Home ownership has always been a centerpiece of the American dream. Home rental? Not so much. But increasingly renting is becoming the American reality, with home ownership declining since 2004 and now more than 110 million people renting. As the world changes, the real estate industry has been slow to catch up.

While multiple listing services (MLS) around the country provide agents and their clients with an up to date, comprehensive view of available properties for sale, there hasn’t been a similarly reliable database of rental properties. The rental market is full of fake, duplicate, and often out of date listings – bait for unscrupulous agents to get new renter leads and show them whatever limited inventory they know of. And even large, more established companies are still little more than ad networks for large leasing companies, ignoring huge segments of available inventory.

Ishay Grinberg, founder and president of Rental Beast, saw the gap between the world of home ownership and rentals and set out to build the MLS for rentals, a one stop database for the most comprehensive and up to date rental listings in the country. It’s arguably not the sexiest part of the business, but it’s probably the most critical. Rental Beast now boasts over 3 million listings and growing rapidly across the country.

Having built the best database for rentals, Rental Beast came to altr to collaborate and build the best user experience for renters and landlords at www.RentalBeast.com. The data Rental Beast had available provided an incredible foundation for our team to develop new category-defining functionality and services.

For Renters:

– Multiple ways to search for rentals, from city to zip to neighborhood

– A daily commute search that recognizes households often have a number of places they need to be each day, including different places of work and schools, and then makes recommendations that will work best for everyone and every place people need to be

– Neighborhood and rental market data that makes people more informed renters, helping them know when they need to act to ensure they get the place they want while feeling confident that the place they are interested in is priced right for the market they’re searching

For Landlords:

– Access to market data to help them price and market their properties competitively

– Access to a pool of experienced and effective agents at companies like Coldwell Banker and Berkshire Hathaway to represent their properties and qualify and close new tenants

– Tailored, more robust listings that automatically link their properties to Rental Beast neighborhood data, reviews and imagery

– Coming soon, landlords will be able to process rental applications and get easy access to credit reports, background checks and eviction histories

That’s just a glimpse of the new experience (it really is a Beast). It’s amazing what’s possible when the best data drives the best user experience. Check out the live site at www.RentalBeast.com.