I would just like to use openrent for advertising and would like to manage vetting tenants, collecting holding deposits, generating ASTs etc. myself. I’d like a prospective tenant to contact me, I can arrange the viewing and then collect a holding deposit myself if I’m happy with them.
I don’t therefore want a prospective tenant to have the option to press the ‘rent now’ button, pay a holding deposit directly to openrent and then suspend the listing immediately. The problem is that the rent now button appears on my listing even though I’m only using the advertising option which seems a bit odd (currently free and will switch to £29 in 5 days).
How can I avoid this happening and remove the ‘rent now’ button please?
We appreciate that some landlords may just want to advertise with us, and proceed with the tenancy off-platform - no problem with this at all!
A Rent Now button will appear on all of our listings, but this isn’t really anything you need to worry about. It’s entirely optional and tenants are told that they need a landlord’s permission to hit that green button.
We’ve taken landlord feedback on board and since October, ensured that in the event of an unwanted/unprompted holding deposit, your advertising isn’t at all affected.
A property will only be taken offline when a holding deposit is accepted (here’s why). So from the sounds of it, your listing will remain as is.
In the unlikely event a tenant presses Rent Now without having first discussed their application with you, the funds can be returned by a simple SMS or by logging into the website.