How Landlords Can Advertise Rental Property On Rightmove
- Saulius WorkTravel Development Manager
- Jan 22, 2016
- 12 min read
This guide is for landlords that want to market and advertise/list their rental property – house or flat – on Rightmove & Zoopla to find tenants quickly and cost-effectively.
If you wish to sell your property on Rightmove in a similar fashion, you should jump over to my guide on selling homes privately on Rightmove!
So, landlords…
Without a shadow of a doubt, if you’re in search of tenants for your rental property and you’re looking to bypass extortionate high-street letting agent fees, then you should definitely list your rental property on Rightmove, Zoopla and the other top UK property portals in order to maximise your chances of finding tenants quickly and cost-effectively.
Thousands and thousands of landlords are currently listing their rental properties on portals like Rightmove & Zoopla without using their local letting agent and consequently, they’re saving a fortune in tenant-find fees!
Literally save thousands of pounds on letting agent fees with an online agent that markets on Rightmove & Zoopla!
Do you know how most traditional high-street letting agents generate most of their enquiries? It’s by listing rental properties on the biggest UK property portals, such as Rightmove, Gumtree, Primelocation, and Zoopla etc. Most high-street lettings agents don’t have access to an exclusive and magical list of “prospective renters” or rely on expensive local marketing, they simply leverage the popularity of the portals.
But the thing is, you don’t NEED to use a high-street agent to get your rental property onto the said portals, which means you don’t have to endure their notoriously unbearable [hidden] fees. Instead, you can simply use an Online Letting Agent, like OpenRent (you may have heard of them, they’re currently the UK’s most popular online letting agent) – they will list your property onto the top portals like Rightmove for a fraction of the cost- with no hidden fees, just one easy one-off fixed cost.
An online agent will market your rental property onto the top portals like Rightmove and then generate enquiries. You can then meet your prospective tenants, reference them, and then decide which one gets to live in your property as your tenant.
I’ve personally used several of the online letting agents listed below, and they’ve always managed to find me tenants quickly and efficiently, saving me thousands on letting agent fees over the years.
Recommended Websites that will market your rental property on Rightmove & Zoopla to find tenants quickly!
The online agents listed below allow landlords to advertise their rental property on the most popular UK property portals like Rightmove & Zoopla!
There are a buttload of online agents cropping up all over the shop- left, right and centre. But these are the one’s I personally recommended, because they’re established, and they’ve received great reviews (and I’ve personally used them myself).
Search Filters
Require any of the following?
Tenant referencing
Tenant referencing To ensure you stand the best chances of getting reliable tenants, your agent will reference prospective tenants, which can include credit checks and employment history.
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Deposit registration
Deposit registration In order to comply with the tenancy deposit legislation, the agent will secure the deposit on your behalf and serve required documents to your tenant.
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Rent collection
Rent collection Agent will collect rent from tenant and then send it to you.
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Tenancy sign-up service
Tenancy sign-up service The agent will draft your tenancy agreement contract and get it signed by the tenant(s) on your behalf.
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EPC
EPC An Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is needed when a property sold in the UK. They are valid for 10 years, so if you already have a valid one you do not to order another.
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Gas safety check
Gas safety check Agent will arrange for a gas safety check to be conducted. Landlords are legally obligated to have annual gas safety checks.
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EICR
EICR Electrical Installation Condition Reports (EICR) are legally required for new tenancies in England. As from the 1st April 2021, all let properties will require an EICR.
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Photograghs
Photograghs The agent will arrange for a photographer to visit your property to take pictures, which can be used with your adverts. Good quality photos are important in making your property look attractive and can increase enquiries.
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Floorplan
Floorplan The agent will arrange for a professionally produced floorplan showing the layout and room sizes of your property. Many buyers find floorplans useful when viewing property details online.
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Inventory service
Inventory service The agent will arrange for an independent inventory clerk to create an inventory report.
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Hosted viewings
Hosted viewings A local agent will take viewings and show potential tenants around your property. Please note, some agents limit how many viewings they will take, so please read the T&C's carefully.
