A small team you can actually check up on
Middow is five people running 35+ shared homes across Melbourne. Not a marketplace, not a call centre, and not somebody you have never heard of asking for money.
Five people, and you will meet most of them
Middow is small on purpose. The person who films the walkthrough is the person who answers the phone, and the person who shows you the room is the one who fixes the heater in July.
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Rose
Founder and operator
Rose founded Middow after finding out first-hand how hard a first room in Australia is to get. She does the rental appraisals, films the walkthroughs and handles accounts.
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Jason
Field and maintenance
Jason is the one you meet. He runs inspections, handles move-ins and move-outs, and is who turns up when something in the house stops working.
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Camile
Operations
Camile runs the day to day, bookings, paperwork, bond lodgements and the messages that come in at odd hours. If you text us, she is usually the one who answers.
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Silvia
Marketing Manager
Silvia manages our marketing funnel, from the ads and posts where people first find us to the enquiries that reach the team.
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Imanuel
IT Support
Imanuel keeps the systems behind Middow running: the booking tool, the tenant app and this website.
Can I trust Middow with my bond?
It is a fair question, and you should ask it of anyone who wants a bond from you. The honest answer: you do not have to trust us, because the money never comes to us.
- Step 1 You pay a bond About 2 weeks' rent, once, when you sign.
- Step 2 The RTBA holds it The Residential Tenancies Bond Authority, a Victorian Government body. Victorian Government
- Step 3 It comes back to you Within 3 business days of a clean handover.
Middow never holds your bond. It goes straight past us to the RTBA, and the lodgement number comes to you from them, not from us.
Your bond goes to the government, not to us
Every bond is lodged with the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority, a Victorian Government body. We are not allowed to hold it and we do not. You get a lodgement number from the RTBA directly, and you can check it with them, not with us.
You get everything in writing before you pay
A lease agreement, the house rules, a move-in checklist and a condition report. If anyone ever asks you to pay before you have seen those, that is not us.
You can see the actual house first
Every home has a walkthrough video filmed inside it, and a 15-minute inspection you book yourself. Nothing is rented sight-unseen unless you choose to.
You can check us in public
98 Google reviews under real names, an Instagram going back years, two Melbourne addresses on the map, and 35+ homes you can look at right now.
Why Middow exists
Middow was founded by a Taiwanese-Brazilian who arrived in Australia on a working holiday visa nine years ago. Finding a first room here, with no rental history, no local references and no way to see the place in person, is genuinely hard, and it is hardest for the people with the least room to absorb a bad outcome.
So the whole company is built around the part that frightens people. You watch a real video of the actual house before you pay anything. The price on the card is the only number you will ever pay. Your bond goes to a government authority rather than into somebody's account.
How we make money
We lease whole homes from owners and agencies, furnish them at our cost, and rent the rooms one at a time on all-inclusive terms. Our margin is the difference between those two rents, minus furniture, utilities, cleaning and maintenance.
That means an empty room costs us, not the owner, which is the right way round, and it is why we would rather tell you a house is not right for you than fill it badly. The full arrangement is written out on how it works.
Years of this, in public
Move-in days, house dinners and the team on site. A company that has been posting the same thing for years is a company that is still here.
@middow_melbourne
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π Our home in St Kilda East -
π Our home in Elsternwick -
π Our home in St Kilda -
π Our home in Malvern East
These are photographs of our own homes. Move-in days, house dinners and the team on site live on Instagram.
Come and look at a house
3 rooms are open right now, each with a walkthrough filmed in the actual home. Book an inspection and meet us.