APRO Rent-to-Own Headquarters

APRO’s dealer community continues to grow! Please join us in welcoming two new Dealer Members to the Association of Professional Rental Organizations:

Legacy RTO, LLC dba Buddy’s Home Furnishings
Ever Ease Retail LLC dba RNR Tire Express

We’re glad to have both companies joining APRO and connecting with fellow rent-to-own and lease ownership professionals across the country.

APRO membership brings the industry together through advocacy, education, compliance resources, events, and opportunities to learn from and connect with other rental-purchase leaders.

Welcome to APRO, Legacy RTO, and Ever Ease Retail! We look forward to having you as part of the APRO community. 👋

Buddy's Home Furnishings
RNR Tire Express

Meet APRO Scholarship Star Brett Toombs, one of 42 students receiving an APRO Scholarship in 2026.

A junior at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Brett credits her mother, Johnna Toombs, and her 16-year career with PMB Rentals LLC dba RTO Rentals with helping shape her understanding of leadership, professionalism, and service. Brett is now building her own path through campus leadership, volunteer work, and studies in Exercise and Health Sciences and Public Health.

Since 2008, the APRO Scholarship Fund has awarded 611 scholarships totaling more than $1.3 million to rent-to-own professionals and their families.

Read Brett’s story and learn how the RTO community is investing in the next generation: https://www.rtohq.org/ky7r

What does meaningful community involvement look like when it becomes part of the way a business operates?

RNR Tire Express CEO and APRO Board Member Adam Sutton is sharing how RNR has made giving back a long-term commitment.

On Ratchet+Wrench Radio, Sutton discussed how the rent-to-own tire-and-wheel company builds charitable giving into its operations, supports franchisees in local outreach, and focuses on consistency and authenticity. His advice for businesses looking to get involved: “Start small, stay consistent.”

RNR Tire Express and its franchisees contributed more than $3.2 million to charitable initiatives in 2025, but Sutton says the purpose goes beyond dollars. Strong community relationships can also strengthen culture, trust, and loyalty.

Read more and listen to the full conversation: https://www.rtohq.org/x3ra

Buddy’s Home Furnishings marked 65 years of serving customers and supporting entrepreneurs at its annual Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida.

About 250 franchisees, store leaders, vendor partners, corporate team members, executive leaders, and guests came together under the theme “Route 65: Happy Days Ahead” to celebrate Buddy’s history while looking toward what’s next.
The conference featured leadership discussions, education sessions, a vendor show, top-performer recognition, and a 1960s-themed anniversary celebration.

Congratulations to longtime APRO member Buddy’s Home Furnishings on 65 years!

Read more about the milestone celebration: https://www.rtohq.org/qna6

APRO’s work to improve how people find and understand rent-to-own information has earned national recognition.

The Association of Professional Rental Organizations (APRO) received the 2026 Texas Society of Association Executives (TSAE) Association Impact Award for its Generative Knowledge Initiative – the first TSAE advocacy award in APRO’s 46-year history.

The initiative is expanding access to accurate rental-purchase information through APRO’s Rent-to-Own 101 Knowledge Base, more than 3,000 digitized historical industry articles, and firsthand customer and employee stories. Together, these resources are helping consumers, legislators, search engines, and AI tools better understand how rent-to-own works.

Read more about the award and APRO’s ongoing work to strengthen public understanding of the RTO industry: https://www.rtohq.org/jqil

👏 Leadership. Service. Advocacy. Legacy. Meet APRO’s 2026 Hall of Honor honorees.

At RTO World 2026, APRO honored an extraordinary group of industry leaders and state associations whose leadership, service, advocacy, and commitment have made a lasting impact on APRO and the rent-to-own community.

Meet the 2026 APRO Hall of Honor inductees and state association honorees, learn more about their contributions, and watch their acceptance videos.

👏 Congratulations to all of this year’s honorees!

🔗 Read more: https://www.rtohq.org/wzo5

Kindness took many forms this August as Countryside Rentals Inc. dba Rent-2-Own (R2O) celebrated its second annual Kindness Month.

Across 45 stores in Ohio and Kentucky, R2O teams chose their own ways to support their communities – donating school supplies, supporting food pantries and youth programs, helping animal-welfare organizations, recognizing first responders and veterans, and even surprising neighbors with pizza, ice cream, gas cards, and free haircuts.

What began last year as part of R2O’s 40th anniversary celebration has become an annual tradition rooted in the rent-to-own company’s longstanding commitment to the communities it serves.

Read more about R2O Kindness Month and the many local organizations and neighbors these teams supported here: https://www.rtohq.org/mxod

🏠 What if your next customer isn’t shopping yet because they haven’t moved out yet?

Young adults are establishing households later, delaying many of the purchases that come with furnishing a first home. But delayed demand doesn’t necessarily mean lost demand.

In the latest episode of The RTO Show Podcast, Pete Shau explores what this demographic shift could mean for rent-to-own, why long-term customer relationships matter, and how operators can prepare for changing customer needs heading into the fourth quarter.

Read more and listen now: https://www.rtohq.org/89ti