Rigthmove has unveiled plans for a system to help letting agents pre-qualify tenants through the portal.
EYE reported in November 2017 that Rightmove was planning an entry into this space, and Rob Symes, head of lettings innovation for the portal, revealed at The Property Ombudsman conference yesterday that it is building a free Rent Ready Passport.
Explaining how it would work, Symes said the consumers would visit Rightmove, and complete a form with their personal details which would be linked with tenant referencing companies and would then be sent to letting agents as an email lead.
Symes said the Rent Ready Passport would be free for everyone, although obviously agents will still be paying to use Rightmove.
In a subtle dig at other established rental passport providers such as Canopy and Movem – which have both already launched and reported decent business – Symes said there was no need for the marketplace to be too crowded.
He said: “The Rent Ready Passport will be free to the consumer and the agent.
“There are a number of passport-type plays already, and there is no point having five or six as that doesn’t help the consumer experience.
“We maybe need just one or two.”
Comments (6)
A basic credit check and ID check as well as confirmation if the claimed income will allow RGI to be taken out, could be great before viewings are booked.
There is no such thing as a ‘free’ credit check or reference. Someone is paying somehow. We are inundated with so called ‘free’ offers only to find that the offer is conditional on other products and services, usually expensive with long term contracts and very little if any benefit to our business. It is simply not possible to complete a full tenant reference for free of £5.00 for that matter. Challenge them and they will admit that such things are just headline grabbers. You pay what you get for, we charge 11% management fees in this market, the highest in town, we also deliver a world class service.
We have been approached by a few firms recently offering free credit searches. This is new to us as we have been paying for all of our searches. We do though, prefer in-house referencing via our back end system. It is quick to do, as all of the contact info is provided by applicant and our system just emails the reference requests. Quick, simple and effective.
I think most agents are going to need to go this way to protect their income streams and reduce costs as the Tenant Fee ban approaches quickly!
Here we go again, agents ‘give’ Rightmove market share only to enable them to take our shirts. This wont work, but if it did, references will cost £100.00+ per transaction down the line. Let’s hope we have had enough and from past experience choose to avoid like the plague! Rightmove direct to landlord, tenant, vendor and buyer coming soon…….
Cynically – and thereby sell the tenant ancillaries at the optimum time forever thereafter perhaps
removals, contents, life, income protect, utilities, broadband etc etc
the tentacles of the RM octopus reach into your lettings applicants courtesy of your subscription and listings
This article implies that referencing will be free through Rightmove – but from what I hear it’s just the 25p Equifax credit search that’s free, not the full reference.
And 25p is probably considerably more than Rightmove will pay equifax, seeing as last year they had a huge data breach and are desperate for new clients.