The SpeedHome Experience (Review)

As a property investor, I have relied on property agents prior to this to get my property rented out.

Nowadays, with the advancement of technology and creativity, there are other options that I could consider. One of which is SpeedHome – whose founder’s face, Whei Meng, is plastered all over billboards, videos and marketing materials everywhere.

I gave it a go for 1 tenancy cycle and am now on the 2nd cycle.

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What is SpeedHome?

First established in 2015 with the name SpeedRent, it is a property technology company that aims to innovate the property rental business.

In 2017, it partnered with Allianz General Insurance to provide insurance for the rented property and initiated their famous “Zero Deposit” selling point. We’ll get into this later in this post (or you can jump to it right here).

Finally, in 2019, it changed its name to SpeedHome to encompass the idea that the platform not only handles rental but generally home/property related matters. Users may buy/sell properties on the platform at this point.

In other words, they are here to disrupt the property agent market! You may access their website here.

*Full disclosure: I have some enmity towards property agents due to their training/upbringing/style. Refer to my instagram post on Property Agents.

Now let’s get to it.

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SpeedHome App: Look and Feel

It is clear that SpeedHome’s colour theme is yellow. The app icon is yellow, the logo is yellow, the entire app is filled with YELLOW!

The app itself has 4 main tabs: Home, Chat, Properties, More.

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One thing to note: The chat notification bubble in the app has some sort of bug that will cause read messages to reappear as unread. It irritates the heck out of my OCD-ness and it takes forever to manually click through each of them to clear the notification bubble. As can be seen in my snapshots – 41 unread. SpeedHome reps please fix this!

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SpeedHome: Activation

Creating an account is simple. As it should be.

To post a property for rental entails 3 steps, which are quite simple.
*I did not try the “sell property” part but it should be similar

Step 1
Property information

Step 2
Photo of the property

Step 3
All the extra information about the property, e.g. furnishing, amenities/facilities, etc

That sums up the application to list the property on SpeedHome. Pretty simple.

It definitely requires more actions by the property owners compared to engaging a property agent. With a property agent, the owner only needs to give the property agent pictures and some basic information about the property. The property agent will be the one listing the property on all the property listing sites, e.g. iProperty, PropertyGuru, etc.

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SpeedHome: Finding Tenants

Once the listing is approved – within the day for mine – it will be posted on their platform.

Here comes another feature offered by SpeedHome which makes things convenient for owners – HomeRunners. HomeRunners will arrange to pick up the property’s keys and will be the main liaison to do the viewing for any prospective tenants. They perform the viewing function like any other property agent. And it is provided as a complimentary service! Kudos to SpeedHome for this.

Then, we wait… for the fish to bite. I mean, for a tenant to enquire about the place.

When someone is interested in the property, we will get a notification and immediately be placed into a chat with the prospect. It is then about arranging for the viewing and price negotiations. If we opted in for the HomeRunner service (who wouldn’t?), then SpeedHome will takeover to assist in arranging for the viewing as well. So the main thing we need to do, as owners, is only on the price negotiations.

Be ready to get some people lowballing on the rental prices – even if upfront we have already mentioned non-negotiable. People can’t seem to read and is quite common from my experience. However, there is no lack of enquiries from SpeedHome. I’ve gotten up to 30 enquiries, some of which MIA-ed after the initial chat or can’t agree on pricing.

One thing that was quite irritating was the occasional non-responsiveness of Alicia. They only operate during office hours and sometimes might even miss out messages or reply a day late. Something to keep in mind.

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SpeedHome: Securing a Tenant

When the stars align and the tenant has been secured with the agreeable rental price, SpeedHome will proceed to the next step on their end. This includes:

• Collect a booking fee from the tenant
• Tenant to send some verification documents
• SpeedHome will do a background check on the tenant

The tenancy is only “secured” upon the payment of the booking fee. Hence, there is a chance that there may be multiple tenants who want to secure the tenancy, but the first one who does the booking gets the place. All will be managed by SpeedHome.

Once everything checks out, the property owner will need to access their other website – SpeedManage – to provide details for the tenancy agreement. As part of this process, the owner will need to select which insurance to opt in for. And yes, as part of using the platform this is compulsory. Check out the fees and packages section.

After that is done, both the owner and tenant will have to sign off the tenancy agreement online. Then, the tenant has to make full payment before the handover of the keys to the tenant. If the owner opted in for the HomeRunner service, then the HomeRunner will be the one to pass the keys to the tenant.

