Open Homes
An open home lets you set the date and time for prospective tenants to drop by and walk through the property. It is publically advertised and allows to show the property to a wide range of applicants. Showing your rental to a large group at once is much more efficient than taking applicants through the property individually.
It is worth mentioning that engagement with a large crowd can be challenging for a landlord. The volume of people can be overwhelming. It may be hard to grasp who is more serious or more suited. Some renters may find it more awkward to approach landlords, ask questions, and examine property in more detail. While it's not very common, you may need to be more diligent with security. If your property is currently rented, you need to be careful with tenants' possessions, ensuring any valuable items are removed or hidden.
Private Viewings
With private viewings, you schedule a specific time to show the property to an interested group, who can explore it at their own pace. Private viewings make it easier to judge if someone is serious or gather feedback negative or positive about the property. They also allow time flexibility and can help work around applicants' schedules.
Unfortunately, private viewings are time-consuming. Viewing times may need to be rescheduled due to bad weather, COVID or change of work commitments. If you have many people enquiring, it can take a long time to go through the list and show the property individually. If the property is tenanted, current occupants may not be able to accommodate every single viewing request.
The Privacy Commissioner has released new guidelines for landlords in collecting information from prospective tenants. So the option previously available to landlords to pre-screen tenants ahead of viewings to determine who is suited and serious is no longer available.
Why not have both?
Don't feel limited to only choosing one or the other. A combination approach may be the best process for you. For example, you can set open home times for the weekends and have private viewings during the week for those applicants only available after hours. Also, while private viewings are typically based on a single group of people registering for an inspection, you can choose to show the property to multiple groups at the same time.
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