Domicile Raises Money for Corporate Housing Rental Site

Domicile, a Seattle-based startup that primarily rents corporate apartments to businesses, has reported in September that they raised $5 million in cash from investors.

After starting out with tourists in mind, Domicile has finally acknowledged that they are now focused mostly on corporate housing, a popular industry across big cities in the United States. “Looking at the competitive landscape, we decided to refocus on business-to-business, corporate contracts,” said Domicile CEO Ross Saario.

Domicile is looking to continue this trend and focus on both long-term corporate housing and short-term housing for relocated business executives. Like other corporate housing competitors across the country. Domicile says that their properties are great for people looking for short-term rentals as well as longer term ones.

Domicile’s business model is unique in the corporate housing market. Instead of owning apartments and renting them out, Domicile leases apartments from developers and property managers and subleases them out to corporate clients. In the thriving short-term rental market, this unique take works for Domicile.

Saario says the Domicile has dozens of corporate clients and that they are planning on expanding to a new city outside of Seattle soon. Right now there are about 1000 apartments for rent on Domicile’s website, and most of them are focused on luxury buildings with amenities geared towards short-term corporate clients. Many of their apartments can be found on some of the most popular hotel-booking websites like Expedia, Hotels.com and Booking.com.

Short-term corporate housing demand isn’t going anywhere, experts say, and Domicile is just one example of many that the industry is thriving. In Chicago, Suite Home aims to do something similar in the corporate housing space, offering luxury apartments for all types of customers. While Suite Home focuses on more than just corporate housing, they also see the value in having apartments geared towards business-focused people looking for a nice place to stay on a temporary basis.