Quicklister verified me in about an hour and they have a very good Whatsapp customer service. For info I went for the Rightmove, Zoopla, Primelocation & On The Market package and 100% of enquiries are via Rightmove so far in the last 12 hours.
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I have found Open Rent helpful and useful for my last few tenants and have used Rent Now and their referencing.
BUT recent developments do worry me
I don’t like deposits not being in an account I can control directly .
I don’t like open rent trying to control my choices onhow I intertact with tenants ( auto generated messages) etc
I think the loss of Right Move is only acceptable if Open rent significantly reduce their fees. Charging the same increased fees but excluding Righmove advertising makes Openrent a poor deal
I’m hoping Open Rent witl get tback to their earlier values of allowing landlords and tenants to have a more direct relationship with les agent interference. I’d like to stay here - but i not I’ll be moving away and back to how I did things before Open Rent. But that s a shame because they had a great idea. Just a shame they are losing the things that differentiate themselves from the problems inherent in other agents.
Definitely agree. I have now set up with QL and their support is honestly amazing as has been mentioned in this thread many times.
I suspect a big loss coming for Open Rent down the line if not imminently.
I have received less than a handful of enquiries in 5 days for a property that would ordinarily have at least 30 - 40 by now!
When I check “performance” on the advert it states that my advert is underperforming.
Open Rent - Are you not contradicting yourselves there?
I think the only thing we can do is continue to put pressure on Open rent to reinstate Rightmove.
As of now QL have a yearly package which is excellent value for money for any landlord with more than 5 lettings a year.
I am an experienced landlord and having used Openrent regularly in the past I was surprised at the slow response rate after putting my property on the site a few days ago. When I went back to check why this was the case I noticed Rightmove has been quietly removed from their list of advertising portals.
Considering that’s one of the main reasons for me to use Openrent I feel somewhat cheated.
Rightmove is far and away the best advertising portal.
I have found tenant just from OpenRent Forum. I had few experiences that I did not find tenant for 3months paying to advertise on rightmove/zoopla but after 3 months just on openrent and found tenants.
I would suggest that openrent could advertise and publicise Openrent on TV or any other way as many tenants want to rent directly from landlords as better service compare with high street estate agents.
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@daz I appreciate that OpenRent has tried to negotiate with Rightmove to keep your price down for the benefit of landlords and reduce the monopolistic power of Rightmove.
However, claiming that “Rightmove makes up a relatively small % of enquiries” is untruthful. The real issue is that negotiations failed. It would be better for OpenRent to be transparent with its community and handle this situation more openly, rather than resorting to deceptive explanations.
OpenRent is well-positioned to challenge Rightmove and become the all-in-one place for landlords. However, this transition will take time, meaning your landlords will face difficulties during this period as they rely on OpenRent AND Rightmove.
I hope that Rightmove come back to the negotiating table, at least for the short term. Though the way you’ve handled it may risk leaving a bitter taste with landlords.
In the meantime, my advice to you, @daz, is to improve your app for tenants and invest significantly in advertising, as achieving your ultimate goal will otherwise be impossible.
For now, I’ll be using Quicklister, as I currently receive 90%+ of enquiries via Rightmove. Shame it’s come to this, but best of luck.
I love this idea that OR “should invest” in this or that. If you use the service you have surely noticed how few people are involved and how little it has changed. Where is the money coming from for the investment? They clearly have not been making a lot so now try a different tack, be a leading tenant-facing portal to compete with RM, and put what money they have to work there.
This is exactly an issue that now is making me feel differently about OpenRent. It quite obviously cannot be true, and if they really believe it is then the way they’re measuring their data cannot be correct.
And this would be great - but you do that first, not after the fact. You overtake them as the leading rental platform, start getting local estate agents on board so you cover the full market (as that’s where the vast majority of rentals are listed) and THEN cut your ties with RightMove. It doesn’t work the other way around.
It’s important to note OpenRent’s positioning in the market as an ultra-low-cost ‘do most of it yourself’ approach to lettings, so likely this helps them maintain their value proposition to landlords
I noted in that article the above quote, which I really believe is a fair point. I don’t see why OpenRent would very obviously lie and say a low % of inquiries come through RightMove. It is simply not true and it’s starting to irk me more now that I know OpenRent are happy to either lie about it or twist the data to do the same thing.
Rightmove has now been re-enabled as an advertising partner and we’re very pleased to announce our prices will be staying the same. All landlords who continued to pay for advertising, will see their property automatically added to Rightmove shortly alongside our other advertising partners.
There continues to be no better way to let your property than via OpenRent, and our average time to let a property remains at a market-beating 6 days. We know all 6 million+ users appreciate the efforts from the OpenRent team in ensuring they get the best value for money, and service, in the market. We sadly can’t always disclose full details of negotiations, third-party contracts or market data due to legal restrictions, but really appreciate the trust and support from the community who know we’ve always acted, and will continue to act, in their best interests.
As the matter is now resolved, this thread will be closed shortly.
Please see our announcement here: Rightmove advertising update.
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