2017 was a year of huge achievements for Rentberry, the decentralized rental platform that leverages blockchain technology to streamline the process of finding apartments, paying rent, and everything in between.
Rentberry allows tenants and landlords to complete all rental tasks in one place. These tasks include:
- Searching for properties
- Making offers/bids via the Rentberry auctioning platform
- Screening prospects
- Selecting the best/most suitable candidates
- Negotiating the terms
- Unlocking rental security deposits
- E-signing contracts
- Paying rent
- Submitting maintenance requests
- Hiring third-party service providers (e.g., handymen and plumbers)
- Enabling landlords to stay connected with tenants
Rentberry managed to raise an impressive $4 million in seed investments from venture companies last year. They also developed their own cryptocurrency—the BERRY token—powered by the Ethereum blockchain. BERRY tokens allow all steps in the rental process to be done much faster, cheaper, and more securely.
Rentberry launched their ICO in early December 2017. It has been wildly successful—they reached their $3 million soft cap in just 48 hours. So far, they’ve raised over $25 million in their sale. Check out our Rentberry ICO review for more information.
Rentberry’s mission is to completely revolutionize the rental market, and they have a few goals in mind for 2018 to help carry out this mission. We highlight some of the key goals in the Rentberry 2018 roadmap.
Technology Advancement
This year, Rentberry will be integrating blockchain and smart contracts technology throughout their decentralized platform. Rentberry is actually the very first company in the world to implement blockchain technology into the rental market. Throughout 2018, this pioneering startup has some big plans in the works to improve and expand their one-of-a-kind technology.
As they wrote in their whitepaper:
Rentberry already has a product that is used by thousands. Now we want millions of people from all around the world to have the opportunity to use it.
One of the revolutionary blockchain technologies the team is working on this year is the Rentberry Auctioning Technology. The Auctioning Technology’s core purpose is to ensure that landlords price their properties optimally in both hot and slow markets, while potential tenants are afforded complete visibility on competing offers and offered the ability to seamlessly negotiate rental terms online. It acts as a pricing oracle that allows tenants to bid, sign legal rental documents, and settle payments using BERRY tokens, all in one place.
Rentberry is currently in the process of filing international patents on this technology, so we can expect to see the Auctioning Technology to be patented sometime in 2018.
Another technological advancement we can expect to launch this year is the Rentberry iOS and Android applications. Their app will allow tenants and landlords to easily, quickly, and securely search for properties, make offers, sign contracts, collect and pay rent, and more—all directly from their Apple or Android phones.
Tokenization
This year, Rentberry will be launching their payment system, which will allow users to make and receive payments for rent and other services on the Rentberry platform using a native currency called the BERRY token. These tokens will be issued on the Ethereum blockchain under either the ERC-20 or ERC-223 standard.
BERRY tokens will be able to be bought using fiat currencies (such as USD) or with other cryptocurrencies like ETH or BTC. Making transactions using BERRY tokens will greatly reduce the risk of fraud, since everything is recorded on the blockchain ledger. This will benefit both landlords and tenants by ensuring that rent payments are completely secure and indisputable, and can be drawn up at any time.
Crowdsourced Rental Deposits
Moving to a new apartment can be expensive—especially when landlords require a large security deposit. Luckily, Rentberry is working on making upfront security deposits a thing of the past.
Instead of the individual tenant being forced to put down a large deposit, they can opt to crowdsource their deposit with the Rentberry community. Participating members of the community will cover a portion (say 90%) of the security deposit using BERRY tokens. The tenant will then be able to pay back the community each month (plus interest) with BERRY tokens in lieu of paying it all upfront. The helping members of the community are rewarded with more tokens than they put in as a result. It’s essentially a decentralized micro-loan system where everyone who participates benefits.
This feature is scheduled to be launched in 2018, and is sure to be hugely helpful to people who might not be able to afford to pay their rental deposit all at once.
Conclusion
As we near the end of Rentberry’s massively successful ICO, 2018 seems to be shaping up quite well for the decentralized rental market platform. This looks to be the year that Rentberry really takes form and begins launching some unique and exciting features on their platform.
Should all go as planned, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Rentberry gain a large amount of growth, expansion, and adoption throughout the year. 2018 could very well be the year that the rental market is completely revolutionized, all thanks to Rentberry.
Learn more about Rentberry on their website. The Rentberry ICO ends on February 28, 2018.
