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In the midst of an up and down market, RentSpree is making it easier for residential sales agents to access the future buying power of renters by partnering with multiple listing services. Its latest partnership is with the North Carolina-based Hive MLS, formerly North Carolina Regional MLS.
RentSpree locked down the agreement before the July 4 holiday, according to a press release shared with Inman.
Michael Lucarelli
“Our collaboration with Hive MLS reflects RentSpree’s commitment to empowering real estate professionals with modern, accessible rental technology,” said Michael Lucarelli, CEO and Co-Founder of RentSpree, in the release. “Together, we’re making it easier for agents to serve a growing segment of the market, especially in high-demand areas like the Carolinas and Georgia.”
RentSpree’s software empowers property managers, landlords and agents to quickly vet potential tenants, process applications and collect payments. It can assist with marketing available units through syndication channels, collect documents and e-signatures and help agents track rental leads as potential buyers.
RentSpree has more than 300 associations and MLSs in its partner network that primarily use its ApplyLink solution, a single browser experience that provides access to its product suite.
Hive MLS operates 19 multiple listing services with an estimated 15,000 annual rental listings.
Its name stems from a major rebrand effort intended to reflect a new commitment to adopting software and modernized operations to better serve its members.
Hive’s agents largely help consumers buy and sell in the North Carolina’s Research Triangle, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triumvirate that is home to countless technology startups, university tech-transfer programs, pharmaceutical giants like GlaxoSmithKline and Biogen, IBM and SAS, the world’s largest privately held software company — a collective business presence that explains the region’s decades-long population growth.
“At Hive MLS, we’re focused on giving our members the tools they need to succeed, not just today but as the market evolves,” Hive MLS CEO Daniel Jones said in a statement. “RentSpree’s integration helps our members move faster, work smarter, and better serve their clients in the growing rental space.”
RentSpree’s presence in the southeast is growing in unison, with relationships already in place with Georgia Realtors, First MLS, North Carolina Realtors and RESides MLS.
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Inman Innovator Award-winning Solid Earth is a technology company that works with multiple listing services and associations to bolster workflow efficiencies, and part of that effort includes reducing the barriers to accessing data and tools often buried under multiple logins and outdated security measures.
To that end, the company has introduced Passkey authentication to all of its MLS clients, Inman learned in a June 26 statement. The new “password-free, phishing-resistant login” will be rolled out initially to thousands of members in the San Antonio Board of Realtors (SABOR).
“Passkeys are device-based credentials built on FIDO standards and backed by Apple, Google and Microsoft,” according to the statement. “They let users sign in using Face ID, Touch ID, or a device PIN, eliminating the need for passwords and reducing risk from phishing and credential reuse.”
It’s not at all uncommon for MLS platforms and industry data sources to be caught in hacks or phishing attempts, which puts all members at risk, especially those who rely on MLS software partnerships to run their business.
In 2023, Rapattoni suffered a ransomware attack that paralyzed servers hosting multiple listing services with hundreds of thousands of members. Those affected, among others, included Northwest Indiana Realtors Association, San Francisco Association of Realtors, BAREIS MLS, Pasadena Foothills Realtors, and CincyMLS.
It happened to MetroList in 2019 and to Georgia MLS in 2020, as well. It’s safe to say that the sophistication of such schemes has only evolved, making every tactic to prevent them all the more important.
“Our focus has always been on empowering members with intuitive, secure tools,” said Gilbert Gonzalez, CEO of the San Antonio Board of Realtors, in a statement. “Passkeys are a perfect fit, giving our members a seamless login experience while supporting our mission to lead with innovation.”
Solid Earth works with a number of technology-forward MLSs across the industry, such as BeachesMLS, Miami Realtors, and the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors.
On top of its security tools, the company builds home search portals, company websites, member communication platforms and membership dashboards, among other custom offerings.
“Our mission is simple: to create one secure record for every real estate professional in the U.S. — making life easier for them and the MLSs that support them,” Rebecca Pearson, VP of Marketing and Communications at Solid Earth, said in the release. “Passkeys are a major leap forward in delivering on that promise.”
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A company that smooths out the many rough patches in the road to investing in U.S. real estate from overseas is now better prepared to meet that growing need, according to a June 24 press release from Waltz, the tech-enabled property investing platform.
The company said it has secured a new $25 million line of credit from Setpoint Capital that will enable it to fund up to $1 billion in loan volume.
The capital will “support Waltz’s official launch across Latin America (LATAM), with a focus on Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina—the first three being the region’s largest sources of U.S. real estate investment,” the company said.
Waltz provides a digital on-ramp for foreign real estate investors to buy property in the United States. It helps them establish a banking presence, an LLC, gain an EIN, transfer currencies and safely wire funds. The company conducts direct marketing efforts to investors and works with real estate agents to educate them on workflow efficiencies and the financial requirements needed to assist families and investors hoping to own in the States.
“The demand from Latin America was immediate and that is not surprising — U.S. real estate is a blue chip investment for foreign nationals,” Yuval Golan, founder and CEO of Waltz, said. “The stability, rooted in the historical strength of the U.S. economy, facilitates wealth creation from financing options, the potential for passive income streams, and property value appreciation. When paired with customer-centric digital solutions, it becomes clear why digital platforms like Waltz resonate with today’s global investors.”
The National Association of Realtors found in its 2024 Profile of International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate that residents of Canada lead in outside U.S. investment at 13 percent of foreign buyers. Then comes citizens from China (11 percent) and Mexico (11 percent). In total, foreign buyers account for $42 billion in total home sales, or 2.0 percent of the total $2.1 trillion market.
