I’ve had this a number of times - click ‘message landlord’ button and send a perfectly civil and courteous message requiring an answer to a simple question… and landlord ignores the message.
The latest ‘little sh*t’ episode involved a landlord called ‘Camron B’ whose ‘response rate’ is supposedly 100%. Five days after I contacted him, I get an email stating: " The landlord has just informed us that this property has been let…"
So either OpenRent communications aren’t working properly, or w**kers who call themselves landlords are coming to Openrent in order to aggravate tenants.
Hi Jason - We understand you’re frustrated, searching for a property at the moment is extremely frustrating due to the demand far outstripping the number of properties available. This is true across the market and country.
Having said that, in this case, it looks like you enquired about this property (or simply asked the Landlord a question) on the evening of the 29th March. At this point the property had been advertised for over 10 days. We regularly chase landlords to ensure adverts are kept up to date, and as a result of our chasing, the advert was taken down.
Where a landlord doesn’t reply to a viewing request, tenants do have tools to chase them and we’ll take action more quickly if a landlord is unresponsive and that is reported to us.
We definitely recommend setting up a search alert for properties:
Your chances are much much better if you enquire about a property soon after it has been advertised.
I’ve also noted your comment about the response rate % shown on this landlord, and we’ll look to address that. If they didn’t reply to you, then it’s clear that shouldn’t show as 100%! That does seem like an issue with our system, and thanks for raising it with us.
Yes, the demand is great. There are painfully few properties in my particular hole in London which fall within my budget and requirements. So when something turns up, I hit the message button - it’s common sense to message landlords if there are questions, but clearly some landlords only respond to a viewing request.
OpenRent need to remind landlords that the ‘message landlord’ button is there for a reason.