RoomKing founder and CEOsays the platform aims to empower landlords and tenants in South Africa’s informal rentals sector with a special focus on the burgeoning backroom rentals market in townships like Soweto.
RoomKing uses an advertising revenue model that allows users – landlords and tenants – to harness the platform for free. Additional features will attract charges as they are integrated into the application. These include the ability boost ads, the sale of legal document templates and a payment gateway aimed at helping reduce the informal market’s reliance on cash. Pricing for these features is yet to be finalised.
“Through RoomKing I am saying to landlords, ‘Let me give you the tools to professionalise your business,’” he explained. Some upcoming features on the RoomKing platform include an instant payment gateway, a digital lease that tenants “can sign on the spot” and templates for letters of demand “in case the tenant has not paid up so the landlord has legal assistance from the app”.