Waltz’s software experience was reviewed by Inman in 2024. It was recognized for how it flattened a typically convoluted process for the buyer and the other stakeholders common to the transaction.
“Because Waltz is ultimately a fintech solution and the lender behind most of its customers’ deals, it’s the primary source of truth for the deal. This means agents and brokers don’t have to wade through layers of logins or voicemails to find out which conduit has held up the transaction,” the review stated.
Waltz states that it has processed more than $300 million in loan applications across four continents since its launch a year ago and to date has raised $50 million.
HomeLister, acquired by Newfound, joins Houwzer, Trelora and HomeRise under the Newfound umbrella of web-based brokerage services, each offering its own tiered services model for non-traditional home sales that blend software, MLS and portal marketing and licensed agent advisement.
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Newfound, parent company to a family of alternative, technology-enabled brokerage brands, has acquired HomeLister, a web-based home sale solution.
Inman was provided exclusive information on the deal, the terms of which were not disclosed.
HomeLister joins Houwzer, Trelora and HomeRise under the Newfound umbrella, each offering its own tiered services model for non-traditional home sales that blend software, MLS and portal marketing, and licensed agent advisement.
Mike Maher, CEO of Newfound, called the deal a “pivotal moment” for his company, and said that HomeLister capabilities will be augmented by HomeRise, launched in 2024, which allows homesellers to publish directly to local multiple listing services.
“HomeLister’s proven technology and customer-centric approach are a perfect complement to our vision for HomeRise,” he said. “Together, we are poised to redefine the real estate landscape, especially as the industry anticipates broader adoption of Model Context Protocol (MCP) across Multiple Listing Services.”
Model Context Protocol is an emerging technology that, among other things, makes it easier for artificial intelligence models to learn from data sources. It standardizes context from the source to ensure, for example, that a large language model better understands what it’s ingesting.
HomeLister leverages AI to streamline the listing process for its users and make its backend functionality more efficient, leading to the operational savings that drive its low cost services. That also provides scalability, one of the factors motivating Newfound’s acquisition, as well as what Newfound called, a “synergistic audience overlap” that will “enable more effective marketing and customer acquisition.”
HomeLister founder and CEO Lindsay McLean is moving to Newfound, according to the release.
“Our shared commitment to technology-driven improvements in customer experience and cost reduction aligns perfectly. Newfound’s impressive growth, particularly with HomeRise, showcases its capability to thrive even under challenging market conditions,” McLean said.
HomeLister secured $10 million in a Series A round in 2022 from investors M13 and Homebrew. At that point, it was operating in 17 states.
“Like so many other parts of our economy, digital transformation can drive efficiency across many aspects of the homeselling process without sacrificing quality,” McLean said in 2022. “Knowing that a home sale is one of the biggest financial transactions of a person’s life, our goal is to put power and control back in the hands of sellers by letting them select the level of support they need and saving them tens of thousands in the process.”
Newfound said in the release that it has “closed over 40,000 real estate transactions, representing a total sales volume of more than $10 billion.” With the HomeLister acquisition, Newfound brands are marketing more than 1000 active listings in 30 states. The company reports 25 percent year-over-year growth.
TurboTenant’s integration of Rent Butter will embed what the companies are calling “near-instant” credit and background checks into the application process, removing it as a secondary, stand-alone action in the application ecosystem.
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Two technology companies in the rental industry are working together under an agreement forged to address the increasing risk of renter fraud, Inman has learned.
A June 18 press release from TurboTenant said that it is integrating Rent Butter’s, “tech-forward resident screening and verification platform” to empower its 775,00o-plus customers to vet applicants better and sniff out fraud attempts.
“Resident screening is one of the most important steps in protecting a rental investment,” TurboTenant CEO Seamus Nally said in the press release. “By partnering with Rent Butter, we’re providing our landlords with the best software available to manage their property and ensure access to the most accurate credit, criminal and eviction information available.”
The integration will embed what the companies are calling “near-instant” credit and background checks into the application process, removing it as a secondary, stand-alone action in the application ecosystem.
Such a flattening of the typical renter oversight process holds promise to save significant time for property managers, ensure data flows between steps with more accuracy and cut approval times for worthy applicants.
Rent Butter said in the release that traditional screening takes one to four days and estimates that as a result, landlords lose at least $65 per day in rent. Its software will allow TurboTenant users to see application reports and approval insights almost instantly.
“We believe in building safer, more inclusive communities by improving the accuracy and transparency of tenant screening,” Christopher Rankin, CEO of Rent Butter said in the release. “Working with TurboTenant allows us to bring this mission to scale and support hundreds of thousands of landlords with faster, fairer and more reliable screening technology.”
The company delves into consumer spending behavior, rent payment history, rent-to-income ratios and other financial activity to construct a more comprehensive model of an ideal tenant. Credit reports are largely static looks at a person at a single point in their consumer lifecycle.
A study conducted by Rent Butter looked at tenant approvals across 100,000 units and discovered six registered sex offenders, 85 felony convictions and 34 misdemeanors.
“In total, 14.5% of applicants in the dataset had serious criminal records that would not have been identified using more limited reporting methods,” Rent Butter said.
RentSpree, another software company serving the rental industry, has announced partnerships of its own to bolster antifraud efforts.
In August of last year, it connected with Finicity, a Mastercard company, to provide improved financial oversight of applicants, and in May, it evolved its existing partnership with TransUnion to better screen tenants for evictions and criminal records.
TurboTenant helps process more than $3 billion in rent each year, collects “millions of renter leads” and tackles more than 20,000 background checks every month, according to its website.
