The founders of a new online lettings community that rewards tenants with one week’s rent for finding and liaising with prospective renters, believe it will help landlords avoid void periods.
Mashroom, which is due to launch soon, is designed to make the transition between tenancies smoother for landlords by circumnavigating letting agents and handing control to the existing tenants.
By allowing landlords to manage a property in one place, those behind Mashroom believe it minimises void periods and helps landlords save on fees.
While tenants are free to upload property details and images to the Mashroom website, the listing must be approved by the landlord. Mashroom then markets the listing on property portals.
The outgoing tenant manages enquiries and viewings with prospective renters before the potential tenant then makes an offer to the landlord.
Once the landlord has accepted an offer, Mashroom will make the necessary checks before the landlord and new tenant sign a tenancy agreement.
Stepan Dobrovolskiy, Mashroom’s founder, said: “By redistributing platform income to tenants and saving landlords money, Mashroom creates an integrated community that will produce a behavioural shift in the way people find and let their properties in large cities.
“The current system of tenancy changeovers can be expensive and slow with a lack of transparency and communication between landlords, tenants and intermediaries. By getting the outgoing tenant involved in the process, and rewarding them for doing so, we feel our lettings community provides a much-needed solution to a long-standing problem.
“Not only does Mashroom save landlords money while rewarding departing tenants, it also speeds up the rental process for all parties and allows the incoming tenant to gather key information from someone who has already lived in the property.”
