US: Serviced Apartment News understands that Washington-state based apartment rental startup Stay Alfred has ceased trading.
It comes three weeks after the company confirmed it would be closing its properties across the US for eight weeks from 1 April due to the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.
While the company’s website is still in operation, its managed properties are listed as sold out for the foreseeable future, including throughout the summer season. The company’s social media platforms, including its Twitter and Facebook accounts appear to have been deleted.
Stay Alfred customers have recently taken to social media to complain that their booking queries were not being answered, nor were there responses from the company’s customer service centre.
A source close to the matter said that guests were given 24 hours’ notice to vacate their properties.
Last month speaking through a company spokesperson, CEO Jordan Allen would not be drawn on commenting on whether Stay Alfred, which manages some 3,000 units, would be refunding its guests who had already made bookings prior to the closure announcement, nor on how many employees were to be directly impacted during the furlough period.
Allen added then that the company was “seeking to minimise that impact in every possible way” and reassured guests that all stays booked during the eight-week period would be “automatically refunded in full”.
The startup, founded by Allen in 2010, has raised around $60 million in funding to date, with its most recent round coming in at $47 million in October 2018.
SAN has contacted Stay Alfred for a comment.
</p