The deal is done! Overall, it is a pretty smooth process and the stamped tenancy agreement will be uploaded on the website SpeedManage once it is done.

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SpeedHome: During Tenancy

SpeedHome is the rental collector during the tenancy period. They will also update the owner if the tenant did not pay on time and will proceed to contact the tenant to chase for the payment.

Once the rent is collected, SpeedHome will transfer the amount to the owner within a few days and will notify over WhatsApp.

Should the tenant be problematic and not pay up on time, SpeedHome will initiate the letter of demand and eviction process in accordance to their SOP. The tenant could seek extension of payment period from the owner and it is up to the owner if he/she allows it. SpeedHome will manage it accordingly.

A month prior to the end of the tenancy, SpeedHome will contact the tenant to check if they would be renewing or not. They will inform the owner the decision of the tenant and the owner can choose to reactivate the listing to look for new tenants if the existing tenant is not renewing the tenancy.

It is quite simple to reactivate it on the platform as the owner could navigate to the “Properties” tab –> look for “Inactive Listings” –> Click on the “Reactivate” button on the property.

This, of course, assumes that no changes in the property details and rent rates.

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SpeedHome: Fees and Packages

As with all businesses, there must be some way whereby SpeedHome earns its income. That is by way of its extra services embedded into the insurance packages.

There are 3 packages, as shown below:

I opted for the extended+ for the On-time Rental service. This is where SpeedHome will pay the rental regardless of whether the tenant paid the rental. During the year, my tenant missed 1 – 2 months of payments due to the lockdown (parents couldn’t send money to them), but I still got my rentals on time from SpeedHome. It helped a bunch in terms of cashflow.

Of course, the cost is 0.5 months extra in fees. Extra cost for a peace of mind.

Another important point to note is that the insurance is effective for 1 year only. So, if the same tenant renews its tenancy the next year, then the owner would need to renew the insurance. Whereas if we engaged a property agent, there is no extra cost to the owner if the tenant renews the tenancy agreement.

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Is the SpeedHome’s insurance any good?

That depends.

In the conventional rental through a property agent, we collect upfront deposits (2 months + utilities) as protection in case we need to fix anything upon the end of the tenancy.

The case of “Zero Deposit”: In SpeedHome’s case, there is no deposit because the owner is supposedly protected through the insurance. This is a great selling point for SpeedHome for tenants because they do not need to pay deposit when they want to rent the place. But does it protect the owner well?

Here are a few takeaways from my claims experience (yes, I did submit claims at the end of my tenancy):

• A police report that the tenant has ran away with property damages is required for insurance claims. The report format can be downloaded from SpeedHome’s website.
• The insurance claims have to be submitted within 2 weeks from the tenant’s departure.
• The tenant will be blacklisted from SpeedHome following a successful claim.
• Claims have to be substantiated with photos and receipts / quotes. It is possible to claim with just a quotation before engaging any service to repair / cleanup.
• I have claimed for a few things: Induction cooker repair, new shower head, new mattress protector, access card replacement, ceiling light replacement, unpaid utilities, cleaning fees.
• There is a list of things that the insurance do not cover: aircon servicing, pests-related, etc.
• Approval and payment is swift upon claims submission: Approval in 9 days, Payment in 5 days after approval.

Other than one little issue I have with the claim process about the police report, the insurance claim is decent. It is most helpful when 2.5 months deposits collected in the conventional method is insufficient to cover all damages suffered from a bad tenant. This is because the coverage under SpeedHome’s insurance plan is at least RM15k for damages alone.

Refer here for the full T&C of the SpeedHome insurance claims.

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Closing Thoughts on SpeedHome Review

There it is… SpeedHome from beginning till the end.

Whether it suits you or not, it is your call.

My experience with SpeedHome has its ups and downs, but it is mostly a positive experience. It has given me an alternative to the conventional property agent route.

Yes, I miss out on the interest that I could earn with the upfront deposits, but SpeedHome automates some of the more cumbersome parts of the property investment for me – dealing with tenancy issues especially non-payments.

It is also another good avenue whereby I can source for more potential tenants. I tried both property agent (multiple agents) and SpeedHome for my reactivated listing and SpeedHome managed to find tenant for me. There were no news from the agents at all.

The only thing to consider is the annual renewal cost if the property is a long term rental.

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Update (May 2022): I find that the customer service is quite poor. They do not have good problem solving skills, replies very slowly (for after sales), and is generally inflexible. This is based on my experience of late in year 2021/2022.