to not get why I'm being turned down for rental properties?

[Fpbww]

In our town (don't know if this is common in other areas) the process for renting is - view house you are interested in, submit a detailed application form (the longest has been 8 pages long) confirming employers, income, bank details, addresses and so on. Sometimes providing ID, bank statements, wage slips, you name it.

The landlord then has a look at the applications and decides who he/ she likes the look of best. And if you get to that stage, THEN they do any referencing, credit checks etc.

We've applied for 5 houses in the last month. We were offered one (having passed stage 1 we were invited to agree referencing/ checks), but decided due to some concerns over maintenance (a couple of damp patches which the LL tried to say were not actually damp!) we decided not to proceed.

With the other 4, we've been rejected at the first stage.

All different estate agents (there are about 20 locally) so it's not that

I can't see why on paper we are not attractive to a LL?
We're both in our 40s, no children at home, non smokers, no pets. We both work from home. We're looking to rent for up to 2 years.
Our joint salary is 3x the affordability criteria. DP is a director of his own small business, which I know is not always attractive to landlords, but his earnings are 50% of mine, so even if you didn't include his salary I could more than afford the place on my own.

Am I missing something? We needed to give notice this week but now are holding off as there doesn't seem much chance of finding something else quickly.

Are you employed? If you are, maybe do it on your salary alone?

I’m a ll and after a recent experience costing over 10k, I will always go for people employed rather than self employed.

Im self employed and not had double renting, but I do have a lot of savings in the bank. I am also single and no kids/pets.

It often depends on the area, as I have moved around a bit and do find demand alters quite dramatically in different places, even when it doesn't make sense or the places are horrible.

There does seem to be more demand at the moment in general, but why? I have no idea. I have been shooting around on Rightmove, across the midland and north west, and many properties are let agreed with days of going up! I cant see why the pandemic could make people move en masse, all of a sudden, but hey ho.

I would advise shifting your search area if possible..and also remember, this is a transaction, you too deserve value for your money and assurance that what you are investing in is reliable, not just the landlord.

Not everyone wants to buy so I believe that's not a factor as in my case I can buy if I want to but why should I when I can use my savings to expand my business or worse case scenario save it as we live in uncertain times right now which would equally mean my savings will ALSO help me keep a roof over my head and food on the table for at least a decade. I think it's more to do with the fact that more people are needing to rent and fewer properties going on the market. The nice properties get snatched, the older properties that was last decorated in the 50s are left unless you are so desperate. Some properties I've come across just makes me want to whack the landlords thinking they can charge the same for their uninhabitable properties as those that have decent specs that are in line with this decade.

I don't know which part of the country you are living and unless it's the capital where properties come and go, I was literally living on Zoopla and Rightmove a few months ago where you have to act fast, be available to view immediately. Have you looked on places like OpenRent where their is no estate agents involved. This is where I found my last two properties and had direct communication with the LL rather than the estate agent?

On the point about being flexible, we need a property of a certain minimum sqm size. But as to how that's configured we're flexible - we've looked at 2 bed and 3 bed places which are similar in sqm. We can have more downstairs space/ fewer bedrooms. Offstreet parking is a must. A garage is a strong preference as DP also has a motorbike (which he stores under cover currently at a family members as no garage at his place). Not bothered about garden size. Prefer a kitchen diner to a lounge diner but ultimately if the sqm is there, we'd still view/ apply.

We've viewed a couple we didn't apply for, one because after we viewed (and realised there was poor phone signal) we checked the broadband supply and found it was rubbish - we now check that in advance! - and another because there was a load of building work going on opposite (new estate being built, so months or more of building traffic which was quite noisy).

Aside from that our only criteria is cost, we've set an upper limit of £900 pcm, mainly because that's fine for a property the size we want. Anything above that tends to be 4-5 bed houses, sometimes in acres of grounds which is really far too big/ to much upkeep for us.

DP isn't self employed, he has a limited company of which he is director/ employee (he was in the same position when he started renting his current house 2ish years ago). The company pays him a modest fixed salary and has done for the last few years, this is clear from wage slips and tax returns, it doesn't fluctuate even though the income of the company itself does - or as the income of a self employed person would.

Oh, I also wanted to say, is it a high demand area?
One of my areas of choice a few years ago was a market town where I applied for a lovely little place overlooking a river. It received many applications and the first choice when to a local as they preferred to keep the market open to local residents first. I was from 40 miles out so didnt get a call back. A long shot, but this does happen.

Op hope it all works out for you. I hate the rental market and all the hoops and want to hit people who say why do people want to buy, we should be more like the Mediterranean where everyone rents!!

Don't offer to pay several months rent upfront. Raises concerns re money laundering and growing cannabis. Also legal issue for an ASHT agreement.

@Dixiechickonhols

WFH? So more wear and tear than a couple out 7.30 am - 6.30 pm 5 days.

Or higher security with almost round the clock occupancy.

Could just be you've been unlucky and there's been 1 person they preferred more.

Are these forms anonymous?

@Fpbww Directors of their own limited companies are usually regarded as self employed by landlords, mortgage firms, credit reference agencies etc. even though, in strict legal terms, they're employees of their own limited company. It's because they're ultimately in control of how/when they're paid, so payslips etc aren't really a good indicator of how much profit they're actually making.

It sounds like you have rejected imner of properties so I suspect the agents aren't recommending you over other applicants for this reason. You may have been marked down as rather fussy and therefore the agent believes you may be difficult to deal with as a tenant.

Hi, I work in a lettings agency and nothing you have said would cause any concern for us - I do think it is simply a numbers game.

