Speedhome is a no deposit rental online platform that connects tenants and landlords. Tenants who want to rent any of their listed units do not need to pay the standard 2 months rental deposit. Landlords, on the other hand have to sign up for deposit insurance if they successfully matched with a tenant. The deposit insurance is underwritten by Allianz Malaysia and landlords can claim from the deposit insurance in the event tenant defaults on the stay or cause damage to the property. A standard police report and claims report has to be provided to get the claims.
I have a studio unit in Cyberjaya which was vacated by my tenant right before MCO 1.0 (Movement Control Order) in Malaysia . My usual real estate agents were not able to find any tenants during this time as there was a ban on house viewing for agents during this period. I put my unit up online at various listing portals (some property related) like Mudah, Carousell, StarProperty, Durian Property but there were not takers for few months.
Previously I had already signed up with SpeedHome (formerly called SpeedRent) but all the units which I had put up, all my real estate agents were able to rent the units house within 1-2 months. As such for this time, I once again listed my studio unit in Cyberjaya on SpeedHome platform.
Speedhome now has improved a lot since its inception, they now have virtual viewing and prefer landlords submit video of their units besides the usual unit photos. It would seem like Speedhome has what people call a One Dragon Service for property landlords. They do everything for landlords right from unit prep (SpeedReno), viewing (SpeedRunner), agreement stamping, collect rents and tenant evictions.
After uploading my Cyberjaya Studio unit to SpeedHome, I was pleasantly surprised when SpeedHome called the next day to confirm the listing and also requested for their SpeedRunners (aka home runners) to collect the property keys from me for viewing. The next day, their SpeedRunners came promptly at the agreed time and location to collect the keys from me and I just had to sign a form saying that the keys and access card were given to SpeedHome for safeguarding.
After 1-2 days later, a prospective tenant messaged his interest on my property and SpeedHome created a 3 way chat between Speedhome, Me (landlord) and the tenant. I just observed only while SpeedHome tried to arrange with the tenant for viewing of the unit. So far the prospective tenant have yet viewed the unit but I will update this blog post as and when there are developments on this story.
Updates 20210210
Got a call from Speedhome's Speedrunners, they called to say that they wanted to enter my property to make a video for the listing. I gave them permission and ask them to proceed for future entry into my property without calling me.
Due to MCO 2.0 (Movement Control Order) in Malaysia, Speedhome is now pioneering virtual viewing for prospective tenants. Prospective tenants can view walkthrough of the property via video without physically being at the property to view.
Updates 20210213
Prospective tenant did a virtual viewing via Whatsapp with the Speedhome team.
Let's see if this deal can go through or not.
Updates 20200214
ok, the prospective tenant wasn't interested in the unit. Speedhome then proceeded to close the 3 way chat. When there is a new prospective tenant coming, Speedhome will then establish a new 3 way chat session. Better luck next time for me.
Updates 20210217
Speedhome arranged a second viewing but it didn't go through. Prospective tenant wasn't interested in the unit. My unit is still being advertised simultaneously with Speedhome and regulaar REN (real estate negotiators). Let's see which service gets my unit rented out faster.
Updates 20210302
My unit is getting some more enquirers (via the chat function) but so far no viewers yet. I'm monitoring at the side for now. All the coordination work all done by the SpeedHome team.
Updates 20210310
It's 21 days already (seems so long) and my unit has been vacant on SpeedHome. Their marketing guys called me and introduced me to their latest product called SpeedHome
rental bidding. This product basically lists my property for prospective tenants to bid for renting. It's a very near product that was launched this year 2021. I'll document down the journey here and hopefully my unit gets rented out soon.
Updates 20210315
Got this prospect from Speedhome, a student from Yemen who is studying in Lim Kok Wing University. Viewing done, interested and now waiting for booking to be paid to secure my unit.
Student paid the booking and it's a go for the rental.
Updates 20210322
My rental unit finally was rented out on this date, Yes !!. Received the 1st month rental amount already. However, it amount is minus the 2 months premium rental insurance. The insurance premiums are paid in 2 months so there will be some cashflow.
Once the booking fees are paid, the landlord will have to digitally sign the generated tenancy agreement via Speedhome site. I also get to earn some Bonuslink points from this deal, hooray.
