If you were looking to rent a flat, where would you look for ads?

[CoffeeChocolateWine]

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but I'm after some advice. My husband and I own a flat in London which we have rented out for the past 6 years. Our most recent tenants have just moved out after 2.5 years so we are looking for some new tenants and we want to do in privately, like we always have, rather than use an agent.

Last time we advertised, we used Gumtree and got lots of interest and did lots of viewings, had multiple offers and let it out pretty quickly. This time, we've put our ad on Gumtree again - and it's in quite a prominent position so not slipping down the listings - and hardly had any interest at all. It's very early days...only been up for 3 days, but during that time I've had 2 enquiries, compared with about 6-8 phone calls a day last time.

So I just wanted to ask, if you were looking to rent out a flat without using an agent, where would you look for adverts? Should we be advertising somewhere else other than Gumtree, or could it be that the time of year is quieter than the summer (when we let it last time). We had thought that maybe the New Year would be a good time to let (New Year, new start and all that!) but perhaps not.

Any insight or advice would be appreciated as we need to let it pretty quickly.

TIA!

Personally when I was looking we used Rightmove and ended up renting through an agent, but would have preferred to find something on OpenRent to avoid the fees! Good luck.

I find all of my flats via OpenRent. I refuse to pay agent fees, and OpenRent transfers my deposit, and makes the whole process really easy.

You can't get tenant insurance for anyone earning under £30k.
Worth saying in the advert that you will be doing credit checks (join the NLA and get landlord insurance cheaply and also credit checks) and asking for references, so that other people don't bother asking.

There's at least three separate rental markets in London - people who easily pass all credit checks and can get a nice property for what they pay. Then the ones who are respectable but don't earn so much, so can't access the nicer places but hope to be able to find somewhere that is reasonably maintained for their money (paying more than the former for a less good property). Finally people with no references or credit history who end up paying through the nose to anyone willing to rent to them.

I deal with the middle lot, given my offerings are warm and functional but for various reasons don't look that smart. I've previously been a tenant in all three categories in London...