Is PropertyLoop the Best OpenRent Alternative?

So you have been using the same images and description to promote your rental property over the years to varying degrees of success. It’s time to take a new approach, yet this stale nature of finding new tenants is more widespread. A trip to the traditional high street agents gains you a commission hungry salesman and a lacklustre response to your property. Recent years have seen swathes of buy to let property owners turn to online letting agents such as OpenRent. But, is OpenRent Any Good? Well whilst they have received fanfare over the years for their cheap service, they have done little to bring landlords and tenants closer together, merely being online before their traditional counterparts. PropertyLoop looks to revolutionise the way we rent, and doesn’t demand exorbitant costs whilst doing so.

Is OpenRent Free?

Unlike hosting your rental with PropertyLoop, on OpenRent if you want beneficial exposure for your buy to let you will have to pay a premium. Whilst OpenRent does offer a free listing option it exclusively shows your property on the OpenRent platform, severely restricting its viewing potential and excluding it from the two largest online property portals, Rightmove & Zoopla; although access to advertising across these platforms is available for around £30 for 3 months.

OpenRent’s most expensive and “most popular” package is the “Rent Now” service. This encompasses the signing process for the tenancy agreement and holding deposit processing, yet only collects the initial rental payment off tenants for the first month, with many of the essentials such as right to rent checks and tenant referencing coming at an additional cost. Additionally, when using the “Rent Now” scheme, landlords will also have to wait 10 working days before it is deposited into their account as OpenRent will hold onto this to safeguard tenants.

OpenRent will also not permit any landlord that charges their tenants fees to use the platform’s advertising service.  However, the lack of any deposit does little to instil faith in landlords over potential problem tenants. Additionally some landlords use this small admin fee to bring the tenants costs in line with their own, and act as an incentive against breaking a tenancy early or recalling their interest in the rental property after the appropriate checks have been performed.

Is PropertyLoop Free?

Yes! PropertyLoop is the World’s First commission Free letting platform, allowing landlords to go through the entire process of renting out their property without having to spend a single penny.  Rental property owners no longer have to dive deep into their pockets to pay letting agents tremendously high fees for the essentials, with everything from advertising your opportunity on the major platforms such as Rightmove and Zoopla, referencing aspiring renters, registering the deposit, creating a tenancy agreement and collecting rent all coming at no cost to the landlord. The PropertyLoop platform connects renters and landlords like never before, allowing direct communication without unnecessary interference from a letting agent; we understand that no one knows your property like you do and give you the complete freedom and control to manage your investment, without the industry wide hidden fees and upfront costs. 

Property Viewings With OpenRent

Whilst OpenRent did offer guidance on the upcoming dependence on virtual viewings, this is simply recommended and not offered as a dedicated part of their service. Whilst we may have solid footings on the property ladder, not all of us are gifted with a lens but the heavy lifting will fall upon the landlords here. Time spent battling lighting, space and camera settings could be better spent, managing existing properties or pursuing tenants elsewhere.

A one off accompanied viewing with OpenRent may have potential tenants guided around the property, but for a fee of £36 this gets you a measly half an hour with a single prospective renter. Aside from being an expensive basket to put your eggs into, the 3 month viewings pack does give landlords up to 15 viewings over a 3 month period, although still only clocking in at 30 minutes per appointment.

Whilst this does somewhat relieve the pressure of finding tenants, the viewing packages discussed above, alongside the bookable “one off open house”, pale in comparison to the 3D photorealistic tours offered by PropertyLoop.  Yes, both work towards finding you new tenants, but only PropertyLoop provide a fully hands off approach, yielding professional results that tenants can come back to again and again at any time, instead of forcing them to recall a living room they saw a week ago in the same afternoon as seeing 2 other properties.  

Property Viewings With PropertyLoop

In keeping with the waves of professionals that have been digitised over the last few years, viewing properties has succumbed to the online convenience revolution, with PropertyLoop’s photorealistic 3D tours at the very forefront. Allowing prospective tenants to instantaneously gain an uncompromising valuation of each rental, our digital tours capture the personality and character of eat let, immersing tenants in a fully realised viewing experience, without the hassle of multiple outings to the rental. We offer this fantastic service and have found that 95% of people are more likely to respond to and engage with listings that have a 3D tour. Of course we recognise the significance of capturing each rental in their best light, revealing the properties personality exactly as intended, to meet this end each tour is completed by experienced professionals.

