New Tech Company Provides Off-Market Rental Deals

A new real estate tech company is providing off-market listings to renters. Southern California-based PocketList is an apartment rental platform that provides rental listings before they are widely marketed, giving the renters a leg up on snagging the best housing. But, it isn’t only renters that are benefitting. Landlords will see vacancies fill faster, creating more stable occupancy and cash flow.

“As co-founders, Julian and I realized that everyone we’d ever known and loved had been burned one time or another by the experience of being a renter,” Nick Dazé, co-founder and CEO of PocketList, tells GlobeSt.com. “We just couldn’t go on being renters without trying to fix some of these problems. With the current system, departing tenants know they are moving long before they actually do, essentially sitting on a secret that could benefit the entire rental ecosystem, including new renters and property managers. On average, rentals sit vacant for nearly a month every time they turn over—PocketList aims to bring this lag time to zero.”

The team started by building a comprehensive map of the rental market, and it is poised to be a market disrupter. “We’re building the earliest, most honest map of the rental market that’s ever existed, and we’re building it with and for renters, the people that actually live in these places,” says Dazé. “This will lead to a lot of changes. The rental market will get more efficient. Vacancy rates will decrease, and we think PocketList will let great inventory and great management shine in a way it’s never been able to before. PocketList is a whole new discovery layer on top of the rental market.”

While PocketList is a rental platform, it distinguishes itself from the surplus of aggregate listing platforms in the market. “There are a lot of services that consolidate rental listings, but across the board, the audience of these services is the landlord or property manager,” says Dazé. “While PocketList benefits landlords and property managers, we are renter-driven—by renters for renters. More importantly, there is definitively no site for rental pocket listings on a national level. Until now, the definition of a “pocket listing” was limited to properties that were going to be on the market to buy. We’ve brought the concept to the rental market for the first time.”

Landlords and property managers can easily partner with the platform to provide listings. “We are helping property owners by offering better insights about their properties and their competitors’ properties and giving them earlier access to potential new tenants. Property managers and landlords can use PocketList to claim their properties for free and view unfiltered feedback from renters and competitors in the vicinity of their properties,” says Dazé. “Landlords can also directly communicate with potential tenants about units, once their prior tenant gives notice, building trust between landlords and their prospective tenants before they move in.”

While the product just launched, the early responses has been positive. “We just launched PocketList Pro, our owner product, but we’ve been piloting it since early this year,” says Dazé. “The response has been great. One property manager in our pilot had units sitting on the market for up to 60 days without PocketList. She signed a lease with a PocketList renter before her prior tenant moved out. She told us, ‘You basically just wrote me a check for $6,000. I’m telling everyone about you.’

Renters have been equally enthusiastic. “We think both sides of this marketplace are craving trust and transparency. And we’re bringing it,” says Dazé. “We’re just excited for it to grow.”