WHERE Inc., a Tokyo based real estate technology company led by CEO Takeo Akutsu, announced that it will launch WHERE Rental Management PM on October 1, 2026. The platform is designed to help rental property management companies expand their portfolios by streamlining candidate property searches, owner information management, and owner outreach. Built on a database of roughly 73 million real estate records, the product unifies the management contract sales process in one place.
Portfolio Growth as a Strategic Priority
Expanding the number of managed units is a top priority for rental management firms because it creates stable stock type revenue, unlike transaction based brokerage income. One effective method is to identify buildings with high vacancy rates through portal listing information and then approach their owners directly. Some management companies already practice this approach, but achieving consistent results requires efficient execution and focused resources.
Inefficiency and Reliance on Individual Judgment
Many rental management companies still struggle because candidate search and narrowing consume too much time, leaving insufficient resources for actual owner contact. In addition, the criteria for selecting target properties are often left to individual staff members, which makes it difficult to reproduce successful outcomes. WHERE developed the new product to address these structural problems by applying satellite data and AI capabilities to its large property database.
Data Driven Candidate Discovery
The first core function allows users to search candidate buildings using property details such as building age, total floors, structure, vacancy rate, and condominium classification. Results are displayed as pins on a map, and clicking a pin shows active rental listing examples including currently advertised units. This standardizes the evaluation process so that outreach targets are selected through consistent, data driven criteria rather than individual judgment.
Owner Information in One Workflow
After identifying candidate properties, users can add them to a list in one click and obtain owner details, including house registry numbers and ownership information, within the same platform. This removes the need to switch between multiple tools during the property search and owner research stages. As a result, rental management companies can reduce manual work and errors while improving internal information sharing and centralized record keeping.
Support for Repeatable Sales Operations
The platform also helps organizations build a repeatable process from candidate discovery through owner approach and management contract acquisition. A dedicated customer success manager supports each client from implementation until results are achieved. This guidance is intended to reduce reliance on personal experience and intuition, enabling more consistent sales activity across teams.
Future Enhancements
WHERE plans to continuously update the product to further improve sales activities aimed at portfolio growth. Features currently under development as of September 17, 2026 include automatic notifications that detect favorable timing based on rent changes and listing activity. The company is also preparing automatic generation of owner proposal reports and rental appraisal outputs reflecting the latest surrounding rent data.
Deal Tech Commitment
WHERE describes itself as a Deal Tech company, combining technology and operations to commit to transaction creation rather than simply providing SaaS software. Through the WHERE group, the company supports users from candidate site discovery and list creation to landowner outreach, response handling, negotiation, and contract execution. WHERE Rental Management PM extends this model to rental management companies by supporting the entire journey from owner approach to contract acquisition.
With the launch of WHERE Rental Management PM, WHERE aims to help rental management companies increase their managed portfolios through a more efficient, standardized, and data enriched workflow. The platform addresses common bottlenecks in property discovery and owner outreach while laying a foundation for ongoing feature development. By aligning its technology with operational support, WHERE positions the new product as a practical tool for sustainable growth in rental management.