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Texas

Proptech rental startup REZI doubles coverage in Austin

Deal with Rastegar Property is iRenter’s biggest move in Texas yet

Rastegar Property Company CEO Ari Rastegar and REZI CEO Sean Mitchell (LinkedIn, Getty)
Rastegar Property Company CEO Ari Rastegar and REZI CEO Sean Mitchell (LinkedIn, Getty)

New York-based startup REZI has just cut a deal to more than double the number of Austin buildings where it handles rentals.

The proptech iRenter, which guarantees landlords market rents for units and then leases them out quickly through an AI-powered rental app, has partnered with Rastegar Property Company, an Austin-based private real estate investment firm, to take over the rental of 200 units across nine of the firm’s developments in Austin.

REZI’s largest presence in the Lone Star State is in Austin — it already has deals for eight buildings in the city, with 71 units up for rent as of press time.

REZI was attracted to the capital city’s thriving tech market, which has drawn a wide base of tech workers liable to want to try the firm’s rental app.

“We chose Austin because they’ve been a very tech-forward market, and we think the expectations of the Austin community are really aligned with the tech-enabled leasing platform that we know that REZI has developed,” said Tom Smith, REZI’s chief revenue officer.

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“Austin is very much the new Silicon Valley — or Silicon Hills, as we call it — so it made a lot of sense from a cultural perspective to roll out in Austin,” said Rastegar founder and CEO Ari Rastegar, “because of the amenability that Austin has to technology companies, to disruption, and to growth.”

REZI has already expanded into other markets, including Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Miami.

REZI and Ratsegar’s Austin deal includes apartments ranging from studios to three-bedroom units in some of the city’s largest submarkets, including West Lake Hills, Mueller, Hyde Park, Highland Heights, Clarksville, and South Austin, the latter of which has attracted other apartment developers as well.

Ratsegar has renovated the nine buildings to the tune of about $22,000 per unit, upgrading them from Class C and B properties to Class A interior finish-outs. Several of the complexes have pools, but most of them do not feature high-end amenities like gyms.

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