Pre-Screening & Managing too many enquiries?

OpenRent Chat
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Note from admin team: This post contains several things stated as fact, which aren’t true. Please see the reply Pre-Screening & Managing too many enquiries? - #7 by Daz below for clarity on this. We’re keen to avoid any readers being misled by claims here, but want to leave the post open for discussion from other landlords.

My last advert generated over 100 enquiries almost immediately. OpenRent automatically removed it indicating the property was already let, even though I hadn’t set up a single viewing so it caused COMPLETE CHAOS!!!

My property is NOT £undervalued, it’s simply a reflection of the current madness in the South West, meaning landlords are inundated with unsuitable enquiries (& I was certainly not harvesting data!).

Most enquiries simply say “When can I view” with no more data than that. Last time I quickly hijacked the Tenant Auto-Reply field to add some pre-screening questions.

This significantly reduced ‘timewasters’ & helped me preselect those most suitable to view. Despite this OpenRent still sent automated messages prompting them to put down a holding deposit etc - it created utter havoc for me! I spent more time putting out fires I didn’t start than efficiently managing enquires :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

I’m drafting my next advert but note OpenRent have capped the No of characters/word in the Auto-Reply field to 500 - preventing my last tactic :angry:

Dear OpenRent

  1. PLEASE PLEASE open this field up again. That way the ‘autoreply’ will list my prescreening questionnaire. THAT’S IT, THAT’S ALL I WANT :pray:
    I want to ask open questions, not set discriminatory parameters.

  2. PLEASE PLEASE say you won’t remove advert when it reaches 100?
    At least leave it ‘live’ even if you prevent new enquiries.

  3. The list of ‘Tenant Enquires’ format does not lend itself to managing so many enquiries, any tips?

How do others manage this? The OpenRent format is not set up to manage the current housing crisis - or does someone know something I don’t??

Many thanks in advance :slightly_smiling_face:

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These are well known problems that Openrent refuse to address. You need to email them about the problem.

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Thanks David - I messaged OpenRent last time but they were unhelpful. I was hoping things had improved over the last few months as this problem must now be affecting LOADS of landlords but having seen a similar post it seems not.

This makes High Street Estate Agents look much more appealing - they will already have most ‘applicants’ on their books, so will have already pre-screened/registered their details, therefore having a distinct advantage. Plus they employ staff solely for this purpose - I’m trying to fit this in around the rest of my life so it’s a ‘challenge’ to say the least.

I have just now copied this same post to OpenRent by email as you suggest.

As a minimum we need some mechanism to pre-screen applicants. It is impossible to contact each one individually requesting data.

Fingers crossed :crossed_fingers:

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Good points. I dread re-letting due to the number of unsuitable applicants just trying their luck in a casual way.

I actually got cold-called by an estate agent a few weeks ago asking if my flat was for rent! (It isn’t).

There is a lack of fine tuning controls with Openrent which caused problems when our in situ tenants who had given notice suddenly changed their mind and decided ‘no visitors please’ during Covid.

For the first time ever with the next re-let I’m thinking of using an estate agents one-off tenant finding fee method instead of Openrent. The post-Covid situation means I want a max of 3 potential tenants to see the flat.

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That’s a good point - I too, a self managing landlord for 19 years, am for the very first time also considering using an agent as OpenRent is not really 'fit for purpose; in the current market.

Interestingly, my local estate agents are competing for work as there’s so few properties - meaning the £costs are coming down. Plus I’m sure it can be haggled down a bit further.

2 Likes
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same in Liverpool they are cutting costs

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Hi @lesley247 - Thanks for your post.

Firstly, you’re always welcome to contact our customer support team if you run into issues. I can see you’re not actually advertising with us right now, and appreciate you want to get things right up front so happy to discuss any points raised, much like your concern about photos here:

If you do run into any issues whilst advertising, our team are on hand to help.

Onto your discussion points in this post:

My last advert generated over 100 enquiries almost immediately. OpenRent automatically removed it indicating the property was already let, even though I hadn’t set up a single viewing so it caused COMPLETE CHAOS!!!

The last property you advertised with us was removed because, after several tenants contacted us saying they hadn’t heard back from you in over 48 hours, we also contacted you to confirm if the property was available (and to get back to the tenants). We didn’t hear back from you (and neither did the tenants) so your advert was taken offline to prevent further tenants being ignored / missing out.

I’m afraid what you’re stated above isn’t accurate / correct, and as per your own advert history, you can see you re-enabled your advert and whilst you did have over 100 enquiries, the advert was only paused to prevent more tenants being disappointed.

