Why AI needs unit economics: rental collections
Stake acquired Circa and announced Get Current with our end-to-end payments management early this year. Here is what Brad wrote in Thesis Driven about our collections approach:
Circa takes this informal process and attempts to standardize and automate it. In addition to its delinquency management, Circa providers renters with a wider set of payment options including the ability to pay rent in cash at Walmart and CVS locations across the US. In a sense, Stake and Circa take similar approaches, with each attempting to formalize a part of property management that is otherwise ad hoc and unstandardized—Stake with renter incentives and now through Get Current with delinquency management. Circa effectively mimics what a good workforce housing property manager should do, which is useful because many workforce housing assets don’t have good property managers. AI-focused tools like Colleen and EliseAI also offer automated delinquency management, albeit without the live “resident payment coaches” and vertically-integrated payments infrastructure of Circa.
How "Get Current" Helps Renters and Property Owners
The "Get Current" platform by Stake is designed to simplify rent collection, especially for property owners dealing with in-place tenants with overdue rent. The combined AI and human support solution, using personal communication (text, email, voicemail and phone) provides the necessary guidance without burdening onsite managers. By centralizing collections, it minimizes eviction rates and maximizes recovery of back-due payments. Additionally, Stake’s cash-back incentives encourage tenants to settle overdue balances.
Learn more: Stake - Get Current.