Finding a tenant has never been so simple, back in the old days self-managing landlords and letting agents would pay for an advert in the local paper. It worked but cost money and a few days delay before the advert was visible.
Now with the age of the internet, it is fast free and simple to find your new tenant,
There are 3 main websites tenants used today
- Rightmove
- OpenRent
- Gumtree
Everybody should be reasonably familiar with Rightmove, they are clearly the biggest and the best and because of this, they charge a premium. Their business model though only caters for the estate agents/letting agents market.
Only agents can have an account on Rightmove.
There are property listing websites that offer to list your property on Rightmove for a fee. They will advertise your property under their Rightmove account.
In our opinion, this is not necessary as we feel tenants will find you without this unnecessary expense
OpenRent
OpenRent specializes in rented properties. At the time of writing, they are currently the biggest residential property website in the UK.
You are able to list properties for free and even the premium features
are pretty good.
Gumtree
Gumtree is losing popularity. Gumtree is still useful to some landlords as it is mainly used for bedsits and studio flats, it is the unofficial home of DSS properties.
When we as landlords advertise properties that are suitable for the DSS, we find a much better response on Gumtree.
It is also free to list and there is no particular need to pay for the premium features.
The letting fee ban has not fully sunk home with tenants, Gumtree users are still looking for private landlords as they do not wish to pay letting agent fees!
…. and finally
RenterBall
As we are relatively new, you could not expect your new tenant to know of our website so when you list an advert on RenterBall do not think that’s enough, you should also advertise elsewhere
“Why should you list an advert on RenterBall then, if it’s not going to find me any tenants?”
The listing and advert function isn’t designed to find you a tenant, its purpose is to allow a prospective new tenant to share with you their profile and any feedback. The easiest way to do this is by the landlord posting an advert and having the tenant click apply and as a landlord, you can see the profiles of everybody who has applied and as RenterBall grows and becomes more popular tenants will no longer have the need to use other websites
We recommend you do the following
Advertise where you normally do and mention in your advert you use RenterBall to vet applicants
To cut down on time wasters explain as part of your prescreening checks they will need to pass RenterBall and then offer them a viewing
At the end of the viewing, we recommend you print out and give the following letter Link
Those who want to rent your property will then need to apply on your RenterBall advert once you’ve seen the applications come through and you are happy then carry out feature checks Intel then there is no point wasting any time or money on credit checks
Quick recap
We highly recommend you do the following
- Post an advert on RenterBall (FREE)
- Post adverts, as usual, say on OpenRent or Gumtree or both. Mention in the advert that you are using RenterBall.
- As part of your prescreening checks confirm that they will need to pass RenterBall checks to be offered a tenancy.
- Offer them a viewing
- Wait for them to apply on RenterBall
You could include the following sentence in your advert that can help explain RenterBall to new tenants
We use RenterBall to vet and shortlist applicants.
To use RenterBall you are required to have a UK NI number and a full or provisional driving licence.
If you do not have a driving licence then you will need somebody who does to represent you on RenterBall (an ID Buddy)
Frequently Asked Questions
What is RenterBall?
RenterBall is a Tenant feedback website allowing Landlords to be able to check out the history of Tenants. Ensuring bad tenants cannot rent again.
Do I have to pay to use RenterBall?
RenterBall is 100% free for tenants
How do I use RenterBall?
1: You need a Google/or Facebook account to Login
2: Complete your profile
3: Open a tenant page
4: and then submit your application to a landlord
the property reference number is: ………….