Letting agents and viewings

frankythefish

do letting agents typically do group viewings these days? or how does the system work? lets say a property is advertised on daft, receives lots of interest, how do they typically progress from there.

jellybear

My experience over the past 9 months of looking would be about 80% of our viewings have been group viewings. I personally don't mind this as it gives you a bit more breathing room when looking around and you can generally spend a very decent amount of time viewing as there are others coming and going the whole time as opposed to a single viewing where you may feel pressure time wise but as I said that's just my experience.

ETA just noticed you asked about letting where as we're buying but info above might be of some use to you

awec

Group viewings is the norm now I reckon, assuming you are talking about Dublin. You could be viewing with 4 or 5 other groups of potential tenants. On one hand it's good as you don't have the awkward silences, but on the other hand there are people in your way and everyone else there with you is competition for you.

Realistically the letting agent is going to be picking what tenant they want, if the place is any way decent then it's probably going to be about you selling yourself to them rather than them trying to encourage you to rent the place. So you're going to have to make a decision fairly fast, if not while you're there. The problem is if you adopt a "we'll go view another place tomorrow and then think about it" attitude you're probably going to lose out.

Whether or not you bring your references with you on the day is up to you - I did. It means they have less chasing down to do.

Use common sense, don't turn up in a tracksuit etc.

They'll have the viewings and then phone "the winner".

Honestly the whole process is a pain in the ass and more stressful than it should be.

Bidd

Rented recently and all the viewings were group.

garhjw

I only show any apartments I have to let by individual appointment

_oveless_

Before I got ths place I must have been to nearly 50 viewings, most are big group ones where you can have a huge queue of up to 40 people and you all basically file in and out,on your way out theres a sheet you sign up for with your name, contact details, what you do, how long you've been renting etc. which is a terrible way to get feel for a prospective property. After that there's the small group viewings with 2-4 people which is much better because you can get a proper look around and chat to the agent, and rarest is the individual viewing, where it's just you and the agent (only had one of them).