A business started by a university student aimed at providing a review site of landlords and agents has changed its business model to concentrate on tenant referencing.
Peter Ramsey founded Movem five years ago, originally as a tool for Bournemouth University students to rate their landlords.
It grew into a platform now used in every university in the UK, and in more than 500 towns and cities, allowing tenants to rate landlords, agents and properties.
However, 18 months ago, Ramsey started working on a sub-feature of the site that became a tenant’s passport, which launched last year as a possible replacement for tenant’s references.
Ramsey has now decided that, in view of various changes including the impending tenant fees ban, his business now needs to focus on the Movem Passports.
The review site is still available, but has been moved to: reviews.movem.co.uk
Ramsey says that one of his biggest problems has been to get agents to understand the difference between the tenancy passports his business offers, and traditional referencing.
One agent to whom he’s pitched the passports even wrote to him saying “There really is nothing to choose between products”.
He said that this led to four months of redevelopment and working with agents to finesse the explanations.
The result is a newly launched website, which has just gone live.
Ramsey said: “It’s really exciting for us, and there’s this real feeling that we’ve built something special.
“You need to remember that this hasn’t happened overnight, we’ve been working on our referencing product for a very long time – I just never knew how big it’d get.
“What takes most of my time right now are third party partnerships.
“Within the next few months you’ll start to hear about other proptech companies we’re integrating with, and I’m sure some will surprise you.”
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