A new rental platform believes AI is the answer to help busy Londoners find their next home.
Rentsmart, a tech startup founded by north Londoner Callum Hook, says it saves customers an average of eight hours per week searching for properties on listing sites and arranging viewings.
Rather than spending as much as 50 hours scrolling through property sites and calling letting agents, customers can pay as little as £45 and Rentsmart’s advanced AI matching algorithms will pair them with relevant properties and organise viewings. Most people are found a new home in an average of 12 days.
“Finding a home can be disruptive, time consuming and painful,” says Hook, who previously worked as head of product at a health-tech AI startup. “I wanted to build something that made finding a home less stressful.”
Since launching in April, he says they’ve already helped everyone from NHS staff to City executives to find their next home that fits their preferences, with one customer moving from Birmingham to London at short notice having an offer accepted within just 10 days of signing up to Rentsmart.
He’s also seeing increasing interest from businesses looking to offer Rentsmart as a perk for employees who might be too busy, stressed or distracted to house hunt. In doing so, it also keeps the business' teams more productive and less distracted at work.
Hook, who lives in Finsbury Park after 10 years riding the rollercoaster of London’s rental market, credits the increasing sophistication of AI in being able to understand the nuance of customers’ preferences and trade-offs.
He says commuting time and proximity to a park are common preferences among his customers so far, as are safe areas for women, natural light and space for pets — all of which can combine to give each customer and unique and often complicated set of preferences.
Requests so far have included everything from ‘yes we want a garden, but if the park is two minutes away and the kitchen is bigger than we expected, we’d take it’ to ‘my boyfriend prefers clean, modern properties, whereas I’m more into old, eccentric buildings — can you help us find something in the middle?’.
For these reasons, “a company like Rentsmart wasn’t possible even 12 months ago,” Hook explains. “The last 12-18 months have been transformational for the tech industry and generative AI is starting to enable us to automate tasks that previously were considered too complex to.
“Finding a home is a case of balances and trade-offs, not yes/no filters. By using AI, we can let users explain what they want with language, allowing us to more deeply understand their preferences, what’s really important to them, and what’s less of a deal-breaker.
“This type of nuance is what usually requires so much manual effort from the renter, scrolling for hours and analysing each property listing that matches your location and price filters.
“With Rentsmart, there’s no more scrolling, no more agent calls. Just highly relevant properties, brought straight to you and viewings booked for you around your schedule.”
The company recently launched two products: a standard package, costing £45 and offering unlimited property matches, a dedicated relocation specialist and seven-day-a-week customer support; or a premium package, costing £69 and offering the added benefit of no more agent calls, with viewings being scheduled and booked for you.
