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Virtual apartment tours spiked during the height of the pandemic, when touring a rental unit digitally was the safest and easiest option for many landlords and renters. In 2020, 72% of renters reported that they would rent a property sight-unseen if a virtual tour was offered.
While the rental market has eased back into in-person showings, the demand for virtual tours hasn’t gone away. Many of the most popular rental listing sites offer the option for landlords to post virtual tours, lending a higher level of transparency to renters and helping landlords generate additional renter interest and potentially reduce vacancy time.
Avail recently partnered with Matterport, an industry-leading spatial data company, to offer landlords an opportunity to create 3D virtual tours from Matterport digital twins, or replicas, of their rental properties. Using the Matterport Capture app and Matterport Axis
, a new motorized mount for smartphones with a rotating base, the combination enables landlords to easily create high-fidelity 3D virtual tours right on their smartphone that provide an accurate representation of their properties and make their listings stand out.
Prior to trialing Matterport, most of our landlords hadn’t created a 3D virtual tour before. Using Matterport for the first time, all landlords in the trial reported they would recommend Matterport Axis to a fellow landlord.
Landlord participants reported an average satisfaction of 8.5/10 when asked about the ease of their experience and an average of 9/10 when asked about the quality of the output they were able to produce.
“I love being able to post a 3D tour because that was the main search tool I used when house hunting,” one participant told Avail. “I advise all who need to show something, use Matterport to offer a virtual experience in addition to an in-person viewing.”
As homebuyers report that 3D virtual home tours are the feature they want most in their home search experience, virtual tours for the renting process offer similar perks — like allowing renters to access tours at any time, cutting down on time spent touring properties in-person, and even helping renters rent properties sight-unseen. Matterport offers landlords an efficient way to market their properties and address evolving search preferences with the Matterport Axis mount, starting at just $79.
“I previously thought virtual tour tech was cost prohibitive and time consuming such that it only made sense for professional property management companies,” another participant in the pilot program told Avail. “After using the Matterport Capture app with Matterport Axis, it’s clear to me that Matterport’s tech is cost effective and intuitive for DIY landlords like myself.”
Get tips for creating a virtual apartment tour and look out for updates coming soon to the Avail rental listing feature that will allow landlords to add a 3D virtual tour link to their rental listing.
Learn more about Matterpost Axis.
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]]>The post Success Stories: Highlighting Outcomes From Federally-Backed Emergency Rental Assistance Programs appeared first on Avail.
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Over the past few months, a lot has been written about problems with federally-backed Emergency Rental Assistance programs. The programs are suffering from a lack of awareness and also from difficult-to-navigate application processes. As we wrote earlier this year, without additional help, 31% of landlords were being forced to consider selling their units. With eviction moratoriums across the country expiring soon, it’s more important than ever that we get funds to those who need them.
While the Emergency Rental Assistance programs aren’t perfect, we’ve recently heard about several situations where these programs are working as planned. When programs work, it’s important to highlight the successes.
Below, you’ll read stories of landlords and renters who’ve applied for and received assistance. The funds they’ve received have helped renters remain housed and landlords have been able to afford their mortgages, utilities, and have funds needed for necessary repairs.
By sharing these stories, we hope that more landlords and renters who are struggling right now will consider applying for assistance. Remember that you can visit our COVID-19 page for the latest information and resources for landlords and renters on emergency rental assistance programs.
Spotlight 1: Sam, a landlord in Illinois
Sam applied for rental assistance for tenants in two of his units. One tenant owed $1,800 in arrears and another owed $7,500 in arrears. In both cases, Sam and his tenants received assistance to cover the entirety of the outstanding balance, as well as three months of future rent for each tenant. In total, they received $17,100 of assistance through the IHDA rental assistance program.
The funding made a huge difference for Sam. In both cases, the funds allowed him to rebuild reserves that had been depleted during the pandemic, ease strained relationships with his tenants, and reinvest in projects that improved property values, provided work opportunities for contractors, and raised the quality of life for residents in his building. One of Sam’s buildings received an updated laundry room and the other a functional garage. Sam would not have felt comfortable doing any of this work without the rental assistance grant from the IHDA.
Spotlight 2: Kim, a retired landlord in Illinois
Kim’s renter expected to miss future rent payments and asked Kim to apply for assistance. Kim is retired, and the assistance she received helped her pay the rental’s property tax, insurance, and maintenance.
