Sunroom Rentals

Sunroom Rentals is an Austin, Texas real estate technology company founded by Ben Doherty and Zac Maurais, who previously founded the delivery app Favor. The original Sunroom product is a mobile-first rental marketplace and leasing service: renters browse available apartments and houses, book on-demand tours through a network of licensed agents (internally called "Tour Guides") or self-showing locks and 360-degree virtual tours, and submit applications within the platform. Renter profiles store documents such as pay stubs, rental history and background information so they can be reused across applications, and the service is free to renters. On the supply side, Sunroom positions itself as an outsourced leasing operation for mid-size property managers and apartment owners, paired with a partner portal offering real-time leasing performance data and analytics.

The sunroomrentals.com domain now presents Utility Profit, a tenant utility-setup product aimed at property managers. Utility Profit synchronizes move-in data from property management systems including Appfolio, Buildium, Rentvine, RentManager and Entrata, sends tenants automated text and email reminders with a link branded to the property manager, presents all utility options available at the tenant's address on a single page, and reports back confirmation of completed setups. The product is offered at no cost to property managers or tenants and supports utility providers in all 50 states, including smaller local providers.

Sunroom's renter-facing FAQ lists coverage in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Atlanta, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Charlotte, Huntsville, Birmingham, Greenville, Columbus, Florida, Savannah, Foley/Mobile, Raleigh, Cincinnati, Charleston, Denver, Tucson, Memphis, Baton Rouge, Las Vegas and Indianapolis, and offers text-based support for scheduling tours, contacting landlords and processing applications.

Founding story

Ben Doherty and Zac Maurais founded the food delivery app Favor, which was acquired by Texas grocer H-E-B in 2018, after which they turned to housing. They launched Sunroom in 2018 — reported as a March launch in early coverage and May 2018 in later coverage — aiming to boost profitability for mid-size property managers and apartment owners while simplifying the renter experience. Maurais cited a decade as a renter and the observation that renters move roughly annually and make up nearly a third of the U.S. population as motivation, and both founders became licensed agents.

Business model

Two distinct models appear across the company's products. For the Sunroom rental marketplace, the service is free to renters and property managers and landlords pay Sunroom — described variously as a charge to list on the site, a payment when a qualified tenant is placed, and a percentage of booked rent — with the company reporting both transactional and subscription revenue from a leasing and analytics software suite sold to partners. For Utility Profit, the product is free to both property managers and tenants, with no markups or fees; revenue comes from referral fees paid by certain internet and power providers when tenants activate service, a share of which is passed to the property manager.

Landlord- and property-manager-paid fees on the leasing marketplace (placement fees, a percentage of booked rent, listing charges, and subscription revenue from partner software), plus referral commissions from utility and internet service providers on the Utility Profit product, shared with the property manager.

Traction

Reported metrics include over 16,000 users within months of the March 2018 launch and "hundreds" of move-ins; by February 2021, more than 2,000 leases signed and over 100,000 renters signed up in Austin, described as roughly 10% of renters in the greater Austin metro, with claims of leasing units five days faster than the market average. Headcount was 18 employees in February 2021 with plans to more than double. The Utility Profit site cites more than 58,000 five-star tenant reviews and over 1,000 property managers nationwide.

Latest developments

The company's primary web presence now features Utility Profit, a free utility-setup and confirmation tool for property managers that integrates with Appfolio, Buildium, Rentvine, RentManager and Entrata, offers self sign-up for portfolios under 75 doors, an API partner program and an enterprise track above 5,000 doors, and reports more than 1,000 property managers nationwide and over 58,000 five-star tenant reviews.