(Roast/thoughts on my idea) Building a financial platforms for tenants.🏠💰
Context: We tenants(22-25yo) move to a new city for work, pay high taxes, gets screwed by the landlords, have to pay upfront costs without the 1st salary and have to often resort to personal loans at high interest rates/ask your parents etc. We have also go through interviews multiple times and sadly there's no digital trail of if you were a on-time rent paying good tenant. Its always start from scratch wrt convincing landlords whenever you move to a new place in high demand areas. To summarise: I am building a financial platform to solve the following problems: 1. Pay your high upfront cost and divide by 3/6 with flexible repayment schedules. 2. For every rent payment done through the platform, you'll get very focused rewards/discounts which is very important during the lifecycle of a tenant. Think of it as discounted locked flight ticket during peak season like diwali when you want to go home. 3. One click loans especially home loans at the best rates powered by tenant alternative data when eventually you want to buy your own home. Thoughts? Ik it may look like "another" loan app but we want to help tenants throughout their lifecycle. There's no demarcation of tenants vs other tax paying middle class segment who stay and work from their own homes.
JimCramer
Stealth
a month ago
How would you onboard landlords & tenants who deal in cash for rent payments?
They would never use any platform which leaves a trail of their exchange.
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Very good question. Yes it'll be a challenge, but for now we're focusing on tenants who pay their rent through credit card/UPI etc. Eventually just like when insurance used to be all non-digital, now you can claim/take insurance seamlessly digitally, we would attempt to do the same for rents. We are in talks with Digital India SPOCs - also it'll reduce fraud around HRA claims etc
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People opt for digital payment for insurance because then they can claim deductions in their income tax.
Landlords opt for cash payment for rental income, to avoid income tax.
The scenarios are very different.
In my opinion, onboarding tenants will not be an issue, but onboarding landlords will be herculean task!
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Even if we go by this, people will just see the tenant and landlords on your platform and contact offline.
Brokers will be hurdles, as they never let tenant and landlords be on your platform
Home loan is 250x timee your monthly rent and how can you give loan on only this data at cheaper price and making sure of no default
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
It'll not the sole data point but there will be many other adjacent alternative data along with traditional ones. But it'll not be collected at one shot during onboarding like other loan apps.
Cred has a rent payment option, it seems to be standing somewhere in Cred Spectrum
DaringTrain
Stealth
a month ago
Great idea
Let me know when you start it
I will divide all my family members into pairs of two. You will pay the landlords upfront. And all my tenants will default.
Since you are not an NBFC, there won't be an impact on their credit score
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Not really, do you default when you pay in 3 your apple iphone through amazon? We have our collection partner :)
Nice idea. You can make a cibil score version for tenants. They can use this to prove how good of a tenant they were when they are shifting houses again. On time rent paid, house kept down etc..
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Wow! Exactly. This is exactly what we want to build. Thanks.
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PutridStem73
Stealth
a month ago
Great idea. This can also solve for landlord’s issues with trustworthiness
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DaringTrain
Stealth
a month ago
No, because Amazon works with NBFC which will screw your credit score.
Also, Amazon and your credit card pay for the subvention charges that is recovered from the manufacturer.
Who will pay you? How will you subvene charges for the end user?
Also, do you know why rent payments through credit card have plummeted? Read about the RBI notice and how it views platforms like yourself. No regulated entity will want to touch you with ten foot pole
DaringTrain
Stealth
a month ago
GV is a Stoopidplatform. Can't reply to threads like a normal person
such kind of grounded critique is why i am here for. although you can also suggest possible solutions
All that's okay... But where will you get the money from? How will you stop yourself from people gaming your system?
RagePank
Stealth
a month ago
These are the only questions that matter.
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How about partnership with banks for lending and only acting as an agent that connects the two parties - bank, potential home-buying tenant. Facilitate on commission. Even today intermediate agents sell home loans to customer on commission from banks. With this you get commission from both parties, at scale, assuming you facilitate a tenant through renting to home buying journey with tenancy ratings, credit rating etc. eventually bringing trust and discount rates on home loans.
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Bro, I don't know what is the overall sentiment of this, here. But having seen many other posts and usual sentiments of people, i would say, don't give a fuck. Just go ahead and start executing like it's your last day on earth.
No need to take validation from random strangers. This is a solid problem and you, I, everyone has faced this. Don't pay a heed to anyone, just do it man
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Thanks a lot man! I understand but I have been looking for unique criticisms and feedback and thoughts - something I do with all the products I've built till date. Not an issue. Thanks for the motivation too 🙏🏻
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Just assuming like Bajaj finserv card which used to buy for furniture likewise for the rental payments.. your taking out the burden paying in front.. tats good one .. but considering add more addition like maintain the property and onboard and off board process it will workout mainly city like Bangalore and you get paid ..
WindingFiner
Stealth
a month ago
Do you plan to introduce a rating system for tenants and landlords?
Something that shows how reliable they are?