Spotlight 3: Sade, a landlord in Louisiana
The rental assistance funding has allowed Sade to receive 100% of rents from all tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic. One tenant received half a month’s worth of rent, which allowed him some relief considering he lost his transportation contract for a company that shut their doors. The funding Sade received was used to pay utility bills.
Sade’s other tenant is an elementary teacher that decided to become a Junior High PE coach. Making this change at the end of the school year affected her summer pay. The rental assistance program covered three months of rent, which allowed her new job’s check to kick in and build up. Because of this assistance program, Sade was able to avoid having to pay the mortgage from reserves. Sade is very grateful for the assistance provided during these times!
Spotlight 4: Amgad, a landlord in Ohio
Amgad’s tenants lost their jobs due to COVID-19 and they applied for the Franklin County Ohio IMPACT program. Three of his tenants applied for and received help, and without this help, he would have fallen short on paying the mortgage.
Spotlight 5: Jeremy, a landlord in Indiana
Jeremy’s tenant was more than three months behind and losing ground. They were willing to apply for assistance and Jeremy helped them file the paperwork.
The funding helped Jeremy to continue building projects that were ongoing prior to COVID. Jeremy has a multi-unit building he purchased and is working to renovate. Without the rental assistance he received, he would not be able to apply resources to the project as planned. Although Jeremy didn’t apply for or receive a large amount of assistance, he is working on a tight budget and, therefore, the assistance was very helpful.
Spotlight 6: Nick, a landlord in Illinois
Nick had two tenants that had fallen behind on their rent as far back as March 2020. With the assistance he received, Nick was able to pay the mortgage, pay down some short-term financing, move forward with maintenance projects, and complete some interior enhancements in units.
Author’s Note: we will continue updating this post with more Emergency Rental Assistance success stories, or as more details of the above situations become available.
If you’d like to share your own story, or if you have any questions, please contact us.
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]]>The post Housing Experts to Address Rental Market Challenges appeared first on Avail.
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After a difficult year for the rental market brought on by COVID-19, industry leaders are drawing on lessons learned from the pandemic to address localized rental market challenges. Through a collaborative online webinar hosted by Avail, rental market, housing, and public policy experts will address some of the rental industry’s biggest pain points to inform how technology and a better use of data can help the rental and housing market going forward.
Register to join the Build Back Better webinar.
Building Rental Housing Security Through Technology Infrastructure and Community Partnerships
Avail has been an industry leader in providing much-needed rental market data and insights during the pandemic, partnering with housing organizations to focus primarily on understanding the challenges of independent landlords and their renters.
The Build Back Better online webinar will outline some of these findings on the rental market’s biggest challenges in housing security, establish areas of immediate need, and educate policymakers, government officials, and other housing stakeholders on how the continued use of data and technology can help address those needs.
The webinar’s panel will consist of experts from across the rental, housing, and public policy sectors, including:
- Ruby Bolaria Shifrin, Director of Housing Affordability at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
- Elijah de la Campa, Senior Research Associate in Economics and Urban Analytics at the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative
- Stockton Williams, Executive Director of the National Council of State Housing Agencies
- Ingrid Gould Ellen, Professor at NYU and Director of NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy
- Laurie Goodman, Founder of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute
- Ryan Coon, Co-founder of DIY Rental Service Avail
Register for the Build Back Better webinar to listen to experts address housing challenges.
Avail Surveying and Partnerships to Expand Rental Market Data
Avail regularly gathers data and insights from its customers of independent landlords and renters across the U.S. to help inform rental market trends. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Avail focused its surveying efforts on understanding how the pandemic was impacting rent payments, rental properties, and the use of rent relief funds.
Avail has partnered with a variety of leading organizations, including the Urban Institute, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and others to expand its data and research, educate policymakers, and help implement rent relief in communities.
Read more about Avail data and partnerships:
- Local Rental Owners Collaborative Launches in South Los Angeles to Preserve Housing and Prevent Tenant Displacement
- Avail + LISC Partner to Help California Landlords and Renters Access COVID-19 Rent Relief Funds
- Avail and Urban Institute Collaborate to Expand Research on the Noninstitutional Half of the Rental Market
- Going Into 2021, Renters and Landlords Are Still Hurting From COVID Consequences
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]]>The post Local Rental Owners Collaborative Launches in South Los Angeles to Preserve Housing and Prevent Tenant Displacement appeared first on Avail.
