AIBU to think letting agents prioritise their existing tenants

[Lettingagentsaretwats]

And per my username, are twats? Or other expletive of choice?

DP and I have just been turned down for our 15th property in a row. No explanation from the agents, because 'its DPA' .

There's nothing wrong with our applications. We're both professionals with good credit history. We earn more than double the affordability criteria. No pets, children etc. We've been applying solidly since August and nothing.

The only property we were offered was one with DPs current letting agents. Same information for every other application and we've been turned down every time (this is with another 8 or 9 different agents, the ones DP is with have only had 1 house on their books since we started looking).

I understand theres competition, blah blah, but if they're favouring their own tenants then we are basically wasting hours of our time every time aren't we? It takes hours of my life - checking Rightmove, contacting agents about viewings, then having to do a kind of initial vetting JUST to be allowed to view. Then DP has to attend viewings all over the county with little notice because they won't let you apply without an in person viewing. Then theres the applications (one for me and one for DP, so 2 lots every time) which take a good 45 mins to print, complete by hand, scan and email every single time. None of them use online forms.

DP has said we may as well throw in the towel and give up applying unless something comes up with his current agents but as theyve only had 1 house in 4 months it's unlikely. We are both at the end of our tether with it.

The latest place, we would have offered £50 more a month but didn't even get the chance it's just a flat no.

I'd be buying a house if I had the income to be paying 12 months upfront rent!

[quote Lettingagentsaretwats]@SenseSphere yes we don't understand why we were rejected as we were the only viewer.

I suspect we've been misled and we were not the only viewer. I am going to ask the agents about it. At this stage I have nothing to lose. This is the 3rd property we've been turned down for by the same company. I strongly suspect its the agent doing the choosing rather than the landlord.[/quote]
If you were the only viewer then have you double and triple checked your form with that agent?

I had a man throw a hissy fit once when he was rejected, but he'd mistyped his salary on the form.

It very much often is the Agent picking the tenant - that's not sneaky or anything. Many LL's use a fully managed service so don't get involved at all.

Many landlords are/have sold their properties
Why?
Because the rules & costs are getting harder & higher
more complex laws are in the pipeline making eviction harder (& if you have ever had a non paying tenant who is wrecking the property) & the covid effect which while helping the tenants angled the landlords into getting costs if they had loans or other expenses.
The landlord now pays for upfront fees
the electric checks (no I don't object I just think the testers shouldn't be the fixers - its an opening for the unscrupulous tradesman to take advantage & they do, massively)
& the whole unthought out upgrading of energy standard. Aka the unaffordable cost/ & the inability to improve some properties (flats/ old houses insultation) & making allowances against capital (only usable at sale) versus revenue (so it can be taken against annual taxable sums) & while previously there was a maximum sum of £3500 most upgrades are in excess of £10,000
therefore many landlords have had enough.
Interestingly council houses do not have to conform to some of these rules.
Some pp have mentioned why agents/landlords may prefer known tenants & if agents knows that some of their present tenants who may well have previously viewed the available property want to move to bigger or more expensive one OR if the landlord chooses a tenant they know - I am sorry its frustrating but that is the way it is

We plan to buy in about 3 years, for various reasons we need to rent until then. At present we couldn't afford to buy a house equivalent to one we could rent, if that makes sense.

Houses were looking at are £700-850 a month to rent, but at least £250k to buy. Ultimately we want to buy somewhere bigger which will be more like £350-400k but that a few years off. Right now if we had to buy we could only get somewhere for about £150k which would be too small -and tbh would be on a par with DPs current place he wants to move from, precisely because its too small!

As will be obvious from the prices quoted, we don't live in or near London!

The rental market is brutal. We're long term renters because oddly enough paying someone else's mortgage makes it hard to save a deposit and this year was the hardest and most stressful move we've ever had.

We were incredibly fortunate to secure our new place (hard experience told us to apply immediately, the other viewers were naive and said they'd think about it) after old landlord issued section 21 to sell and I'm now living on eggshells trying to be immaculate tenants/neighbours and overthinking every tiny thing because I can't face going through all that again.

For what it's worth though, we jumped agents to secure this place, so they're not all blind to outside tenants.

@JustLyra the rejection email came through after close of business today so not had a chance to speak to them yet but I will do on Monday.

I don't think there are any typos or inaccuracies, I handwrote both forms for DP and I, as they can't be typed but I will check.

My issue with the agent doing the picking is more that they're liars about it. Oh we have to run this past the LL, oh its the LL choice we have nothing to do with it, oh the LL needs to read the forms etc. They all make out thats how it is but I heard somewhere that for 'DPA' reasons they can't share the forms so that part isn't true and possibly none of it is.

I phone as soon as properties go on Rightmove. I check on there hourly. I give my details for initial screening/decision as to whether we're worthy to view. We, or usually DP, attends viewings at any time offered, be it 10am on a Tuesday, 3.45pm on a Friday or any other time. We've returned early from holiday and cancelled work meetings. We apply as soon after the viewing as we can - usually about an hour or two by the time they've sent the form over (because you can't have the form before the viewing) and I've then spent the obligatory 45 mins printing handwriting and scanning the thing back to them.

I can't see anything else we can do. We can't be any quicker.

Is it possible some people are applying/offering without viewing, therefore getting ahead of you?

I can safely say that you are wrong.

I have been in the same place 10 + years and with the same LA 16 years.

Its all about the market, there is a glut of renters and very few places to rent.

Even though I am on the books, I miss out on so many places that its unreal.

I dont feel that my landlord or managing agent favors those already here. I always get the feeling they are waiting for people to leave so they can increase the already ridiculously high rent.