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Pay on Completion
Pay on Completion Pay on Completition means there's nothing to pay upfront until you find your perfect tenants (T&C's may apply, so please read carefully).
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Letting AgentRatingDurationIncludes / NotesPrice Mashroom Rating 4.6 Feefo Reviews Duration 30 days* Includes / Notes
True cost of letting package
30 days* marketing on Rightmove, Zoopla + more
Rent collection
Tenancy sign-up service
*30 days free, and then the option of continuing service for an additional 30 days for £29 (Inc VAT). Price*FREEInc VATNo hidden fees, no credit card details required!
Free Visit Website OpenRent Rating 4.9 Google Reviews Duration 5 days / 3 months* Includes / Notes
Ultimate Advertising package
5 days / 3 months* marketing on Rightmove, Zoopla + more
*5 days free, and then the option of continuing service for 3 months for £24 (Inc VAT) for new customers, and £29 (Inc VAT) for returning customers! Price*FREEInc VATNo hidden fees, no credit card details required!
Free Trial Visit Website OpenRent Top Pick Rating 4.9 Google Reviews Duration 3 months Includes / Notes
Advertising + Rent Now package
3 months marketing on Rightmove, Zoopla + more
Deposit registration
Tenancy sign-up service
First month's rent collection Price £49Inc VAT Visit Website Visum Rating 4.7 TrustPilot Reviews Duration 3 months Includes / Notes
Plus package
3 months marketing on Rightmove, Zoopla + more Price £74Inc VAT Normal price: £89
Discount available Visit Website£15 Discount Code: PIP1 I Am The Agent Rating 4.8 TrustPilot Reviews Duration 1 Month Includes / Notes
IATA Speedy package
1 Month marketing on Rightmove, Zoopla + more Price £80.1Inc VAT Normal price: £89
Discount available Visit Website10% Discount Code: propinv21 Letting a Property Rating 4.9 Review Centre Duration 2 months Includes / Notes
Find a Tenant package
2 months marketing on Rightmove, Zoopla + more Price £149Inc VAT Visit Website
Please note, I try my best to keep the information of each agent up-to-date, but you should read the T&C’s from the agents’ website for the most up-to-date information.
Other Popular Services
Just in case you require a couple of other competitive quotes for popular letting services…
Table of contents:
Can I advertise on Rightmove/Zoopla directly?
The short answer is… no.
These portals don’t deal with private landlords directly, they only deal with letting agents, so you can’t go direct to the portals looking to market your vacant property. Online agents are the gatekeepers.
Do I need to advertise on Rightmove?
Of course you don’t need to, silly.
But the reality is, if you don’t want to be a wally, you’ll appreciate the fact that if you statistically want the best chance of finding tenants quickly, you should be advertising on Rightmove (and/or Zoopla) because they attract millions and millions of prospective tenants looking for vacant properties. You’ll struggle to find any other place with such a large pool of prospective customers (tenants).
Rightmove ‘Featured listings’ & ‘Premium listings’ – What, How & Why?
So, you may or may notice that some of the online agents offer the option to upgrade your Rightmove advert to either “Featured” or “Premium” for additional fees. What’s that all about, right?
First, let’s go over what each option means…
Rightmove Featured Listings explained A Featured Listing means your property is highlighted at the top of each page in your property area and with more photos than a standard listing. Here is an example after doing a random search for properties for rent in “Manchester City Centre”:
Rightmove Featured Listing
2) Right Premium Listings explained A premium listing is similar to a featured listing in the sense that it’s highlighted (i.e. it stands it more compared to regular listings), but it is NOT at the top of the page, it’s positioned in the same order as any other regular listing (which is dependant on the ‘sort’ filter e.g. Newest Listed, Price). Here is an example:
Rightmove Premium Listing example
The million dollar question… is it worth forking out extra for either of them?
Yup, definitely.
Actually, wait, I think it depends.
I’m so fickle.
If your property is located in a bustling metropolitan area like central London, where you’ll always be competing with a large supply of options, an upgrade can turbo-charge your advert and give you the best chance of standing out and grabbing those extra views and enquiries. However, in a puny Essex town, where there are only a few handful of properties available to rent at any one time (i.e. 10 properties), it probably makes very little difference.