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LOS ANGELES, CA [April 15, 2021] – Today, the Los Angeles Local Rental Owners Collaborative (LROC) launched in South Los Angeles to support local, independent rental owners at risk of foreclosure or losing their assets to corporate buyers, and to help prevent the displacement of tenants who are struggling to pay rent. The pilot program, which offers qualifying owners comprehensive benefits like short-term rental relief grants combined with long-term financial consulting services, technology tools, and property management resources, was launched through a cross-sector collaboration between the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Roy + Patricia Disney Family Foundation (RPDFF), Coalition for Responsible Community Development (CRCD), Avail (a part of Realtor.com®), and Enterprise Community Partners.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, many rental owners with smaller portfolios (2-20 units), especially immigrant and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) owners, are having difficulties maintaining their properties, a trend that can lead to greater displacement and gentrification in highly-competitive markets like Los Angeles. Today, nearly 31 percent of independent landlords are being forced to consider selling their rentals to make up for lost revenue, which threatens the quantity and quality of housing that is affordable to Angelenos, the majority of whom are renters from communities of color.
“The LROC program will bring much-needed relief to rental owners of small apartment buildings and their tenants in South LA. This program will address the loss of rental income since March 2020 and provide the opportunity to preserve affordable housing in our community,” said Mark Wilson, President, CEO & Co-Founder of CRCD. “This work supports CRCD’s efforts over a decade, to use Community Economic Development principles to impact change in the neighborhood. We are proud to partner in this collaborative effort made possible by the initial pilot funders, CZI, and philanthropic partner, RPDFF.”
Local, independent landlords own 76 percent of all unsubsidized, below-market housing units in Los Angeles County. In addition to short-term rental relief, the Collaborative also offers a strong network of support services, so rental owners can use their collective purchasing power to unlock efficiencies that institutional landlords already benefit from, like innovative technology tools and financial resources, and preserve their assets for working-class families.
“Our communities are at their best, and are their most vibrant, when everyone has a safe, affordable place to call home,” said Priscilla Chan, Co-Founder of CZI. “That’s what this partnership is all about. Through a unique combination of financial resources, coalition-building, and support services, the LROC helps stabilize and improve housing for those who need it most — particularly within Black and Brown communities that have been hit hardest by the pandemic and by decades of exclusionary housing policies.”
“Small rental owners are integral to many communities and often provide housing at affordable rates for residents who would otherwise be priced out of areas like South Los Angeles,” said Shawn Escoffery, Executive Director of the RPDFF. “This program is the key to stabilizing the affordable housing market and ensuring that mom and pop landlords aren’t forced to sell their properties during these difficult times. We look forward to supporting the LROC and working alongside our partners on this important initiative.”
CRCD, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit dedicated to sustainable community development, is the primary administrator for the program and will manage the approval process for applicants, as well as outreach to the local community. National affordable housing nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners, which helped design the program, will oversee financial management of the LROC and work directly with CRCD on its implementation and evaluation. Avail, the LROC’s technology partner, will host the application and provide program participants with online tools to help streamline rental payments, maintenance requests from tenants, and more. The program was co-developed by CZI, a philanthropic organization that provided seed funding for the effort. The RPDFF is also a philanthropic partner for the LROC.
“The LROC is providing exactly what our communities are telling us they need: direct relief for the BIPOC renters and small landlords in South Los Angeles who were hit hardest by the pandemic,” said Jacqueline Waggoner, President of the Solutions Division at Enterprise Community Partners. “As a collaborative, we can keep Angelenos in their homes, preserve neighborhood stability and work toward an equitable recovery from COVID-19. And with the support of generous funders like CZI and RPDFF, we can explore the possibility of expanding this pilot to communities nationwide.”
Applications to join the LROC open today for qualifying rental property owners within the 90011 zip code. For more information about the program, application process, and eligibility requirements, please visit avail.com/lroc.
“The pandemic has revealed the need for broad-scale investments in infrastructure that helps our communities be more resilient and our response to economic crises more efficient and effective. Unfortunately millions of small business, DIY landlords, and tenants have been unaware of the relief available to them and how to access it. We are proud to be partnering with the best-in-class organizations on the LROC pilot, leveraging intuitive technology and community-building tools to address these issues in Los Angeles. We hope to take this experience and apply these solutions nationwide,” said Ryan Coon, co-founder and CEO of Avail.