For example, at the moment we can put a property on and be fully booked for viewings (usually up to 7 separate viewings spaced out on the same day) with a long waiting list as well. Out of those confirmed viewings we may well have 4 or 5 'ideal' applicants, therefore it is not necessarily anything wrong with your application, just that there is so many applications to choose from. Before Covid it was never quite so crazy, and it is slowing very slightly now but it is still very much a case of too many people looking and not enough stock.
We are never put off by someone offering to pay upfront (which may be different in other areas), however it's never really something that would put you 'ahead' of any other viewers.

We are shortly going to be using Canopy which offer renters a 'rental passport' - it's a free regulated service that will provide you with almost a pre-certified rental information for yourself - if the agent is signed up for it you can provide them with a link but even if they aren't you can send them a PDF - it uses Expira to confirm your credit history, confirms rental history and loads more and can be used throughout your rental life to build up a 'rental history'. May be worth signing up to it anyway for the future, don't know if it will help you right now but worth a shot - see a house you like/send the agent the pre-checks via link or PDF?
Good luck with the search. @Fbpww

I’ve just had exactly this issue. I finally found someone who accepted me but with a lot of questions and I had to pay 6 months in advance. But keep going. You’ll find somewhere.

We are also having this problem op. It's soul destroying, it really is. We have the deposit etc to hand and stil cannot get a place to rent. Our current letting agent have acknowledges

@chocolatecerealcampingbrekkie

We are also having this problem op. It's soul destroying, it really is. We have the deposit etc to hand and stil cannot get a place to rent. Our current letting agent have acknowledges

Sorry, acknowledged that it's a really tough rental market atm. I am hoping the tide turns soon. Too many greedy landlords out there.

Anyone know why demand might be higher at the moment? When I was searching a few years ago it didnt seem as frenzied.

My friend lives in a town with a few rough, depressed areas and the rentals are sky high prices - ugly dark carpets, boiler hanging off bedroom wall, dilapidated, miserable back yard, filthy cooker, etc. She herself doesn't rent, but when I did a search I was horrified at the prices for such shit holes (north west).

Maybe try offering a bit more than the rent that is being asked, if you can afford this. I would imagine this would put you ahead of some applicants at least.

You're not being turned down, they just aren't selecting you.

I know it's brutal, I'm still reeling from the amount of work we had to do to secure a new home (basic requirement of 2 double bedrooms or 3 bedrooms for less than £1000 pcm) this year - it's easily the most stressful we've ever found trying to secure a new home. You'd think we were being ridiculous with our criteria, but that was literally it and the experience was beyond horrible.

In the end I was treating every viewing like a job interview, best version of me turned up and tried to make a favourable personal impression on the agent just in case that tipped it in our favour. The property that we now live in, my husband didn't see until we moved in! I saw it was suitable, asked to apply immediately and we made it to the referencing stage.

Keep on top of your alerts, keep turning up for viewings and something will stick. We had a section 21 hanging over our heads so there was a real sense of "oh shit" every time we failed to secure an opportunity to formally apply. Best of luck!

I am in another country, but we had this problem a few years ago in a hot rental market and the "problem" was our income being much higher than the affordability threshold. A couple of agents told us that landlords felt that we would be looking to buy somewhere soon and would leave. In the end, we only found somewhere by offering on a bigger house than we needed. Madness!

Good luck with your search.

Oh and my DH viewed a lot of the properties and apparently a lot of agents were asking a lot of questions about why I wasn't there, was he "allowed" to take the decisions without me, etc.! Madness.

Is it perhaps because you work from home and these properties have covenants restricting them from business use?

@ProudMaiasaura You're not being turned down, they just aren't selecting you.

That's a healthier way to look at things. It's not that the OP is unsuitable, it's that the landlord and/or agent thinks that other applicants are more suitable!

I had to move out of the family home a couple of months back due to marriage breakdown and looking for a property was awful. There's four adults - me, two adult daughters and one of their boyfriends - plus a small dog and a cat, so we weren't the most ideal tenants. I only ever said 'at least a year' for the tenancy length. We were getting turned down regularly as the demand was far greater than the supply. Eventually I had to do whatever I could to make us look more attractive as tenants so I offered to pay an additional deposit for the pets and also offered to pay at least 6 months rent up front (although the LL never took an advance payment). We're now in a nice house but good grief it's a pain trying to get any maintenance issues sorted! Good luck OP.

We have a rental, literally couldn't give a shit if someone was wfh, there's going to be a gradual drift back to offices anyway, what if you had pre-school children, you'd be at home all day then??

It's none of the reasons stated by prev posters I think you've just been unlucky....only slight red flag might be the self emp, but can't see it with everything else. Ours went up last October and we had loads of applications but none of them were great, if you'd have been in with those you'd have certainly got it, there's just been lots of other good apps for the ones you're applying for.

Demenad is high as we are seeing that release of pent up demand, people who've had to find new jobs post covid which has meant moving, and people who've wanted to take advantage of high property prices but haven't necessarily been able to find the dream home so are renting after sling theirs.

Tips, just for your own peace of mind don't even mention the two year tenancy, it's not really anyone's business, you could plan on forever and have to move in 3 months- who knows, don't mention the WFH, and if you really like there ask if you can have the application form prior to viewing, get it filled in along with whatever else the LA is asking for, save it in your draft emails, make a decision quickly after the viewing and fire it off as soon as you have made it, Ideally within 30 mins of your viewing. Chances are the landlords are just choosing the first really good application they get, personally we don't but so many will especially where they have a few properties and it'd more of a business.

Any LL faced with multiple choice of financially-viable tenants, is going to pick the ones who appear to be easiest to deal with. He has a target ideal tenant for that property /location. If he's aiming at students, or families with children, he avoids older couples likely to complain about student parties, loud music , children running about, crying babies.

IF there is something in a property that doesn't match your needs (fully furnished, marks on ceiling, over-bath shower) just walk on by. Don't apply with simultaneous special requests/demands.