I’m drafting my next advert but note OpenRent have capped the No of characters/word in the Auto-Reply field to 500 - preventing my last tactic :angry:

Can you send us some details of this? I don’t believe there to be a cap of 500 characters for auto replies. You can learn more about auto-replies here:

However, I think there must be some confusion/misunderstanding somewhere. We’d be happy to address this if you can outline where you saw this limit presented to you.

  • PLEASE PLEASE open this field up again. That way the ‘autoreply’ will list my prescreening questionnaire. THAT’S IT, THAT’S ALL I WANT :pray:
    I want to ask open questions, not set discriminatory parameters.

This is already the case, as far as I’m aware.

  • PLEASE PLEASE say you won’t remove advert when it reaches 100?
    At least leave it ‘live’ even if you prevent new enquiries.

This is already the case, as far as I’m aware.

  • The list of ‘Tenant Enquires’ format does not lend itself to managing so many enquiries, any tips?

We have some tips on managing enquiries here, do take a look:

We’re also keen to hear what anyone else on the community thinks in terms of improvements to enquiry management.

However, if your advert is receiving many many enquiries, and you’re overwhelmed, then 100% pause your advert until you’re caught up. It means you’re clearly not struggling for demand, and by pausing your advert you won’t have multiple tenants reporting your advert due to a lack of response, and more importantly won’t have a hundred disappointed tenants that you need to communicate with / keep in the loop.

I appreciate you want to make sure everything is perfect for your advert, and hopefully it’s clear our team are here to help once you begin advertising, as well as our system having multiple tools to help landlords with underperforming properties all the way to the lucky ones overwhelmed with demand.

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Hi Daz…Do you think it would be possible to phone me regarding this? For obvious reasons I won’t identify my contact details here but you’ll have them on file.

I would absolutely love the opportunity to discuss this in a positive & constructive way. I think perhaps some of the detail is quite nuanced so can easily be misconstrued.

I look forward to a open conversation,
Many thanks in advance :slightly_smiling_face:

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Post redacted…will try alternative methods to communicate with Daz.

Daz is unable to contact me as that is the role of the support team - :woozy_face: :unamused: :woozy_face:

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@lesley247 - As per my private message to you, our support team are on hand to help whenever needed. I can see you messaged them with a copy/paste of your opening post in this thread on Sunday (after posting here), and they responded with tips and guidance on Monday at 9:30am. I don’t want to duplicate efforts, and am supremely confident in our teams ability to support you in advertising your next property when the time comes.

In terms of this thread, am open to wider discussion with the community if there is interest / scope - otherwise I hope my answers have been fairly complete / comprehensive and have answered your direct questions.

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I do think there are a few things that Open Rent knows about but refuses to address such as enabling the Landlord to edit the contract of the Tenants names. I have made 4 phone calls and no one calls you back! Really poor customer service.

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But you dont call people back that is a big issue. I have made 4 calls and not one person has called me back. Every time I call you say the right things and say you will escalate but nothing. Your customer service department is very poor! Give people a number so we can speak to someone who can deal with your queries not pass on to another function and nothing happens!!

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In the interest of full disclosure this is what happened next: I received an email from Daz saying he was unable to phone me & that I needed to go via Customer services. Therefore, trying to maintain some kind of continuity I emailed him back with this - However, to date I have had no reply whatsoever from anyone at OpenRent :frowning_face:

In the absence of a phone call I’ll give it my best shot:

  1. When my previous advert went ‘live’ I had no idea I’d receive so many responses in such a short space of time. I am not a full time landlord so am unable to devote my full time to applicants. I admit I was like a rabbit in the headlights but I had set up a Tenant Auto-Reply, so it’s unfair & actually untrue to say I did not respond to everyone within 48hrs. That said, most enquires are along the lines of “When can I view?” with very little, if any, additional information. Under ‘normal’ market condition I have always contacted each applicant to carry out initial screening prior to determining if a viewing is viable. However, in this case (100) it was simply impossible to do so.

  2. I would like to highlight I tried repeatedly to contact OpenRent at the time as I was quite literally drowning in chaos. I found the Open Rent response poor & completely refute the allegation I did not get in touch. NOTE: Immediately after this email I will forward 2 examples of my attempts to communicate.

  3. Given what I was faced with, I quickly hijacked the Tenant Auto-Reply and inserted a hastily constructed screening Questionnaire. If they failed to respond they automatically excluding themselves but I was then able to more efficiently sort through those who subsequently supplied more information.