This is the end result of not building affordable and local authority properties. All you can do is keep applying.

The places you are looking at, what % would the rent be of your post tax income?

Are you stretching yourselves? You might have perfect credit history but some letting agents will not want you if (for example) the rent will be over 1/3 of your net pay.

@Corrag we've asked agents if we can apply without a viewing and every one has said absolutely not - one place the only viewing was on a weekday afternoon (tenants still in situ and they would only allow a single 2 hour slot) which neither of us could make. We basically begged the agents and they were firm in saying it wasn't possible to apply without viewing. So I can't see how people could apply without viewing unless the agents are again lying to us.

@user1471538283 its all very well to say keep applying but how are we suddenly going to be accepted if we haven't been so far? Whats going to change? And its not like this requires no effort or investment of time, it requires a lot of both. DP is utterly sick of it, dropping work to rush to viewing after viewing, and to no avail.

[quote Lettingagentsaretwats]@JustLyra the rejection email came through after close of business today so not had a chance to speak to them yet but I will do on Monday.

I don't think there are any typos or inaccuracies, I handwrote both forms for DP and I, as they can't be typed but I will check.

My issue with the agent doing the picking is more that they're liars about it. Oh we have to run this past the LL, oh its the LL choice we have nothing to do with it, oh the LL needs to read the forms etc. They all make out thats how it is but I heard somewhere that for 'DPA' reasons they can't share the forms so that part isn't true and possibly none of it is.[/quote]
They can share the forms with the LL.

Double check your forms for errors.

If your DP is doing all the viewings is he rubbing the agents up the wrong way somehow?

I suppose from the letting agent's point of view, if they let you apply without viewing it you may be more likely to pull out /change your mind /not stay long. I only asked because we bought a house without viewing it recently, the market was so crazy.

@DeepaBeesKit the affordability criteria for places we're looking at is typically £30k, our joint income is just under £80k (both are gross rather than net). So I can't see how there would be an issue there.

@JustLyra I've checked my copies of the forms and can't see any issues but I will ask the agents when I call on Monday. DP is fairly affable, plus on some of the viewings he's been on Facetime with me and I've not heard anything adverse - some of the agents are quite chatty and direct you from room to room (normally in the houses where tenants are still living there), others basically just let you through the front door and leave you to view on your own. So in many cases fairly limited interaction.

I’ve just had a similar experience. I finally got accepted but am paying what feels like an extortionate rent and had to pay 6 months upfront. I thought I would never be accepted but finally was. Good luck to you op.

You have a substantial amount of savings, and high salaries. Just buy somewhere, even if it's not perfect. Your first house rarely is perfect and then you're on the ladder. You're clearly having no luck with renting and not going to for months.

As I said, we're not on a position currently to buy anything bigger than the place DP currently lives in, which is nice enough but too small for both of us, as we both work from home and need separate WFH spaces. If we could buy somewhere big enough now we would, and have to swallow the additional purchase/ sale costs when we buy our next home. But the places we can afford just now are too small, unless we bought a wreck of a place but neither of us have the time for a massive building project and we don't know any reliable tradesmen. So it would have to be in pretty much move in condition. And that's out of our price range.

Even a two bedroom place? One works in the living room, or kitchen, the other the spare room? Or both in the bedrooms. It's not ideal, but when you have a limited budget, you need to get inventive and careful about your space.

Your choice of course, but finding a rental isn't working out for you.

Unfortunately a lot of 2 beds here are just too small or open plan downstairs or both, so theres not enough room for our PC setups (provided by our employers). DP deals with a lot of sensitive info so is required by his employers to work in a room that isn't used by anyone else - so he couldn't work anywhere other than a 2nd bedroom. I could work in a downstairs rooms but I need a large space (I have several monitors and a 6ft desk - supplied by employers) which is difficult to fit into smaller spaces. I also have calls most of the day, so ideally wouldn't want to be working from the kitchen for example.

That kind of compromise we could make for a rental, just to get a place that would kind of do, and then look again in 6-12 months, but buying a house that really wasn't right just seems crazy, we'd be committing a huge chunk of money to something we couldn't just walk away from (other than at significant financial cost).

Maybe the landlords expect you to move out soon, to buy. You might have specific reasons why you wouldn't, but they don't know that,(and in this market, don't have to think about it much).

Many letting agents are not twats, they are bound by a ever increasing red tape plus a shortage of houses is a toxic mix. Are you trying the other portals.

Many independents can't afford the huge Rightmove fees, so also try On the Market, Zoopla and the free one to agents Boomin.

I don't know where you live but I would be suprised if "all" landlords are using agents.
I would advertise on Gumtree, Facebook (but put off recently by Facebook applicants) and Spare Room.

You have my greatest sympathy, I was served notice by my landlord, must've enquired about 40 properties, only got to view 5 and never heard from them again.

I was very lucky, my sister's friend had a house he was about to put on the market and I got it for a lot let than market value as he was happy to have someone he knew in, on a longterm let. Can you put some feelers out amongst friends/family?

I've read all your posts, I can sense how fed up & frustrated you are.

However, I think you need to stop & rethink.

Something is going to have to give here, either you take a break over Christmas & start looking at rentals again in the NY, with a renewed vigour.

Or you accept the fact that you can buy now, and be prepared to be a bit more flexible. There are options - if you can't afford to move into an ideal place. Like many I feel you need to accept compromise

It seems silly to keep renting for 2-3 years when you could be putting your money into your own mortgage.

Go &!talk to a mortgage lender, with your deposit & your incomes, you'll definitely be able to afford more than you've said.