What do you think of the OR Rent Calculator? I don’t think hey’ve published much in the public domain about the algorithm. Would it be useful in a Rent tribunal?
Sure, why not, so long as it is in line with other evidence (other online calculators, valuations from agents, advertised rents for similar properties, data on rental inflation by property type in your area).
Not on its own or if out of line with other sources tho
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The Tribunal uses their own indices for rent calculation. If a landlord is presenting evidence, I think the FTT will be more interested in any of the property’s unique qualities that may justify a higher price.
Edit: On reflection, having read Tessa Sheperson’s take on the new rent tribunal process, I think it can’t hurt to include the calculator result if it seems credible and consistent with other evidence.
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The problem I have with it is that it’s clouded in obscurity – how on earth does the calculator calculate?
In particular, Open Rent uniquely have access to a large database of achieved rent values. Do they use them in the calculation?
When I’ve done calculations before (over the last 6-7 years) it has constantly undervalued my property compared to what I achieve and what others are asking also. Last time it undervalued the rent by more than 15%.
I wouldn’t count on it unless you don’t have anything else as proof.
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@Howard1 I’d guess they use advertised prices not achieved prices, as advertised is a bigger dataset - a lot of places advertised on OR wont then result in a contract through OR, so they wont know the achieved- and the advertised rent when RentNow is used to create the tenancy agreement on OR is forced to be the same as the advert anyway. Not perfect but in the past there was no particular reason to think lower than advertised would happen as multiple applicants per advert if at the correct market rate.
RRA may have pushed advertised higher than actuals for some as rental bidding no longer allowed - but i think most LLs will still prefer avoiding unnecessary void costs rather than hoping they will get multiple good tenants bidding up to a slightly higher amount
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