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The service, aptly titled Bondable, aims to shake up Australia’s rental industry and consumer experience.
Bondable has been described as “Australia’s first technology-driven, subscription rental bond service”.
Powered by Hutly, Bondable “was created for the everyday Australian who wants to be a good tenant and do the right thing”, said Bondable founder, Jeremy Hastings.
He explained that Bondable is designed “to reward tenants with a good credit and rental history, while solving real problems in the offboarding process for both landlords and property managers”.
The subscription service, which costs just $19.99 per month, enables tenants to no longer lodge a cash bond.
Instead, the service provides “a seamless, digitally enabled dispute mediation service with a complimentary bond guarantee”, Bondable reported.
“With rising cost of living and soaring rental prices, locking away thousands of dollars can put a strain on household budgets or mean Aussies miss out on life’s small luxuries, like a well-deserved holiday.”
Hastings said that Bondable “puts trust back in quality tenants, while ensuring agents and landlords are protected”.
Conceding that today’s renters rely on a decades old bond system, the founder said the way bonds currently work “is creating financial strain for Australians, additional headaches for agents and landlords, and pressure on housing supply due to delays in offboarding tenants and re-letting properties”.
“While traditional bonds still have an important role to play, we believe there is a clear need and rising demand for a new way to bond that says goodbye to hassle and hello to stress-free renting,” Hastings raised.
The unveiling of Bondable follows 18 months of beta testing, made possible through a technology partnership between Hutly and the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV). The next step of the tech’s launch will be to be trialled across the institute’s agency network, before a staged nationwide rollout.
Weighing in on the innovation, REIV president Jacob Caine said they are “supportive of positive innovation in the industry and believes Bondable can play an important role in solving the affordability crisis in Victoria and bringing portability to tenant bonds”.
Caine said they “welcome Bondable’s entry into the real estate market and will continue to help educate the industry about the value Bondable represents as one of several options available for rental providers and renters”.
As part of the offering, Bondable is reported to conduct extensive tenant checks to ensure it is only working with quality renters.
And for those who are on board, it facilitates instant claims payments, absorbs financial and recovery risks of disputes, and is financially guaranteed by an independent insurer.
Hastings raised that “Bondable gives landlords and agents peace of mind that they are financially protected”.
He outlined how “agents can lodge a claim and use Bondable’s digital mediation service to efficiently offboard the tenant. In the meantime, landlords and agents can rest easy knowing Bondable will instantly pay the value of the claim, up to one month’s rent, while the claim is being mediated and settled between the tenant and landlord”.
“Furthermore, Bondable is fully insured, meaning in the unlikely event Bondable was to stop operating, the existing bond guarantees would continue.”
For Hastings, “this third-party assurance was really important to us as we wanted to give all parties, including the broader public and government, the confidence that Bondable is just as safe as a traditional cash bond”.
As to the digital mediation service capability, Hastings explained that it “aims to take the worry and stress out of ending a rental agreement.”
Acknowledging that ending rental agreements is “one of the areas of renting that creates the most friction, stress and emotion for everyone”, the founder added that the complimentary bond guarantee also means “quality” tenants no longer have to put thousands of dollars away just to get access to a home.
He concluded: “It is a proud moment to deliver this solution that we believe will have far-reaching positive impacts for the industry and everyday Australians.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grace Ormsby
Grace is a journalist across Momentum property and investment brands. Grace joined Momentum Media in 2018, bringing with her a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from the University of Newcastle. She’s passionate about delivering easy to digest information and content relevant to her key audiences and stakeholders.
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