About the Coalition for Responsible Community Development
CRCD’s overall approach is neighborhood-based community development. The nonprofit organization has a long-term commitment to improving the quality of life in South Los Angeles, focusing on youth in the community and assisting them with education, opportunities to pursue career pathways, and meet basic needs. CRCD also addresses the longstanding neighborhood conditions where young people reside — such as poverty, unemployment, public safety issues, and the lack of affordable housing. Since its founding in 2005 by community members, CRCD has partnered in a combined investment of $125 million in South LA housing and real estate, including 370 units of permanent supportive and affordable housing, plus community space for support services, youth programs, a homeless youth drop-in center, a community garden, and commercial space for social enterprise. CRCD connected more than 3,000 young people with diplomas, jobs, and housing. Visit www.coalitionrcd.org for more information.
About the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education, to addressing the needs of our local communities. Our mission is to build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone. For more information, please visit www.chanzuckerberg.com.
About the Roy + Patricia Disney Family Foundation
The Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation is guided by social justice principles and believes that inequities can be dismantled through strategic and systems-level interventions. We strive to understand and invest in on-the-ground solutions driven by experts — individuals and advocacy groups living and working in the communities they serve. The Foundation elevates organizations and ideas that address pre-existing and reinforcing conditions that lead to inequities. These groups lead with policy and narrative change, power building, and amplify the voices of marginalized groups. The Foundation currently invests in Affordable Housing Preservation, Criminal Justice Reform, and Environmental Justice in South and East Los Angeles (CA), New Orleans (LA), and Tacoma (WA) through its grantmaking and impact investing initiatives.
About Enterprise Community Partners
Enterprise is a national nonprofit on a mission to make home and community places of pride, power and belonging for all. To make that possible, we operate the only organization designed to address America’s affordable housing crisis from every angle: we develop and deploy programs and support community organizations on the ground; we advocate for policy on a nonpartisan basis at every level of government; we invest capital to build and preserve rental homes people can afford; and we own, operate and provide resident services for affordable communities. All so that people not only make rent, they build futures. With this end-to-end approach, 40 years of experience and thousands of local partners, Enterprise has built and preserved 775,000 homes, invested $61 billion in communities and changed millions of lives. Join us at EnterpriseCommunity.org.
About Avail
Founded in 2012, Avail is the first and only online platform for independent landlords and tenants that provides the tools, education, and support to make renting easy. Landlords across the U.S. use Avail to advertise vacant units, request rental applications and credit reports, sign leases, and collect rent — all online. Avail is a division of Move Inc., the operator of Realtor.com®, the company that pioneered the world of digital real estate more than 20 years ago.
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]]>The post What’s New to Your Avail Tenant Dashboard appeared first on Avail.
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At Avail, we are constantly working to improve the tenant experience. For tenants, the dashboard provides a glanceable view of their rental status. Whether applying for a new rental or checking when their next rent payment is due, their dashboard should always provide up-to-date, useful information.
Users have enough to worry about as they apply to apartments and set up rent payments, and our tenant dashboard was not necessarily making the process easier. It was cluttered with unnecessary information and outdated components, making it more challenging for the user to navigate their own dashboard. Our design team took this as an opportunity to implement components from our design system, as well as to streamline the entire rental application completion process.
Simplifying the Tenant Dashboard Layout
To achieve this, we first simplified the overall layout to reduce visual noise and provide a more streamlined view of your activity. A single column allows users to scan the page more easily while bringing important actions to the top of the page — like application requests or invitations to sign a lease. We also moved the Autopay status directly to the dashboard for more transparency into your current payment method.
Next, we reduced the five actions to complete a rental application into one. This was one of the biggest improvements to the dashboard, as it saves real estate and improves the application process at the same time. The new layout makes it simpler for tenants to access and complete a single rental application, saving them time and effort as they move through the application process.
And because tenants are often accessing their account from their phones, we’ve added small — but useful — enhancements to tie your account into your device, like one-click calling to your landlord.
Building Consistency to Make Renting Easier
At Avail, we’ve been working towards a deeper integration of our design system, and updating the tenant dashboard lets us build on that goal. Users will notice more consistency across elements along with added accessibility for users that need assistive technology in order to use the app.
What’s Next?
