Block Viewings and Bidding Wars
This article is about block viewings and bidding wars for rental property and why one rarely exists and the other is a unicorn, existing only in the imagination of out-of-touch politicos who don’t understand the private rented sector.
Block Viewings and The Tenants Bidding War Unicorn
I have seen some daft ideas touted about what could be Labour policy for the private rented sector.
There is one story about how landlords could be prevented from evicting non-paying tenants if it caused the tenants “hardship”. That’s a good one! Good luck with the long run supply of new rentals if you run with that silly idea.
Another one, which was also much talked about pre-election, was about stopping bidding wars for rental properties.
Now a bright person would suggest there might be something wrong with a market if there are bidding wars for something in the first place.
Let that thought rest. Mmm.
Of course, bidding wars are OK at an auction to buy/sell a property or to buy a trinket. You kind of expect that – and note that bidders’ ability to pay is usually checked beforehand at such events.
But bidding wars for rental property? Really?
Does that happen? Would it happen?
Would that really be the most efficient way for landlords to select tenants?
So, this is how Labour wonks, sitting in their comfy Islington flats, post PPE at Oxford and post a spell at the Policy Exchange must envisage it working:
Landlords hold an open viewing day, lots of desperate would-be tenants turn up to view the property, the mean landlords choose between tenants based on what they can afford and slink off, Shylock-like to bank their huge gains.
A recent NRLA magazine piece ran a series of interviews with landlords asking them their thoughts about block open day type viewings.
Answer: These were not popular at all.
And with good reason – that is not how things work in the real world.
Landlords never invite round groups of random applicants to view their properties. Apart from the security angle, it would be a pointless exercise.
Any landlord knows that even with all the checks that the likes of OpenRent put on and with all the landlords’ own attempts to put off the many time wasters who make contact, there are still many time wasters and non-serious applicants who filter through anyway.
All landlords must spend real time hard yards on email or the phone, wheedling out the “possibly good applicants”. But even then, there are plenty of time wasters who come to your viewings who will suddenly remember they have a dog, suddenly recall an old CCJ, suddenly remember they have four kids and not just the one, suddenly be unable to produce the documents you wish to see.
Certain, ahem, nationalities, are particularly at fault for this, but of course, in this febrile environment I cannot say which.
Even with the screening services that OpenRent apply, plus our own clear messaging in our ads, it works like this:
From the resulting 50 enquiries that get through the OpenRent filter, we will usually get maybe eight viewings. Typically, one might say the property is “not for them”, which is daft as they ought to have checked out the photos and place before hand – as well as our super competitive rents.
Five or six will “uhm and ahh”, but somehow not be able to get us all the documents we need to see. (We do tell them in advance, but a lot of them, certain nationalities in particular, evidently think we can be persuaded to drop our strict criteria, post- viewings. We can’t!).
That will leave just one or two serious applicants.
Occasionally, we must choose between two.
There are no bidding wars because if you have priced your rent correctly, there are only two serious candidates that emerge who can provide proof that they can really afford the rent and make good tenants.
But the people sitting in their comfy Islington flats, post their Oxford PPE degrees and post a stint as an intern at Policy Exchange and who are now making policy for Labour have absolutely no understanding of how the real world works. Not just Labour, the Tories showed themselves to be almost as out-of-touch whilst in government.
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