You’ve probably recently stumbled upon the name OpenRent, the ridiculously cheap online letting agent that sounds too good to be true.
So now you’re fumbling around the internet, doing the research, trying to work out how it all works, and whether OpenRent is a viable option to help you, as a landlord, to find your next tenants.
You’ve come to the right place.
But first, before getting into the meat and potatoes…
Special Offer
Current OpenRent Special Offer
OpenRent are currently offering Property Investment Project’s readers a FREE 5 day trial for their tenant-find service, which includes getting your vacant property listed on Rightmove! No strings attached (as the review below explains).
Ok, so…
The purpose of this blog post is to provide some much-needed clarity to ease the minds of landlords that find themselves grossly suspicious of OpenRent’s service, which claims to advertise your rental property on Rightmove and Zoopla for peanuts. Specifically, £29 (Inc VAT) worth of peanuts. A fee that’s certainly freakishly less than all their competitors.
Then, when you throw in the fact that they’re currently offering – exclusively to my readership – a no strings attached, 5 day free trial for their tenant-find service, it may naturally blow your confused little mind and only cause further doubt.
Yup, I’m talking FREE-FREE here!
No doubt, the suspicion is thoroughly justified, because when a company tosses around an offer that sounds too good to be true – especially when it’s a letting agent – it usually is. The catchy gimmicks often result in paying through the ass because the malicious small-print was… err.. too small, and hidden away in a dark corner somewhere, strategically designed never to be seen in the light of day.
I’ve used OpenRent to find tenants a few times, and I also took full advantage of their free trial, so let me give you the lowdown.
Is OpenRent a scam, is there a catch?
The million dollar question…
Is OpenRent a scam? The short answer: NO.
Is the free trial actually “free”… no strings attached… no dodgy small-print… no credit card details required? Yup, that’s correct.
So I could end up marketing my property on the biggest property portals in the UK (e.g. Rightmove, Zoopla and Gumtree etc.) and consequently find tenants without spending a penny, all through OpenRent’s free trial offer? Exactly.
Long story short, OpenRent’s letting services for landlords is an absolute bargain!
I can’t really be clearer; OpenRent’s free trial and cheap-as-peanuts service is genuinely legit. If you take advantage of their free trial (you have no reason not to if you plan on using their service), then there are no obligations to continue using their services after the trial, but if you wish to continue after it ends, you’ll need to pay a very reasonable £29, which will extend the service for a further 3 months.
So if that’s what you wanted to hear, then go ahead and use their free trial. There’s nothing to fear.
However, if you need more of an explanation and you’re interested in the finer details, follow me…
How was my experience with OpenRent? Did I find tenants for free?
I most recently used OpenRent earlier this year, and of course, I took advantage of their free trial. I’m certainly not too proud to grab a free meal.
Within no time at all I had registered myself as a landlord, submitted my property details via their online control panel and found my property listed on both Rightmove and Zoopla. I did NOT have to enter any credit card details.
within a couple of days I had received a dozen or so enquiries in the form of emails and voice-messages, which was obviously amazing. I must add, the property I listed is located in a highly sought after area, and demand outstrips the supply 10-fold.
In theory, I could have probably found tenants for free during the 5 day trial period. However, I happily ended up paying the £29 for an extra 3 months service, because…
I like to give all suitable applicants the opportunity to view the property, so that way I have a greater pool of tenants to choose from. Plus, it’s incredible how disappointing some applicants end up being, despite how good they appear on paper. So even though I had whittled the shortlist down to about 5 or 6, there was still no guarantee that any of them would tickle my pickle.
The viewings spanned over a week, which meant I wouldn’t get to meet everyone during the trial period, and the golden rule is to never stop the hunt until contracts have been signed and a deposit has been received. I would NEVER recommend putting the breaks on marketing until tenants have been absolutely confirmed, simply because deals breaking and situations changing is overwhelmingly common.
I suspect that while many landlords do find tenants during the 5 day trial, I also believe many end up paying the upgrade fee; it’s unlikely most landlords will receive enquiries, take viewings and sign contracts within 5 days! In that case, most sensible landlords will pay the measly £29 upgrade fee to prolong the Rightmove & Zoopla listings.
In conclusion, I used OpenRent’s free trial and received a buttload of enquiries, but I still paid £29 to extend their service because I wanted to continue receiving enquiries in case a deal didn’t materialise. However, I did end up signing an awesome tenant that applied during the trial period, and the deal was complete within 2 weeks, all for £29.
Honestly, total bargain.
