Renting in Edinburgh

[Seventytwoseventythree]

Hello,

We are moving to Edinburgh in the summer, we are planning to rent a flat initially. We are based in London at the moment and have a lot going on over the next few months so can't go up to see flats all the time. We have rented for many years so we have experience, and we only need to rent for a short period, so we've accepted that we may need to take a flat without seeing it.

However the agents are not having this at all! They say we have to view a flat before putting an offer in. To make it worse, it doesn't seem to be like in England where you make an appointment to see a flat (so we could view a load of flats over a weekend) but there is a certain period (during the day on a weekday) where you have to go in and view it.

Seriously thinking we will have to live in an airbnb for a while! Does anyone know of any agents that will let us view a flat based on photos alone? Or any other way that I can get around this issue?

Thank you!

Can you have someone else view it for you?
I had this a few years ago - I’m sure the agent quoted financial checks / legal such that they know they’re renting their an actual proper person who lives there.

I got my sister to view it as I was working overseas - never explicitly said she wasn’t me. Then signed the lease when I was next back in town.

We rented here while we were looking to buy and we made an appointment. We also tolerated about eight viewings while we were tenants. So there are appointments sometimes.

Whereabouts are you looking? I’ll go and look at a flat for you if it’s NW ish?

We moved a couple of years ago and paid someone to go and view and sort things out with the agent - not incredibly cheap at first glance, but saved travel costs and it was worth every penny in reducing the stress! Would this be a possibility? Ours was really helpful, took photos and had great knowledge of the area too, so knew what we should avoid and whether the rent was a sensible amount.

PS We are in Edinburgh and happily in our own home - hope it all goes well for you!

We found this when we were relocating there.

We ended up getting a good deal on a holiday rental because we took it for a long spell in the off season. We lived there for about four months, Nov-Feb.

But that won’t work if you want to move up over summer, as July and especially August are so peak season.