This is a rave review of Rently. You can stop reading now if you are looking for a quick answer. We give it five stars.

We’ve used Rently on hundreds of rental properties and had thousands of viewings without a single accident.

If you ask me what’s the one piece of technology that made my life as a property manager easier: I would have to answer Rently, hands down.
(By the way, we are not affiliated or compensated in any way for this review.)

Pros and Cons

Here is what I love about Rently and what I don’t. The cons section is much shorter understandably.

Pros

• Elimination of 70 percent of the leasing phone call.
• Automatic feedback and application process. Renters receive a text and an email asking for feedback and link to our online application.
• Faster rental time – more showings lead to less time on the market.
• Renters feel less pressure from agents and are more inclined to apply.
• A larger pool of rentals. We got renters from AmericanHomes4Rent, Invitation Home, etc.
• Pre-screened renters. As part of their security check, they have to register with a credit card, and artificial intelligence is used to determine if they should be allowed in the property.
• Decreased cost and increased efficiency.
• No lost keys calls (with the new Rently Smart Home)
• Prevent costly floods and fires (Rently Smart Home can turn off the water)

Cons

• Cost of lockboxes and application.
• The reluctance of landlords to adopt this technology.
• Limited customer service for the renters. We were always able to get in touch with someone. Thankfully, this happened very rarely.

Why I like Rently?

The reason I started using Rently is by necessity. I wanted to make the properties available 24/7 but I couldn’t work more hours than I was already working.

I noticed the big corporate investors like AmericanHomes4Rent using self-showing electronic boxes and I thought that if it works for them, it should work for me as well.

I tried it on a couple of properties and I was surprised when I received an application without ever speaking to the renters. They turned out to be very good tenants. Later I understood why. The tenants were better because Rently naturally prequalified them by requesting a credit card.

Needless to say, I started installing electronic lockboxes on all rental properties.

What I found surprised me.

We started renting properties quicker because they were available every day, including weekends, even if I wasn’t available to show.
Also, we took advantage of the traffic going to the big corporate landlords, the like of Invitation Homes, Home4Rent, etc. Our renters’ traffic went up right after we started to use Rently.

Disadvantages of Using Rently

Still, no review is complete without mentioning the negatives, the cost of lockboxes, and the difficulties convincing landlords to let us use this technology.

At $30 for the app and $30 for each lockbox, Rently was more expensive than competitors.

After Rently introduced smart home and the new lockboxes that were installed permanently on the doors, this cost could be pushed to the tenants because it provided benefits like having remote access, temperature control (decreased utility cost), security features.

The landlord’s reluctance was a bit more difficult to overcome so what we did is we guaranteed to fix any damage caused by the use of the lockbox, and later we included language (allowing us to use self-showing lockboxes) in our property management agreement.

Is using Rently and self-showing technology for every property?
The answer is no. I would not install Rently lockboxes on luxury properties and on properties in neighborhoods where security may be an issue.

But for the rest of our portfolio, I wouldn’t even think to go back to the way we showed properties before.
Rently is used by 2,500 property managers and it facilitated more than 10 million viewings. I am sure that number will go up because of the current health crisis.

Would you like to learn more about self-showing technology and other available options? Click here to read our article on the subject.