This lettings platform wants to ‘do an Airbnb’ in the longer-term market

A Spanish medium-term lettings platform that launched in the UK two years ago claims to have achieved extraordinary growth within London’s private rental market. Badi, which bills itself as a room rental app for homeowners and tenants, also offers whole properties to rent on its website and app. The company says it has now logged 100,000 listings on its platform within London since 2018, which has helped boost its overall listings growth by 450%. “Our substantial growth in the UK has proven that there is a clear demand for an improved product in the room rental space,” says UK general manager Steven Hiltermann (left). Badi operates in Barcelona, Madrid and Berlin as well as London, has plans to open operations in the US and says it wants revolutionise traditional lets in the same way Airbnb changed short-lets. Its platform is popular with younger renters and it offers similar tech to Airbnb. In many ways presents itself a lettings agency. For example, most of its properties and rooms are advertised at a cost ‘per month’ as traditional lettings are and the average stay is five-and-a-half months. But its website makes no mention of tenancies, and both landlord and tenant are left…