INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Searching for someone to fill a home takes work, while property managers are incentivized to price your place too high, leading to costly
vacancies.But new startup Doorstead wants to take on the risk and the work for you
It acts as a property manager for single-family homes, but guarantees you rent at a specific rate starting in a certain number of days, even
It also handles all the algorithmic pricing, advertising, tenant interviews, repairs, maintenance, leases and online payments in exchange
Owners just sit back and receive the money, making it much easier to profit off of distant real estate
has attracted a $3.3 million seed round co-led by M13 and Silicon Valley Data Capital, and joined by Venture Reality Fund and SOMA Capital
in product at Uber after his recipe platform Kitchenbowl was acqui-hired.Doorstead co-founders (from left): Jennifer Bronzo and Ryan
around the San Francisco Bay Area.As consumers grow accustomed to zero-friction services, that approach is branching into bigger and bigger
sectors like the trillions paid for long-term rentals
hoping to become the OpenDoor of rentals.How Doorstead works
First, property owners contact Doorstead and provide some basic information on
the home they want to rent out
They receive a preliminary offer before the startup does an inspection and takes professional marketing photos while digging through reams
of data on local pricing, availability and demand to pick a rate its algorithm believes it can fill the home for quickly
then methodically lists the home on all the top rental platforms
It handles open house walk-throughs and runs background checks on potential tenants to find who will most reliably pay rent
plenty of margin for Doorstead to earn if it can consistently fill homes faster
fills the spot before the guaranteed due date
From there, it charges 8% of monthly rent with no tenant placement fee, which is close to or under the common 10% fee on single-family home
And if it manages to secure a higher rate from tenants than its guarantee, it gives 70% to the owner.Doorstead claims to be less risky than
Doorstead, even if the owner lives far away, the turn-key service lets them efficiently rent their home
from their lean software-based marketplaces
Other property management startups like Mynd, OneRent and BelongHome only offer guaranteed rent once tenants are found, absolving themselves
Doorstead has ~4 move ins/outs and that results in significantly less wear-and-tear and a much easier operations to manage
At Doorstead, we have an opportunity to completely redefine the housing value chain by creating a new class of property management that
eliminates unnecessary vacancies