According to Rightmove, a Premium listing achieves on average 33% more views than standard Rightmove listings, while a Featured listing is proven to get up to 40% more views. However, I do want to mention that Upad recently conducted their own internal investigation to verify the accuracy of the “Featured listing” stats; they discovered that some properties far exceeded the ‘average’ 40% uplift, and actually managed to receive between 90% – 128% more views, which expectedly created a nice bump in enquiries. That’s a pretty sweet upgrade. Now… I’m not saying you’ll achieve the same mouth-watering results, I’m just highlighting what’s possible.
To clarify, I’ve personally never stumped up the cash for either of the upgrades, and I’ve still managed to always find tenants in good time. But that’s largely because my properties are located in one of those puny towns I mentioned, but also in highly sought after areas where demand generally outweighs supply. So before making your decision, do some research; check to see how many other properties you’ll be competing against. If you feel there’s enough competition to cause problems, an upgrade may provide the edge you need.
Either way, the cost of upgrading isn’t particularly crippling in the grand scheme of things… so you certainly wouldn’t be a fool to upgrade whatever your circumstances.
How much do the upgrades cost?
It varies depending on each agent.
I’m going to use Visum’s prices as an example (because their prices were easy to dig out from their website), they charge £99 (Inc VAT) for a ‘Premium Listing upgrade’, which will last for two months. For the ‘Featured Listing upgrade’ they charge £99 (Inc VAT) for 7 days!
Bear in mind, the listing upgrades are ‘add-ons’ for Visum’s advertising packages. So for example, if you buy their Standard £64 package (that’s the exclusive discount price, so you’ll need to use the Visum discount voucher provided in the table above), you will need to pay an additional £99 for a Featured Listing (Total: £163).
Strong word of warning before forking out for upgrades…
Many landlords have stumped up the cash for one of the upgrade packages and have been left bitterly unimpressed with the results. In almost all cases (from what I have seen and been told), it’s because they assumed the upgrade would maliciously have the ability to polish a turd!
No, no, no!
These upgrades are NOT a substitute for the golden rules of advertising your rental! So that means, in order to stand the best chance of generating enquiries, you will still need professional and high-quality photos of your property, a well presented property, a competitive/realistic asking price, and well detailed property description, which highlights all the key features.
So which property portals are the best (e.g. Rightmove, Zoopla, PrimeLocation etc)?
Ok, so Rightmove is the most popular property portal in the UK. They attract by far the most amount of prospective buyers and tenants.
Zoopla are in second place, but they shouldn’t be discredited for trailing behind, because they still manage to pull in a handsome amount of prospective customers. Certainly enough to create a decent level of enquiries.
Gumtree also deserve a mention, because it’s an insanely popular website. I’ve used Gumtree to find tenants a few times and I’ve always been amazed at the amount of enquiries I receive from there. However, in comparison to Rightmove and Zoopla, the quality in leads aren’t as strong (from my personal experience, and many other landlords).
But let me give you a conclusion, or at least how I see the situation:
Above all, regardless of which online agent you use: make sure they will list your property on Rightmove. That is the bare minimum. Don’t attempt this journey without them.
Your chances will be most effective if you use an online agent that will market your property on both Rightmove & Zoopla (be careful, some online agents don’t market on both, the one’s I have listed do though). I always use as agent that markets on both.
It’s also desirable to have your vacant property marketed on Gumtree- many online agents will include Gumtree as part of their tenant-find marketing service.
However, Gumtree isn’t a ‘property portal’ like the others, it’s a classified website, so you don’t need an online agent to advertise on there, you can do it yourself independently. But if it is part of an online agent’s package, all the better, but I wouldn’t necessarily go out of my way to be on there if it’s not included.
You’ll see loads of online agents mention that they will market your property across hundreds and hundreds of different portals, other than Rightmove and Zoopla. Honestly, those other portals are as effective as a chocolate teapot- they’re just mentioned to grab attention. Don’t get suckered into the quantity of portals, focus on the quality of Rightmove & Zoopla. They’re the big dogs.
