Potentially hidden gem, page-392

Interesting thread this.
The naysayers seem to think agents cant be replaced and people underestimate the work involved in renting and managing property.
But if my experience is anything to go by since the 1970’s property managers have largely lamentable with the odd standout - until they leave the agency.
I found their property condition reports something out of Fantasia and the extra bills on top of there 8-10% fees just keep on rocking.
Another interesting attribute of this thread is long diatribes killing straw man arguments.

Anyway
My view such as it is on rnt is that property management is ripe for disruptive technologies to assist the owners who currently choose to privately managed
their properties, which depending on who you believe is somewhere between 45 – 55% of the market, to attack the fragmented incumbent’s and gain the business of private landlords who use agents but see agents as piss poor value and I also can see rnt adding onto the business a lot of fee generating tools for the private landlord to make managing their properties easier.

According to Forbes real estate leasing/renting is one of the highest margin businesses in the US no reason to think its any different here.

So its natural it should draw the attention of low cost disruptive technology entrepreneurs whether rnt or someone else so someone is going to turn over the
Real estate agents property management applecart one way or another.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sageworks/2015/09/06/these-industries-generate-the-highest-profit-margins/

So how much is this market worth In Australia.
In $dollar terms the rental market in Australia is huge -- how huge try $34 Billion in FY2012
Well thats what has been declared!!
Big !! 1 in 7 Australian taxpayers own at least one investment property -
All 1,900,000 of them in FY2012 according to the ATO

So a stab in the dark, if they all had real estate agents manage the properties we are talking 8-10% fees plus the extras they charge for this that and the other thing! But be kind say 8% fee on rental income alone makes its worth $2.7billion per annum.
So one way or another this market is not small beer and is a lucrative fragmented service that has the same business model of a century ago.
As to the numbers of tenants and possible turnover from the ATO data matching program
https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Gen/Real-property-transactions-data-matching-program-protocol/
it says there are a 1,000,000 records created each year with state rental bond authorities this figure does not include government housing and private arrangements outside the system and there is plenty of that.
So if Perth has 10% of Australia’s housing the turnover each year of rental housing will be 100,000 properties.
That’s a shitload of inspection/leasing/advertising fees plus the ongoing $8% or so plus the ongoing fees on the other 150,000 residential rental properties in Perth as best I can ascertain
So this market in my view ripe for the services rent provides and I think real estate agent property managers should be very concerned as to the potential disruption to their business model that rent threatens.
Not only for residential but all forms of property rentals/leases.
You could argue they could do an Uber to the Real Estate Management businesses of real estate agents.
Agents by and large have treated property management as a milk cow forever and most are unlikely to do anything until it smacks them over the head.
But as the pips start to squeak as property boom turns to dust landlords are going to get antsy with agents whom most think poorly off and look at alternatives.
In our connected age, well capitalized early movers, with data, infrastructure, and algorithms have distinct advantages and I believe in one form or another property management is going to be doing it tough and losing market share to online providers be it rent or someone else.
But at this point in time Rent has a head start