Emoov buyer Mashroom spells out its business model ahead of launch

Online letting agent Mashroom – the company that has bought Emoov’s brand and IT for £232,500 – has explained how it will involve outgoing tenants to pay for their replacements.

The organisation says that it is due to launch soon, and is looking for landlords to test the system, which essentially cuts out letting agents.

How does it work?

Either the landlord or the existing tenant uploads the property details and images – which have to be approved by the landlord – to the Mashroom online platform.

Mashroom advertises the property on the major portals. The outgoing tenant manages enquiries and viewings with interested parties on the platform. The new, 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.

After the new tenant has moved in, the outgoing tenant will receive their financial reward and the landlord has a quicker turnaround of tenancies as well as lower ongoing management costs.

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.”

Mashroom also has plans to provide landlords with a range of property management services “at a fraction of the cost of traditional high street letting agency fees”.

It charges landlords just a flat fixed upfront fee of £149 to cover advertising, offers, agreement, deposit registration, tenant referencing payment and first month’s rent collection.

As well as referencing and tenancy contracts, the online platform provides landlords with the opportunity to request advance rent payments and take out rent guarantee insurance and tenancy deposit insurance to make it easier for tenants to move in as the financial burden is not so heavy.

“The property management sector is changing rapidly as more landlords seek alternative management platforms which cost less than traditional letting agents,” Dobrovolskiy said.

“With increased legislation such as the ban on tenant fees and landlord licensing schemes, the cost of letting a property continues to rise so it’s vital that shrewd landlords reduce management costs and keep void periods to a minimum.”

“What’s more, tenants and landlords increasingly desire digital platforms which allow all parties to interact directly and enable several key parts of the tenancy process to be carried out quickly and efficiently online,” he says.

Mashroom is currently inviting landlords to help trial its system at no cost before general public availability.

Tenants can also refer their landlord to be part of this community of pre-release testers. There is a referral fee for successful landlord signups and the tenant could also earn a week’s worth of rent as a result, said Mashroom.

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11 Comments

  1. ArthurHouse02

    I find these days that companies preaching transparency are anything but this

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  2. International

    Good Luck – the landlords will certainly need it.

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  3. jeremy1960

    Ooo look another disruptor! Next stop crowd funding based on multi million pound valuation plucked from the air followed by fact free press releases followed by directors creaming off any money left in the pot followed by the “we got it wrong” statement without apology to staff and investors followed by the announcement of a new business that had been in the pipeline for months.

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  4. Wevegotbuyers39

    Don’t know why you’re giving this mashroom a hard time he seems like a fun guy

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  5. AgencyInsider

    Ooooh. Not disrupting or game-changing, but causing ‘behavioural shift’. In the inevitable crowdfunding to come, does that win more or or less investment than the other two? We need to know.

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  6. Hillofwad71

    They seem to be very shy in answering the  question What local property experts have you handling the sale of the 31 properties you are currently marketing on Emoov ?

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  7. DASH94

    So the outgoing tenants are responsible for the enquiries and viewings, so essentially, they’re inviting complete  strangers into their homes?

    How are they checking id’s etc?

    Sounds very risky to me.

     

     

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  8. GPL

     

    Business Plan – back of Fag Packet

    …..job done.

    Next!

     

     

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  9. Carpets And Curtains Included

    Meanwhile, in an alternative universe…….

     

    Dear Mr Barnaby-Smythe, thanks for contacting us regarding our exciting new platform.

    We are sorry to hear your 20 year old daughter was punched in the face and had her mobile and university laptop stolen. Our  ‘is this a nice person’ algorithm on our on line applicant registration form clearly needs tweaking.

    As a gesture of good will we offer her the £20 reward for the room let and a bottle of Thunderbird wine.

    As a new business we are learning and adapting constantly, and we take on board your comments about cutting out professional and experienced letting agents possibly leading to commercial and personal disaster, and as a result we intend to disrupt a new market.

    Can we interest you in one of our new self-assembly double glazing kits?

    £20 discount if you install it yourself!

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    1. GPL

       
      Bravo ….on the money. 
       
       
       

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  10. PeeBee

    I’d be far more interested if they were to spell out how they think they can get away with

    1 – displaying various statistics on the eMoov #2 website relating to claims of historic performance indicators alleged by the original, failed eMoov business.

    2 – displaying ‘awards’ on the eMoov #2 website that relate to the aforementioned original failed business.  ‘Awards’ that go back as far as 2015.

    3 – displaying reviews on the eMoov #2 website that relate entirely to to the original failed company.  At least one of the review companies named on the site has come forward to state that they have not given permission for their logo to be displayed and another clearly draws attention to site visitors that “emoov is no longer in business”.

    4 – displaying claims that they are “Regularly featured as Property Experts for BBC, The Telegraph, The Times, Sky, City A.M., London Evening Standard, LBC, talkRADIO and many more” – when we all know that accolade was earned by their ‘gob on a stick’ (credit: Jonnie) Mr Russell Quirk who is no longer part of eMoov.

    5 – various claims made on the Tepilo website relating to performance indicators alleged by the original, failed company.

    I am #blocked by .@eMoov on Twitter – but I’m sure they managed to see all my Tweets raising these issues last week.  As, I hope, did .@ASA_UK (who I’m also #blocked by), NTSEAT and TPOS.  So far, no responses to any of the Tweets by any of the parties mentioned above.

    I wonder if they will respond here?

    Please note – no breath is being held during the time I will wait…

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