As this is a no deposit rental style tenancy, deposit insurance (underwritten by Allianz) is required. Filling a claim on the deposit insurance in the event tenant causes damages to the house requires police report and evidence of the damage. As such, before the tenancy agreement is generated, I had to upload a lot of photos of the existing condition of the unit. As such, one item to take note when renting on SpeedHome platform is to take many many photos of all the items, areas in the property unit, it will be helpful for future claims.
Updates 20210321
Tenant moved into the unit already. Let's see how the rental payment goes. The rental deposit insurance that I bought has 2 riders , overstay defender (OCD) and on time rental (OTR). For OCD, SpeedHome will continue pay rental in the event tenant didn't pay rent and refuses to vacate. For OTR SpeedHome will pay the rental on time even if yet to collect the rental from the tenant.
Updates 20210327
As my agreement has got OTR (On Time Rental) , I have received my April rental (2nd payment) on time from SpeedHome before the month of April. What I heard is the tenant already got reminders to do payment for these few days. For now whether tenant pay or not is all managed by Speedhome as they handle all the rental collections from tenant and payments to the landlord (me).
The rental agreement and tax stamp (sijil setem) and could be downloaded (in PDF format) from the SpeedHome sister site SpeedRental. Tax Stamp (sijil setem) is stamping tax on the agreement paid to LHDN, this fee is paid by the tenant. The Tax Stamp is required for the rental agreement to be officially recognized by the government authorities. The rental agreement can be used to handle future claims, disputes and also even for the landlord to apply for another housing loan (rental as proof of additional income).
While Speedhome is managing the collection of rentals for me, it does not mean managing the property is hassle/stress free, I did get a few calls from my tenant to replace a few items like the sofa (sinking) and bedframe (platform not stable). Landlords still have to handle the day to day issues in property management but using Speedhome to do rental collections do take off some of the work involved.
Not to ultra promo Speedhome but rental insurance OTR (On Time Rental) is a must for me, the tenants who use Speedhome might be people who have cashflow and money problems and thus go for Speedhome as the cost of entry is low.
Updates 20210526
I'm pleased to announce I have received the 3rd month of rent using Speedhome with OTR (On Time Rental) option.
I've got the full amount of rental on time. The past 2 months I got partial amount of rental as the other part were used to pay the Speedhome deposit insurance (underwritten by Allianz).
After the payment was done, a notification email was sent into my mailbox.
20210913
Rental collection has been prompt so far after 3 months. As my Speedhome package includes OTR (On Time Rental), rental is expected to be paid 1st by Speedhome, at the backend Speedhome will do the rental collection from the tenant. With OTR, I do not deal with the headache of chasing tenant to pay rent on time.
The statistics and rental invoice can be seen on SpeedHome's sister site Speedrent dashboard.
20211003
Rentals still paid on time. The invoice for each month is always minus 1 month even though the rental has been paid to me.
Updates.
The tenant for this unit has left and I've relisted my Speedhome unit again and rented it out already
here.In addition, I also assisted my friend to get his unit rented out in
39 days
here. I think the process speed up because of Speedhome's virtual viewing feature where prospective tenants can virtually view the place 1st before actually going to view the actual unit.
Here's how Speedhome's 360 virtual property viewing looks like.
This is probably not new but Speedhome seems to be gamifying paying rent, to encourage tenants to have better paying behavior by giving tenants chance to have free rent if they pay up their rents early.
In conclusion, I personally feel Speedhome's concept of no deposit rentals and also rental management (rental collection) is very groundbreaking and can disrupt the real estate industry. I've seen
presentations on their business plans and I'm very impressed with the array of products that they will be launching in the future.
Do note I'm still using property agent services but will plan to use Speedhome also to compliment.
🏠 Unlock a world of hassle-free home rental with my exclusive sign-up code for new users:
❗Disclaimer here is I've participated in the company's ECF (Equity Crowd Funding) campaign (round1) so I do have an incentive for this company to succeed. Do not also I am not in anyway affiliated with Speedhome/Speedrent and cannot be considered expert in their products, some of the information might have changed over time which I might not be aware of.
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