Quick tip/note for using OpenRent to reduce low quality enquiries!
Not only during my recent experience, but also previous times, I found myself inundated with enquiries, but I did notice the quality in enquiries drastically varied- some were frustratingly poor, while others were decent! Consequently, I found myself wasting a lot of time dealing with time-wasters.
OpenRent pushes their stock onto Gumtree, so I suspect many of the poor quality enquiries stem from there (Gumtree is notorious for generating less than desirable applications, although a great platform for lead generation, no doubt). Fortunately, OpenRent has an “Advanced tenant screening” option, and once that’s enabled, applicants are required to answer more questions before applying. Naturally, it slows down the enquiries, but does improve the quality of enquires.
So if you find yourself in a similar situation – being drowned by garbage – perhaps try enabling the feature!
Is OpenRent the best Online Letting Agent?
There are several brilliant online letting agents to choose from, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by any of them. It’s worth noting that some agents do offer different levels of service, which is something you may want to investigate further to determine which online agent will best cater to your needs.
However, in my honest opinion, if you’re a self-managing landlord that’s looking for a reliable, functional and cost-effective means of simply getting your rental property listed on Rightmove and Zoopla (and other property portals) in order to generate enquiries so you can manage and conduct viewings yourself, I don’t think there’s a better option than OpenRent. Generally speaking, that’s what most landlords requiring the services of an online letting agent is the market for.
The most popular UK online letting agent?
OpenRent appeared on my radar back in 2011, when they first entered the market with their very shocking low cost of £20, which included your property being marketed on Rightmove– by far the cheapest offering on the market, and a real threat to their competitors, who were mostly shifting similar packages at around the £50 mark.
Personally, I thought there was a catch or a devastating miscalculation. It just seemed too good to be true.
I presumed they would topple over like most other agents that tried to grab market share quickly and aggressively with unsustainable offers, and/or had scaled back on vital customer services to cover running costs. Either way, the setup looked destined for failure.
5 or so years later… to my surprise (and perhaps to the amazement of other online agents), OpenRent are now the most popular UK online letting agent (they’re currently advertising over 2,500 properties on Rightmove), and they’ve left behind a strong trail of positive reviews and are still offering mind-blowing rates that continue to blow the competition out of the water.
I’m not usually one to mince my words or hype bullshit, and you can read many of my other blog posts to certify that claim. So believe me when I say, OpenRent are the real deal, and I haven’t heard a bad word about them from anyone, especially other landlords.
How OpenRent works & their FREE trial explained
Presumably, you already know how online agents work. If not, you can catch up over here for a complete guide on online letting agents.
Now, let’s take a closer look at OpenRent’s menu…
OpenRent Packages & Prices
Update: OpenRent no longer advertise the free trial package on their website, but you can still get it exclusively from here (or any of the other links to OpenRent in this blog post).
‘OpenRent Only’ package- IGNORE IT! I would personally ignore the “FREE” package- even as enticing as it sounds- because that package only markets your property on their internal website (i.e. that package will not get your property listed on Rightmove or Zoopla). Quite frankly, it’s garbage. Sorry, OpenRent!
I’ve already emphasised the epic importance of marketing vacant BTL properties on Rightmove– and there is no substitute for it.
If you want the best chance of filling your vacant BTL property and finding tenants quickly- get your property on Rightmove. That’s it.
The most popular ‘Ultimate Advertising’ FREE Trial package This is the package I get questioned about the most, because it comes with a free trial, yet it remarkably comes with all of the below…
OpenRent FREE Package
But let explain and clarify for your own peace of mind…
The trial is for 5 days. Their service and everything listed above is free with in those 5 days.
After the free trial you do NOT have to pay anything unless you wish to continue using their service (more explained below).
The free trial is only available to “first time” users. If you have already taken advantage of their services, you will be subject to their £29 fee, which includes the exact same offering as the free trial, but for 3 months (still extremely reasonable).
Your vacant property WILL get listed on Rightmove, Zoopla & Gumtree (usually within 24 hours), and believe me when I say that 5 days is generally MORE than enough time to generate a buttload of enquiries… unless you’re trying to shift a piece-of-shit death-trap in the middle of nowhere, that is. But ultimately, you could end up finding tenants without spending a penny during the free trial.
You’re NOT tied into any contracts, so you won’t be held accountable to pay any fees during the free trial.
There are NO hidden or extra fees, like extortionate tenancy renewal fees, check-in fees etc!
You don’t need to enter any credit card or payment details (it’s always sketchy and nerve wracking when free trials require payment details)!
