Built by landlords, for the day-to-day.
eaven began as the system an Ottawa landlord built to run its own buildings: every rent day, repair, renewal and question. It still runs those buildings first, and every change is tried there before it reaches anyone else.
Why now.
More people rent their homes every year, and most of them rent from someone running a handful of buildings with a spreadsheet, a phone and a lot of evenings.
- 5.0 millionhouseholds in Canada rented their home in 2021, a third of all households.Statistics Canada, 2021 Census
- +21.5%more renter households in ten years, from 2011 to 2021: more than twice the growth of owners (+8.4%).Statistics Canada, 2021 Census
- $49a month to start, for an agent that does the work of rent, repairs, leases and tenants’ questions, and asks before anything that matters. The whole agent is in every plan.eaven’s Starter plan, up to 10 homes
Software for landlords has kept the records for twenty years. It hasn’t done the work: someone still reads every payment, books every plumber, fills in every notice and answers every question. An agent can now do that work reliably, if it’s built to say what it will do and wait for a yes on what matters. That’s the whole idea.
How it began.
An Ottawa landlord’s own system
It started as the software one landlord built to run its own buildings: recording rent from e-Transfer notices, sending plumbers, filling in Ontario’s notices on time and answering tenants at night.
An agent, with switches
Every process was mapped, step by step, with a switch on each: off, ask me first, or by itself. The agent took over the steps the owners trusted it with, and asked about the rest.
One platform, a copy for each company
The code was made to name no company of its own, so any Ontario landlord or property manager gets a copy of their own, in their logo and colour, with their own database, files and backups.
Still run on its own buildings first
Every change is tried on the buildings it started with before it reaches anyone else. If it isn’t good enough for them, it doesn’t ship.
What’s built.
Not a roadmap: what a company gets on its first day.
The agent
- One box that takes instructions in your own words
- Every process mapped, with a switch on each step
- Asks first about anything legal, about money, ending a tenancy or deleting a record
The work
- Rent recorded from e-Transfer notices, receipts sent
- Repairs to your contractors, with notices of entry
- Ontario’s standard lease and notices, filled in on time
The people
- A portal for every tenant, on any phone
- A portal for your whole team, and owner statements
- Your own website, with rentals, applying and viewings
And eight extras on Growth and Portfolio, each run by the agent: amenity booking, parcels, parking and storage, keys and fobs, yearly inspections, contractors’ insurance, staff time and owner statements. Everything, in detail.
What we hold to.
- The agent finds it. You check it.
- Software should do the work and leave the decisions with you, saying plainly what will happen before it happens.
- Some things always ask.
- Anything legal, about money, ending a tenancy or deleting a record waits for a person, however much you trust the rest.
- The honest version first.
- We say what isn’t built yet, what we haven’t done yet and what it costs, before you have to ask.
- Fewer pages, fewer words.
- Every screen is ordered by what the person looking at it needs first, whether that’s an owner at 7 am or a tenant with no heat.
- Your data is yours.
- Your own copy, in Canada, and everything handed over if you leave.
Made in Ontario, for Ontario.
Ontario’s standard lease, its notices, the yearly guideline, the Board’s timing and the Human Rights Code are built in, not bolted on. Other provinces will come when we can do them properly.
Where it’s going.
Every landlord and property manager in Ontario running their homes with an agent that does the work and asks first. Then the rest of Canada, a province at a time, each with its own leases, notices and rules built in properly.
The same platform, a copy for each company, gets better for all of them at once: what one landlord asks for, every landlord gets.
Where we are.
Early access. We’re setting up a small number of Ontario landlords and property managers, one at a time, and building what they ask for next.
If you’d like to be one of them, or just want to see it, book a demo. You’ll talk to the people who built it.
Investors and partners: we’re glad to talk. Write to us.