complete bootstraper & learner! I've created several projects in the past, if you wanna know more just hit me up

That's it! Let me know what are your thoughts!

 

[fakkelsey1]

@inahava26 Rent to own is basically the same as paying your mortgage to your bank (who owns the property until you've paid it off).

Also, what's the benefit of the seller? Seller will take in way more risk, won't get money right away.

 

[lighthouse4031]

@inahava26 Your seller justifications arent viable, maintainance fees and deposits already cover those issues. All of your incentives are on the renter's side and they arent your customers

 

[kevin247]

@inahava26 You need a consultation with a lawyer or several because as a renter i would not risk my funds unless i had significant documentation to prove me wrong. Would the app take care of the documents for me? I'd build the underlaying technology and try to sell it to banks. Feels like a nice feature for a banking app but nothing more.

 

[prodigy]

@inahava26 Yeah so why would I sell through you? I want all my money in one go, not in monthly payments next several years?