Rightmove requires proof of ownership
This probably won’t be an issue for 99.999% of you reading this, but I feel like I should say it anyways… just in case!
Before you go running off to throw your rental onto Rightmove, you may want to know that as per Rightmove Plc terms, listing on Rightmove requires proof of property ownership. All the online agents will require you to provide an acceptable document to prove ownership (e.g. Land Registry title, insurance certificate, signed letter from solicitor, mortgage letter) before your property will appear on Rightmove. This procedure is put in place to prevent fraud.
In any case, like I said, won’t be a problem for most of you.
I usually just provide a copy of an insurance certificate.
How long will it take to find tenant’s if I list my property on Rightmove (and Zoopla)?
Depends. On several factors.
But ultimately, I think you’re asking me if using an online agent to get listed on Rightmove is more or less efficient than using a regular high-street agent.
My answer to that is: based on my experience [of using online agents for several years now], you’re not likely to find tenants any quicker or slower. As said, most high-street and online agents generate their enquiries from the online portals, particularly Rightmove, so the leads are often sourced from the same places.
I’ve found tenant’s in 2 days by listing on Rightmove and Zoopla. I think the longest it’s taken me is 10 or so days. But obviously I’m not suggesting you’ll get the same results, because it’s completely circumstancial – other factors are in play, like location and the current state of the rental market.
Not convinced you can do it like an agent by simply listing your property on Rightmove?
I get it.
It’s the fear most landlords have when they’ve just discovered online agents, because it genuinely can be a “if it sounds too good to be true…” moment.
Many landlords automatically assume that agents can’t just generate the majority of their enquiries from Rightmove and/or Zoopla, because that sounds too easy. There must be a catch. But that’s the thing, it is that easy. Like I said, there’s no magic formula to generating tenant leads anymore, the internet has changed all that.
I received an email recently from someone that converted and became a believer, and I don’t think I could explain it any better…
Hi all, Thought I’d share my recent experiences with you. I’m a long time lurker on this site, though I occasionally post in the blog comments. Great site by the way, it’s really helped! So, we’ve had a bit of a nightmare getting our first tenants in, we’ve had a few people agree, sign an application form, then pull out at the last minute, or withhold information meaning we had to cancel (like, they’re claiming HB). We’ve even been threatened with legal action after refusing to return someone’s holding deposit after they pulled out, despite both us and them having a receipt signed by both parties which clearly states that the deposit isn’t refundable if they pull out! Anyway, so it’s getting a bit tricky now and we really had to get someone in, so we decided to pull out all the stops…and hire an agent as well. We went with quite a reputable one, and they were charging one month’s rent + VAT for finding us a tenant. One bonus was that there’d be no re-let fee, so it was just a one off payment. It’s still pretty expensive for simply placing an ad and finding us a tenant. So we went for it, and gave them a set of keys and some pictures of the property (I don’t trust agents to take their own pictures any more!!). Meanwhile, we set about trying our own luck. We decided not to simply stick with the free sites (Gumtree, houseladder, etc), and we went through Visum (as one of the online agent’s recommended on this site) and they put an ad on Rightmove for us for around £30. It appeared both us and the agents were getting a bit of interest so I thought it might be a dead heat, but I wasn’t convinced that the agent really did have all the interest he said he did. He knew we were trying to do it ourselves at the same time, so I couldn’t help but wonder whether he was telling us he had loads of interest to try and get us to slow down. Anyway, so we had quite a bit of interest ourselves and hosted several viewings and eventually took a healthy holding deposit after confirming interest with a tenant. Just as we did, the agency rang up to say that he had someone who might be interested (if we lower the rent). Obviously we said no. Anyway, I’m sorry I’m not a more interesting writer, but I did want to share with you all my experiences of trying to get a tenant in before the agent could, thus avoiding having to pay any agency fees. It’s a nice story, and I got a lot of help from this site, so thanks!
Want to SELL your house on Rightmove?
If you want to list a property for sale on Rightmove and bypass using a high-street estate agent, then here are a list of companies that will Advertise your house for sale on Rightmove.
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