Allowing floor plan, dollhouse and explore perspectives, our 3D photorealistic tours allow for a like for like recreation of the property, with our AI- powered image processing mapping billions of special reference points, providing the most realistic virtual viewing experience available.

Our cinematic 4K HD videography shows each property in magnificent detail, showing tenants that your rental is the clear choice. Ensuring that our video walk through of your property captures the imagination and hearts of potential renters, our high quality videos are curated by experienced directors, giving you a sharable video that brings your property to the tenants.

What Checks Do Open Rent Do?

OpenRent offers a referencing service that assesses the financial credibility of potential tenants and their guarantors. A credit check is performed, giving the landlord a numerical value depicting “the likelihood of the applicant paying on time”. Their referencing includes and income and employment report along with an “affordability rating” that assesses if the potential tenant could afford the rent at a given property. However, these tests can be deemed inaccurate and at most subjective but, the remaining checks also fall short.

OpenRent do conduct a landlord check, however this only their most recent tenancy and will hardly paint a full picture of a tenants complete renting experience.  Also, the platforms right to rent “check” simply offers advice to the landlord on the process, still requiring the property owner to see through the right to rent process themselves.

Additionally with the “speedy referencing” OpenRent are unable to provide a reference from a previous landlord at all, with the affordability check and affordability rating also falling by the wayside, yet this service is the same cost; and if you get the every landlord’s dream of being stuck for choice on tenants, it will quickly become a very expensive vetting process.

Referencing Tenants with PropertyLoop

Tenant referencing checks at PropertyLoop are comprehensive and meticulous in their approach, with the entire renting history of a tenant being readily available to the landlord. Our technology is also able to verify the identity of a potential tenant, with our rigorous process comprising the scrutiny of official documents, government identification, contact information and photo ID, giving you the peace of mind that there will be no surprises further down the road. Of course we will also inspect any new tenants credit scores, income and background to help establish your ideal tenancy.

As you are not charged by PropertyLoop until the first rental payment is collected, this gives landlords complete freedom with their tenant vetting process; allowing you to find the ideal tenants for your property without racking up a significant fee in doing so.

Is Open Rent Safe?

Is OpenRent safe for tenants? Well, whilst OpenRent claim to have “several lines of defence” against rouge landlords, the sinister practice can still be prevalent on the platform. With properties having been reportedly listed on the platform with no checks as to who the landlord is or if they do indeed own the property. Reports from tenants paying extravagant fees to illegitimate landlords can be found across OpenRent’s own community section and do little to instil a sense of security on the platform.  

Is PropertyLoop Safe?

At PropertyLoop ensuring the security and wellbeing of the renters using our platform is paramount. Before any tenancy can take place the landlord themselves is verified. With the authentication process affirming the identity and contact information of each landlord, whilst ensuring they own the property they intend to let through the land registry.

Landlord and Tenant Support with OpenRent

The backbone of PropertyLoop’s service is transparency and simplicity, looking to establish a new dynamic between landlords and tenants that does away with the headaches caused by traditional agents. Open rent support is faceless, with the platform staying clear of personal contact in favour of emails and AI chat boxes’. This not only fails to establish a clear communication between landlords and tenants but drives troubled tenants and landlords away from the support they need. The ‘solutions’ often come in the form of automated responses that don’t appreciate or account for your individual circumstance or nuances to a frustrating situation.

Landlord and Tenant Support with PropertyLoop

PropertyLoop however, provides landlords looking to fill their buy to let with new tenants with weekly performance updates. This review of your property will with one of our property experts, with the personal support revealing how potential renters reacted to and engaged with your property; providing you with a clearer picture of how to effectively market the property for the desired outcome. Our dedicated staff are on hand to advise and answer your enquiries via our online chat portal, creating a support network for both parties of each rental agreement. As we look to evolve the renting industry our integrated platform will make this contact instantly available at the touch of a button.

Why continue paying thousands each year in commission to let your property? With 97% of landlords recommending our services, and with over 50,000 tenants joining our rental community in the last year alone PropertyLoop is welcoming a new era of renting.

The PropertyLoop platform establishes the trust, transparency and personal service that has been lost from the renting sector. We are anything but another faceless corporation looking to profit from your investment, but a community founded on expertise and ambition.

We offer landlords complete clarity on available specialists through a landlord controlled rating and review system, giving users complete confidence of your PropertyPro’s proven results in finding owner’s ideal tenants faster.

With PropertyLoop landlords will have everything they need to let out their rental from start to finish, with no hidden fees, financial barriers or catches; only a revolutionary new way to let.