  4. I have tried to insert my pre-screening questionnaire into my NEW/DRAFT advert but the system will not allow it - it flags up a message saying something like " too many characters/500 maximum ". It is for this reason I can confidently say OpenRent has amended the format/field.

  5. When I reached 100 enquiries OpenRent removed the advert from RightMove etc - Therefore the applicants believe (rightly or wrongly) the property had now been let. I then get a second round (cira.100) more messages asking what’s going on & why they’ve not been contacted?

  6. Every time OpenRent send an automated message to c. 100 people I get further wave of c.100 more messages - I’m forever trying to play catch-up & failing miserably. I spent an inordinate amount of time firefighting, instead of looking like the professional landlord I strive to be.

  7. The reality is it is impossible to respond to such a vast amount of enquires that just “want to view”. If the additional characters can be reinstated to the Tenant Auto-Reply field that would be enormously helpful.

  8. List of Tenant Enquiries - there are many reasons this is difficult to navigate but one of the most frustrating is that if you’re on page 1 you have to go via page, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 to get to page 8 - You cannot simply jump to the page you require. I have not actively used this since my last advert so would need to familarise myself again but I do clearly recall it was a real frustration.

In summary, the vast number of enquiries in the current housing crisis make it impossible to reply to everyone within the timescales OpenRent dictate & navigate the List of Enquires. The Tenant Auto-Reply is a brilliant ‘plaster’ to cope with an imperfect system.

Please help - It really would help to speak to a real person. Perhaps you could pass this email to someone in your contact centre for follow up. I really would like some continuity.

Thank you in anticipation of some help

PS…I did also send him the 2 emails I referenced in 2) above, both basically begging for help & a phone call

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My thoughts exactly. Open rent need to adapt to our needs or explain themselves better.
It was better before they tweaked it.

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An avalanche of enquiries is precisely the reason I won’t use OpenRent again. I’ve owned my Victorian era rental for over 15 years and always self-manage. I didn’t think my rent was especially “cheap” but received a deluge of enquiries apparently due to it falling with the HB allowance. Although my advert mentioned the property was on the second floor, I received applicants who said they had impaired mobility. My advert had a floorplan showing that the sizes of both bedrooms-one bedroom only suitable for a child under the age of ten; I had people viewing who said that bedroom was too small for their children. They obviously were only making enquiries based on the rent and not even reading the advert. :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

I put in a detailed Auto-Reply hoping to filter the enquiries. It didn’t seem to make much of a difference. By the way, I didn’t know about the Auto-Reply until it was triggered by the rapid onrush of queries.

Also I didn’t know until I looked on the forum that there was a cut off at 100. I let my flat at enquiry #66.

So unless there are changes, I won’t be coming back. :wave:t3:

1 Like
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I don’t know about you Lesley, but I find the majority of Openrent applicants are poor housing benefit quality. maybe that’s just my area in W. Yorks.

They do not read my pre-screening message, and I constantly have to ask them to confirm they can satisfy our requirements, which are already clearly stated in that message, then the enquiry goes silent.

So, good luck with your idea of pre-screening the applicants, I think you will find most will simply ignore them, until pushed.

I think it would be hugely beneficial, since we can no longer advertise “no dss”, if Openrent included the conditions for dss / HB applicants alongside their questions at the enquiry stage, NOT as an auto-reply to enquiries already lodged.

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Hi Daz,

Please see my previous post #16.

Is there any way Openrent can include my, and other landlords, specific qualifications for HB / DSS applicants in your pre-screening questions.

This would, hopefully, have the desired effect of cutting out all the irrelevant enquiries, that don’t know the requirements before logging their enquiry.

I have over 60 enquiries on my current advert, approx. 80% of which are totally unsuitable applicants. They do not read the advert fully, they do not even understand the style of property, as I have one applicant saying they are looking for a 2-bed (family) property, why then are they enquiring about my studio flat for single occupancy.

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Hi Not sure if you can help. I have seen a property on here but then it says verify number to request a viewing. I entered my mobile number and it wont let me go any further? I really am keen on the property to rent is there any way else this can be done. I’ve emailed OpenRent but no reply yet. Would appreciate any help please thank you

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When I make my advert live I immediately go to landlords auto reply and paste in my questions.
Those who answer all the questions, go on my shortlist and as soon as I have about 6, I send all others a holding reply or tell them its taken, and suspend the advert. I think that those who do not read and reply to the questions are not going to be good tenants for me.

If OpenRent could allow me to fill in the auto reply before I go live, and / or make it more prominent, this would be helpful to many

3 Likes
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To Debbie 30…can you see a button to send your mobile a text that you need to then respond to? To verify your mobile number.