This refresh is just the beginning of how we are improving the tenant experience at Avail. We’re dedicated to making more user-friendly changes to our platform, so if there are any changes, adjustments, or issues that you find while using Avail, our product team would love to hear from you. Please send your feedback and suggestions about what we can improve to design@avail.co.
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]]>The post Avail and Urban Institute Collaborate to Expand Research on the Noninstitutional Half of the Rental Market appeared first on Avail.
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Avail and the Urban Institute are working together to further research on the 24 million rental units owned and managed by noninstitutional landlords and the renters who live in them.
Through a combination of Avail rent payment data and survey findings, along with world-class data analysis and research capabilities provided by the Urban Institute, the collaboration will provide comprehensive data and insights to the public on issues affecting independent landlords and their tenants.
“Urban Institute is excited to team up with Avail as a data provider,” said Laurie Goodman, co-director of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. “Our work together will provide insights to the public about the noninstitutional part of the rental market, which is so important to the health and well-being of communities nationwide.”
The Avail Research Team frequently surveys landlords and tenants across the U.S. and has been able to provide anonymized and aggregate data about rent payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, Avail and the Urban Institute worked together on a rental market survey that found that Black and Hispanic landlords have been the hardest-hit by the pandemic, but are also the most willing to work with their tenants.
“We’re eager to continue to work with organizations like the Urban Institute to bring awareness to the underserved half of the housing market that’s owned and managed by independent, DIY landlords,” said Avail CEO Ryan Coon. “Urban Institute is among the most well-respected research organizations in the housing sector, and our collaboration will help raise awareness of issues that are often overlooked.”
Although independent, DIY landlords own and manage about half of all rentals in the U.S., this part of the market has historically been ignored in research efforts due to its fragmented nature.
“With more than 200,000 landlords using Avail, we have enough data to draw meaningful conclusions that will help drive policy recommendations,” said Coon.
Join the Avail newsletter for access to future rental market research and reports.
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]]>The post Independent Landlords: The Small Business Every Community Needs appeared first on Avail.
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In honor of SBA’s National Small Business Week, Avail is recognizing one sector of small business that often gets overlooked: independent landlords.
While smaller scale, independent landlords tend to be a more fragmented sector of the economy and aren’t always easy to group or track down, nearly eight million of these DIY landlords exist across the country. They’re vital to local communities and a staple to many neighborhoods, providing a necessary housing alternative to larger, institutionalized rental companies.
As this year’s small business week highlights businesses that are contributing to a stronger U.S. economy, here are three ways independent DIY landlords contribute to their communities and strengthen the housing market.
1. Independent Landlords Reinvest Their Earnings
Avail found that the majority of independent landlords live within 15 miles of their rental properties — meaning they are much more likely to invest in their local communities. Whether it’s local spending, tax dollars, or reinvestment into their rentals, smaller DIY landlords who live in the community are able to contribute and reinvest on a more localized level.
2. Independent Landlords Are More Likely to Work With Tenants on a Personal Level
A major difference between larger, institutionalized property management companies and smaller scale, independent landlords is the relationship they have with their tenants. Because many independent landlords only own a few properties, they’re more likely to know their tenants on a personal level — and more likely to work with them when problems arise.
Whether it be accepting a tenant that larger management companies would reject based on their paper application or working with a tenant to quickly resolve maintenance issues, independent landlords tend to be more invested in their properties and available to help.
While independent landlords have been the hardest-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, Avail found that many of these same landlords are the most willing to work with their tenants to keep them in their properties. Between formulating payment plans or waiving a month’s rent, the more personal connection between smaller landlords and their tenants has been apparent during the pandemic.
3. Independent Landlords Employ Other Local Small Businesses
DIY landlords typically perform their own maintenance on their rentals, but when they don’t, they hire local companies or independent contractors to it for them. Online landlord platforms and landlord groups often pass along local business and contractor referrals to their fellow landlords, and are more likely to utilize these local businesses than larger property management companies might be, keeping their money within the community.
Local Landlords Are a Staple in Every Community
Even as the rental market continues to face unique economic challenges, independent landlords remain a pillar of small business within their communities, reinvesting their rental income and providing a housing alternative in neighborhoods across the country. Avail celebrates the work of all independent landlords who continue to work respectfully with their tenants and make their communities a better place to live.
For rental market news, legal updates, and information that all landlords need to know, sign up for our newsletter below.
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