RentShare changes how rent is typically paid

RentShare, an online service that allows tenants to pay their rents online, is set to become a standard for the global home rental industry.

Started largely with support from The Brandery, RentShare's Manhattan-based entrepreneurs came to Cincinnati to benefit from the area's powerful startup community. RentShare, only a burgeoning idea when it entered the Queen City, has emerged as a functioning business that was ready to change how people pay their rent.

Any tenant with Internet access can use RentShare. The service allows renters to simply split rent payments, along with bills and expenses (including house cleaning services in the future), with roommates. By helping to eliminate one of the most common frustrations among people who share apartments or houses, RentShare is designed to help irritated roommates who are sick of absentee payers or passive-aggressive notes left on their refrigerators.

In addition, since rental payments are the only use of paper checks for many people, RentShare helps to eliminate the hassle of having another type of payment option available for only one bill. By automatically sending your landlord a check in the mail, with a detailed status report of which tenants’ payment is accounted for, there is no change for the landlord, who doesn’t even need to be notified directly that renters have opted to use RentShare.

RentShare founders Ian Halpern, Christopher Toppino and Trevor Geis focused on catering to tenants, rather than the landlords. In fact, landlords are not required to register for the service, as long as the necessary information is supplied by the renters.

By Sean Peters