I had a good start to advertising, got quite a lot of interest. Then OpenRent turned on pre-screening dressing it up as helping, my tenant enquiries went down to a trickle.
When I tried to go through the process myself, what an absolute ball-ache, they make you register on their website, verify email address, then request a phone number and then verify phone number!
Not many people are going to jump through these hoops.
And the biggest kicker of all is, Open Rent have the audacity to state to the tenant that this was requested by the Landlord! A total blatant LIE!
Could you not just turn off the pre screening option?
I’ve used the pre screening in the past and have found it helps to filter out applicants who aren’t serious or do not fit my criteria (which you can stipulate in the pre screening questions) therefore saving time on everyone’s part. So I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, although I don’t know how Openrent “forced” this as it’s optional?
It isn’t optional, the option to disable it, is itself disabled. OpenRent reply says they can’t turn it off - meaning they don’t want to turn it off.
Open Rent behaving like a dictator - take your money then give a crap service!
Pre screening is your choice. I always use pre screening as I dont want the hassle of of informing people outside of my criteria they are not successful. I have always had good responses even with pre screening on and would not want that facility taken away. Contact Openrent to tell them to remove prescreening from your process. They do respond quickly.
I agree with all the comments above. I am a tenant with loads of cash, willing to pay double rent to pay the tenancy off much earlier and it’s just not letting me proceed anywhere. I have a deposit and also have 3 months plus in advance. I am willing to double rent payments up so that affectively the risk is minimal but I acknowledge maybe it’s it still a risk for a landlord. I have had lots of trouble with this. Any landlords in the Ashford toCanterbury over to Whitstable and Faversham out there that can help me? I can prove all income.
I’m looking for very long term tenants who will look after the property and be reliable in paying the rent!
It is officially available on 1 August, but the present tenants move into their own home on 13th, so it could be available on 14th July. They will leave it so clean you could eat your food off any surface! That’s a promise
Send me a message with your landline number … I don’t call mobiles, sorry (unless you are on WhatsAp)! I look forward to hearing from you, Patricia.
Wrong. The serious applicants will jump through those hoops. We had over 30 applicants for our most recent letting. The ones who aren’t sure they really want to apply won’t bother. And the Open Rent verification and screening processes are valuable checks.
Tenants have to jump through a lot of hoops. Character hoops, stability hoops, affordability hoops, right-to-rent hoops… That’s just how it is in our modern world. And it’s going to get harder, not easier, if the supply of rentals starts reducing significantly. Out of the 30+ applicants we had for our most recent property only 5 passed the preliminary checks successfully. 2 of these found something else, 1 failed the stability hoop, 1 failed the financial checks (thank goodness for Open Banking), and we let to the fifth. Hoops are a fact of life.
OpenRent only turn the screening on when you have had 30 enquiries, by which time things are usually slowing down anyway. It may be time, rather than the screening process, which is lowering the level of interest, plus the fact that you don’t see the obviously unsuitable applicants any more.
If you have loads of cash and presumably great credit rating then I cant see how you would have a problem. Im assuming you must have a well paid job as you cannot be on benefits. If you are I am doing it all wrong. I cant really make sense of it.