You'll need lots of ad money to scale it, and just like most rating systems, there can be fake reviews to deal with.
Also, especially in North India, landlords aren't very tech-savvy.
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Yes we'll have tenant score. We're only targeting tenants for now. For paying rent on time, having a healthy financial status etc and linking details to your profile will help you better your tenant score. Eventually this would be used by banks and most importantly landlords to have a reduced TAT to lease out their properties.
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Guys right now there is not digital trail of a good tenant vs bad. No tenant go through BGV, especially in PGs. Its not just home loan, not we're trying to build a dineout experience for rent payment - don't worry about the business model because we have taken care of all that
You can’t sell cheaper home loans that a bank. Why would people come to you? Where is credit check? Paying rent on time can not be sole indicator of good credit worthiness.
Discounts- you’ll burn yours investors money.
Why pay high upfront cost? What’s the benefit?
So many gaps in India. Don’t waste your time, energy and your investors money on this.
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Have you taken a home loan? If you've, you'll know it's a hectic process. You never get a constant interest rate, you've to share your data in multiple places just to get rejected at the end of process OR they give you a high interest rate. We will try to make it extremely seamless like any digital lending app once you've engaged enough with the app.
Can you lmk the gaps in India?
I'm trying the digital lending domain, paying rent on time is not just the "sole" indicator - we will have the additional checks in place but the UX we have designed is very seamless and not upfront.
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There is already something similar to this in the UK. In my previous company I used to work for this client called ' Legal for Landlords'. They had a similar application like this. It was focused around landlords and tenants and there will be agents in who would carry out the transactions.
I was thinking the same, but in business space.
Like some shops don't pay their dues and shift to some other wholesaler and dupe them too.
All the while good shop keepers are not given credit.
But then the same black/white came into picture
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Very nice, yes. We have a good demarcation wrt loan type i.e business vs consumer vs credit card vs home loans. But not really in the user segment. The deserving ones do not get loans easily or with good rates. Business loans and creator loans is something we also explored.
What’s in it for you ? Looks like only the attach of home loan. The % conversion to attach is very low and that will put the business at risk.
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Not just that, we have convert your upfront security deposit into 3/6 with innovation in repayment schedules. For ex - let's say you lose your job, and you've to pay rent - we will do take care. I'm focusing on problems and not really solutions hence wanted the opinions.
Why should i not put the deposit in a bank instead of giving it to you.
If you are talking about the landlord’s security deposit, why would landlords have you enjoy the interest earned on it and not them?
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
😂😂😂😂😂😂 mood
Throw in 3rd party services like furniture rental. Rev share per month on those rentals.
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
YES! We already in talks with them. Make your unfurnished home into furnished in one click sorta. Like I said it's not just loans but whatever problems tenants face during their whole life cycle
PutridStem73
Stealth
a month ago
Sounds like a great problem space to tackle OP, and one that I have personally faced issues with. Looking forward to becoming a user of your platform someday!
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Thanks a lot! Can you DM me? Would love to chat in little more depth.
What is the interest rate at which you will provide credit? I believe there are many companies providing credit…
I have no experience in start up nor do I consider myself an expert but here is my take,
1. The idea is very good but anything with loan RBI is king and somehow I feel just like your idea RBI has heart is at the right place but I feel RBI lacks innovation mindset.
2. Tenant and landlord market is managed by brokers and no matter what different apps tried it never worked because brokers show moon and Sun to landlords so don't expect landlords to allow their tenant to use your app somehow they don't trust your tech and after new tax regime many tenants agree to pay rent in cash as well.
However as I said the idea is very good and what you can do is instead of focusing on growing too fast and work for investors exit plan for slow and steady growth.
I would put 1st party listings 1st like buy many flats on your company itself or provide Tenant as a service where you provide everything from buying right property and then tenant to those who want to invest in real estate and provide all types services to both.
Now you'll have control over the process you can handle everything and actually execute your vision.
I feel while this way is very capital intensive it's not risky since buying property will retain value regardless of other business's performance. Once there is enough buzz you should have both types of customers.
But all in all I would invest time and money in this business but I don't have much money but hit me up if I can do anything.
bruh7
Stealth
a month ago
Wow. Thanks a lot for putting effort in giving such detailed feedback. We are tenants ourselves for the last 10-15 years and have great context on problems faced by tenants and landlords. There's lot more in plate. Also what's your profile? How can you help?
Thanks
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LamePlot
Stealth
a month ago
I'd suggest you to not take the FinTech route and only start with Tenant-Landlord rating system and eventually let the startup organically find its PMF
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by SuperSaiyanGoku
Stealth
Honest feedback on my startup
Hey guys, I am building a personal finance management, essentially FinTech in India  to give users, a smart banking experience without any neobanking bullshit . Don’t have to open a new bank account to have great features like a Jupiter has. Not selling credits. And great user experience. The best part to track and manage your finances, I don’t ask for your gmail access or do any SMS scraping so what do you think? 
https://getpocket.money
