Tenants in Nigeria usually pay rent annually. A system that suits landlords but adversely affects tenants. Landlords usually find it easier to collect a one-time yearly payment rather than 12 times monthly.
To some extent, you can’t fault them because the one-time payment helps them in planning their fiscal year. However, on the part of tenants, paying rent annually can be frustrating.
Overview
Spleet is a marketplace built by Akintola Adesanmi and Dolapo Adeboye, to connect Africans with living spaces. For people who have rented houses, especially in Lagos, this may be the best news ever. Because it saves tenants the stress of walking all over the city to inspect houses. Again, Spleet is a place where one can find landlords and properties they can pay for monthly instead of annually. Spleet’s original plan was to help people, find houses and pay rent monthly starting from Nigeria. A plan that was good, seamless and cost-effective for tenants.
However, the reverse was the case for landlords. As stated above, landlords prefer one-time annual payments to monthly payments. Even though more tenants were warming up to the startup, landlords’ were not turning up to match with tenants. It took Spleet a year and 3 months to onboard 16 landlords and about 101 spaces. It was obvious to the founders that this business model would not scale. So they needed to find a model that will boost their growth potential enough to stay in business.
Building Finance infrastructure
The shortage of houses in Africa means there are not enough houses to accommodate its ever-growing population. And the few available ones are not affordable for the common man. For instance, houses in Abuja are so expensive when compared with the income of tenants.
Thus, the founders identified the two problems of availability and affordability. Since they can’t provide more houses, they can create a system that makes house rents affordable for people.
The solution, therefore, is to help tenants pay rent monthly. And at the same time make sure that landlords get paid annually. However, one problem remains, which is how to build a viable business model around the solution. They joined the Meta prop programme to become the first and one of the only 2 African start-ups in the programme. The 6-month-long programme that ended in may saw Spleet announcing pre-seed funding of $625,000 led by MetaProp VC with participation from other venture capitalists, firms and individuals.
Spleet came out of the programme with a new direction and understanding of rental culture in Africa. And how to build a sustainable business around the solution at scale. As of now, Spleet is now pivoting to including financial services for landlords and tenants. It will now provide financial services for both landlords and tenants, facility management for landlords, and automation tools.
Tenants can request a loan to pay for rent and then spread the repayment across a maximum of 12 months. This way, tenants can continue to pay rent per month and landlords who want annual payments can be served as well. It has partnered with a bank to this effect and will share returns on the interest with them.
What does the future hold for Spleet
Spleet’s new rent-now-pay-later product already launched into beta. And has recorded over $10,000 worth of requests. A feat they haven’t achieved in their 3 years of operations. Going forward, it looks like Spleet is finally positioned to become the go-to platform for Property leasing. It aims to make more money in interests paid by borrowers rather than just service charges from tenants and landlords.
Conclusion
If you are wondering how this will benefit you as a person. Then look no further. Spleet will help you pay rent now, after which you pay later in instalments. It will also save you the stress of going all over cities in search of houses. Again, Spleet homes are fully furnished, with a minimum of 12 hours of power supply, cleaning services and 24/7 water supply. You also get 24 hours support, security services, gas supply, water management, Estate dues and Amenities. Choose Spleet today.
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