The Yomes Initiative, whose digital product helps tenants gain intelligence on properties they’re considering renting, has opened access to all Nova Scotians as it plots its expansion into larger markets.

Until now, Yomes has been open to users on an invitation-only basis, but it is now allowing any tenants in Nova Scotia to use the site without being invited. Outside Nova Scotia, the website is still available by invitation only, though founder and CEO Oleg Lights said it is gaining surprising traction in the Greater Toronto area.

“Abandoning the invitation mechanism comes with its challenges and opportunities, but that is the next logical step for us to make,” said Lights in an email. “By introducing this transparency and accountability, we are changing market dynamics for the better.”

Lights has been working on Yomes for about four years, since he moved to Halifax after working in the venture capital industry in Israel. (He became a Canadian citizen on Canada Day this week.) The company helps tenants learn more about properties they want to rent. Users — who receive the service free — leave ratings of properties they’ve rented and can view what other people have said about rental properties. The platform, which now has a few thousand users, already features about 1,000 reviews in Halifax alone.

Yomes has also accessed 60,000 Tenancy Board complaints and posted information about these filings on its site. While the company won’t reveal the content of the complaints, users will be able to look up a specific address and see how many complaints were filed, on what dates, and whether the landlord or tenant was the initiator.

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Lights has also been active forming partnerships with various groups, including every university and college in Nova Scotia, a few municipalities, and groups that work with newcomers such as the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia and Immigration Francophone.

Lights has not raised capital for the company and is not charging users for the service.

“I did not start Yomes to make a living,” said Lights. “I believe that first we have to have a solid base of renters using the service. However, we are experimenting with two models and working with early adopters at different stages right now.”

These models involve drawing money from universities and municipalities that use the service to help their students and residents respectively.

One model is offering premium features for universities that Yomes partners, another is helping municipalities improve their residents’ quality of life.

Lights said the company, which has seven employees, is looking at expansion into the U.S. and Europe but is being drawn by strong demand to the Toronto area. Its list of partners includes Ryerson University, University of Toronto and Sheridan College.

“For myself, Yomes is Kijiji or Craigslist meets Yelp,” Philip Shea, who works supporting international students at Toronto’s Ryerson, said in Yomes’ statement. “It provides both the information of the landlord filtered with the day-to-day reality of the tenant. These help to provide a factual and current picture for the prospective tenant. It is a win-win for everyone.”