What is Say Rhino and how can it benefit buyers, investors, renters, and landlords?
Say Rhino is a security deposit alternative that’s available to renters and landlords. Essentially, it’s an insurance policy on the security deposit. Instead of the security deposit coming out of the tenant’s bank account, the insurance company pays for any damages.
As a landlord, the traditional way to do a security deposit is to take the check from the renter, go to the bank and open up the security deposit. You also have to bring your W-9 form and your lease, and the whole process usually takes between 30 minutes to an hour. After that, you have to supply quarterly statements and give them any interest that’s due.
That’s what’s legally required, but with Say Rhino, they take care of all the security deposit issues before, during, and after the rental process.
The second thing they do—and one that’s really important in today’s market—is allow you to compete with luxury buildings that offer low security deposit alternatives.
There are new construction buildings popping up everywhere in our area, which means tens of thousands of luxury rental units coming onto the market. When one of these buildings is finished, they’ll have 100% vacancy, so they’ll need to lease up quickly. To do that, they’ll offer incentives like reduced rent to potential renters—people who’d otherwise be looking at your property.
It almost feels as though there’s an amenity war going on with these buildings. The newest one I just saw even had a rock climbing wall! I don’t know if I’d personally ever use a rock climbing wall, but if I had to choose between a $2,000 property that does have access to a rock climbing wall and a $2,000 property that doesn’t, I’d go with the one that does.
Let’s do some quick math to further illustrate how this affects you as a landlord.
Let’s say you ask for $2,000 for your property along with a one-and-a-half month security deposit of $3,000, making the total acquisition cost to move into that property $5,000. Then let’s say one of these luxury new construction properties with all those amenities is asking for $2,500 along with a $1,000 security deposit, making their total acquisition cost $3,500.
Up front, that makes your property $1,500 more expensive than the luxury unit. Renters will then discount this amount from their rent and look at it as a “net effective.” In their mind, that $2,500 apartment is now $115 less per month over the course of an entire year.
What’s more, some of these buildings offer one or two months of free rent. One month of free rent on a $2,500 apartment deducts an additional $192 in monthly costs, so the net effective rent, in this case, would be $2,193. If you had to choose between a $2,193 apartment with all those amenities and a $3,500 apartment without any of them, which would you choose?
Therein lies the problem, but Say Rhino levels the playing field by making moving into your property way more cost effective. I myself am signing up for this product, and if I have a good applicant who wants to take advantage of it, I’ll use it because I think it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.
If you have any questions about Say Rhino or you have any other real estate needs, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to help you.
