Challenge

The real estate industry has long been held back by legacy systems and disconnected tools, with rent collection remaining one of the most manual and outdated processes. Founder Tom Wallace experienced this firsthand in 2013 while managing commercial properties. Property managers often spent days each month driving around to collect checks and deposit them, with little visibility into arrears until months later.

“Property managers often wouldn’t actually know if they were in arrears until 90 days later,” said Wallace. Besides being inconvenient, this manual process prevented property managers from maintaining an up-to-date view of their finances and created a constant source of stress.
So, Wallace founded Re-Leased in 2013 to modernize operational and financial management for landlords and third-party commercial property managers with both general ledger and property management tools.

By 2021, Re-Leased had already helped property managers reduce admin time by up to 75%. Embedding payments was the logical next step to streamline rent collection and provide real-time financial visibility.

A global business that was founded in New Zealand, Re-Leased, needed a global partner that would minimize the complexity of compliance and operations across multiple markets. The company was looking for strong ready-to-use functionality with prebuilt UIs that would reduce the lift for its team, while still offering the flexibility to customize workflows specific to rent collection. Re-Leased also wanted to offer property managers a smooth checkout process with multiple payment methods and recurring payment capabilities.

Solution

Re-Leased opted to build its embedded payments offering, Re-Leased Pay, on Stripe. “We didn’t have the resources to handle separate integrations everywhere we operated, so Stripe’s global reach was really important,” said Wallace. “And being able to say we’re working with Stripe, which is effectively a household name among SaaS operators, was very helpful for building trust.”

Re-Leased Pay chose Stripe Connect to offer and monetize embedded payments, and it used Connect’s advanced money movement capabilities to manage pay-ins from tenants and payouts to property managers. Stripe Connect was also responsible for onboarding and verifying the identity of customers.

By using Connect as the foundation for its payments business, Re-Leased could also give property managers access to Stripe Payments, including the Optimized Checkout Suite, to help increase tenant conversion. Re-Leased adopted the Payment Element, one of the Optimized Checkout Suite’s embeddable UI components, to customize the payment experience. It allowed the company to automatically determine which party pays the transaction fee based on the tenant’s payment method and the legal requirements in their region—meaning Re-Leased didn’t have to handle that process manually. Re-Leased turned on a range of payment methods, including cards, direct debit, digital wallets (Apple Pay and Google Pay), and Link—a wallet built by Stripe that enables tenants to pay rent faster with their preferred payment method.

Re-Leased gave tenants the option to make a one-time rent payment or set up automatic monthly payments, simplifying their management of rent payments and—in the case of recurring payments—offering property managers welcome certainty about their cash flow.

Results

Re-Leased has grown payment volume 90% year over year

Adding embedded payments has fueled substantial growth for Re-Leased, which has seen payment volume on Re-Leased Pay increase 90% year over year. “Monetizing payments is now contributing a meaningful amount to our overall revenue,” said Wallace. “Re-Leased Pay has also made our existing customers stickier, because we’ve become an integral, user-friendly way that they get paid.”

Re-Leased now processes $15 billion in rent invoices annually

With Connect supporting onboarding, global payments, and global payouts, Re-Leased Pay has been able to expand quickly to six key markets—serving property managers around the world. “Stripe made it possible for our team to launch a global product from the start. And we’ve been able to stay lean even as Re-Leased Pay has grown,” said Gal Thompson, VP, APAC at Re-Leased. This allowed Re-Leased to invest in other roadmap priorities. “Stripe is taking care of the day-to-day management of our payments engine and freeing us up to focus on other core innovation areas,” said Thompson.

Re-Leased customized the payment experience to meet changing customer needs

Though Re-Leased largely used Connect to launch Re-Leased Pay, the company has also customized its integration further.

For instance, after launch, Australian customers asked to be able to receive payments across multiple bank accounts. “Our team collaborated with Stripe to easily implement a tailored solution that worked for our needs,” said Thompson.

70% of Re-Leased Pay payments are now made with credit cards

Prior to the launch of Re-Leased Pay, rent collection via cash and bank transfers was largely a manual process, with multiple points of friction that increased the risk of payment declines and in-person follow-up. Enabling the acceptance of credit cards and digital wallets has allowed tenants to choose the method that works best for them—and 70% of those using Re-Leased Pay have chosen to pay with a credit card.

“We’re giving tenants choices that our customers didn’t realize they wanted,” said Thompson. “Whether it’s for rewards, credit flexibility, or timing, they appreciate the ability to use credit cards. And landlords appreciate that fewer tenants are going into arrears, which improves their cash flow and saves them time chasing missed payments.”

42% of Re-Leased Pay payments are now processed via Link

Tenants have responded positively to the ease of paying with Link, which speeds up the checkout process. Currently, 42% of Re-Leased Pay payments go through Link. “It’s a super simple experience, going from the invoice to payment with one click and then they’re done,” said Thompson.

40% of Re-Leased Pay payments are now scheduled to recur

The ability to schedule recurring payments with Payments has been a game changer for many property managers and their tenants.

“It’s been particularly useful for customers with problem tenants who are always an issue,” said Wallace. “They were always chasing them—spending their days having really negative conversations. Now, they want to see every single one of them on recurring payments, which would minimize the possibility of arrears. And that’s good for tenants, too.”