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Miami MLS, Rental Beast partner to help agents amid housing shortage

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The Miami Association of Realtors has teamed up with Rental Beast, an all-in-one online rental listing service, to help its agent and broker members do business amidst a severe housing shortage.

At 52,000 members, MIAMI is the largest local Realtor association in the country and operates its own multiple listing service. Its MLS will use Rental Beast for MLS, a program launched in June to integrate Rental Beast’s rental listings with MLS platforms, to “power rental-centric search, listing ingestion, listing syndication, and listing maintenance systems,” according to a press release.

Teresa King Kinney

MIAMI members will also be able to use Rental Beast’s secure online application processing and tenant screening tool Apply Now and the company’s rental training program, Rental Beast University.

“Rentals are more important now than ever. When housing inventory is scarce, rentals are a great safe harbor, and working with rentals is a core part of MIAMI subscribers’ businesses,” MIAMI CEO Teresa King Kinney said in a statement.

“Our focus in Miami has always been bringing the best tools to our subscribers. By integrating Rental Beast’s extensive suite of tools and rental inventory into our MLS, we continue to further that mission.”

As part of the partnership, MIAMI MLS will send out rental listings on its data feeds to major listing sites and Rental Beast.com. Rental Beast will also power a new, custom-branded rental search portal for MIAMI and deliver all generated leads to designated listing agents at no additional cost, according to the release.

MIAMI’s members can also upgrade to Rental Beast’s premium agent platform, which offers members access to Rental Beast’s database of nearly 9 million rentals nationwide sourced directly from property owners and managers and updated in real-time.

Premium subscribers can also syndicate their rental listings to major sites such as Facebook Marketplace and realtor.com and use features such as “a rental-centric CRM, one-click social sharing, their own consumer-facing rental search portal, and direct support and mentorship by seasoned real estate professionals,” the release said.

Ishay Grinberg | Rental Beast

“This partnership furthers Rental Beast’s goal of ensuring MLSs large and small can help their subscribers make money with rentals, and we’re so excited to offer Rental Beast to MIAMI subscribers,” said Ishay Grinberg, Rental Beast’s founder and CEO, in a statement.

“There are more agents in the U.S. than homes available for sale, and MLSs across the country are adapting to the reality that rentals must make up a core part of their subscribing agents’ business. We are proud to ensure MIAMI will be the center of excellence for rentals in the Miami area.”

Chicago-based Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), an MLS that serves more than 45,000 real estate professionals, has also integrated with Rental Beast. In February, Somerville, Massachusetts-based Rental Beast partnered with advance commission firm eCommission to offer agents the ability to buy a Rental Beast one-year or two-year subscription using future commissions rather than cash or credit.

Email Andrea V. Brambila.

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