What if I don’t find tenants in 5 days and want to market my property for longer? Ok, good question. Of course, there’s a chance you may not find the perfect tenants within 5 days.
In this case, you have the option of paying £29 (that includes VAT) to extend their service for an extra 3 months. That’s still currently cheaper than any other online agent offering a similar package. This is the time when you will be required to enter your credit card details.
Advertising & ‘Rent Now’ package, the £49 package If you want more of a premium service (for also, quite frankly, peanuts), then the ‘Rent Now’ package if the one for you- it includes all the extras listed in the image above. All pretty useful stuff, which takes care of more of the administrative responsibilities (e.g. securing the tenancy deposit). But the real gem is the optional monthly rent collection service. The first month of collection is free with the base package, but you have the option of continuing the rent collection service for £10 per month. You can pause/unpause the service as and when you choose, and you’ll only be charged the monthly fee when collection is unpaused and paid in full by your tenant.
OpenRent will collect rent from your tenant, and as soon as the rent hits their account, they will instantly transfer the rent to you. If your tenant is late on rent, they’ll notify you automatically, and chase the tenant on your behalf.
I must emphasise though, this package is NOT part of the “Free trial” offering, but you will have the option to “upgrade” to the premium package after the free trial if you wish to extend the service. It’s your call.
How are they able to offer such low prices & still survive?
During the extremely rare cases where an unbelievable offer proves to be true and pure, I need to understand why, don’t you? I literally need to, otherwise I’ll forever be looking for trip-wires. The looming concern of being caught out by the small-print would definitely plague my mind.
So to relieve myself from concern, and perhaps yours too, I’ve spoken directly to one of the co-founders to gain a better understanding of what the hell is going on, and how they’re able to make their business model financially viable under the circumstances. Having heard their side, I’m now informed enough to explain it to you, so you can join the dots for yourself.
They’re able to offer FREE trials and the cheapest rates thereafter (to my knowledge), while not compromising on customer service, because of three main reasons…
1) In-house technical skills – one of the biggest costs of starting and running any online service/website is developing and maintaining the technical infrastructure. Fortunately, one of the founding-members of OpenRent is a technical genius, so the only real start-up cost of developing the website was his time (which I’m not devaluing, but there was no hard cash required). So straight away a large portion of that cost was eradicated. That said, they have massively evolved since their start-up days, so they do now have a team of technical-monkeys steering the ship, not just one socially inept geek.
From what I know, most online letting agent founders aren’t website developers, they’re letting agents and/or landlords, so they have to take a HUGE hit on development costs.
2) Automation – I guess this is an extension of the above factor, and achieved because of the technical abilities they have at their disposal.
While they do have full-time phone support available and real people replying to emails, their system is extremely automated, meaning less human interference is required, which means less employed manpower.
Now, don’t misconstrue that as a negative, because it’s not. All I’m saying is that they have automated their system so well that there’s very little reason for anyone to pick up the phone and ask for support, because their automated system takes care of most of the operational procedures, and keeps landlords fully in the loop with live status updates.
3) Upselling other products – they make a large chunk of change from upselling other products beyond their bread and butter “Tenant find service“, such as drawing up contacts, EPC’s and Gas Safety Checks.
To be honest, most other online agents businesses do the same. They probably wouldn’t survive without the upsells.
4) Great service – they’re so sure their service is spectacular that they’re confident you’ll return to use their service over and over, only you won’t mind paying their regular fees you’ll be subject to next time. Basically, they’ll profit from repeat business.
That all makes sense.
This sounds like a sales pitch!
Believe me, it’s not.
As said, I’m not here to sell anything, and I don’t hype bullshit.
Most online letting agents approach me with an enticing sales pitch, because they want to be added to my list of online letting agents table. I refuse 98% of them (that’s why my list is very limited), even when they try to twist my arm with financial compensation. Unless I understand, use and/or believe they are providing a valuable service to landlords, I’m not interested. That’s the bottom line.
So, go ahead and try OpenRent’s FREE trial if you were unsure, they’re legit.
Tenant Referencing…
Don’t forget!
Seriously, do not forget!
Regardless of who or what service you use to find tenants, ensure you ALWAYS do thorough tenant referencing. Referencing is the one area where I recommend every landlord to be most diligent, because allowing poor tenants to slip through the net can be one of most excruciatingly painful experiences.
Your thoughts…
So, out of genuine curiosity, have you used OpenRent? If so, please provide your feedback below. Similarly, if you’re thinking about using them, or have any questions regarding their service.
Also, please let me know how you get on if you decide to use them.
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