Thread by @jelenajansson

I haven’t been really work focused as we are flat hunting, so all I can share is the amazing weirdnesses of London rental market. Like this PHOTOSHOPPED IN sky 😂😂😂
Lord only knows what’s really the view. Because, ya kno, they made it seem like the flat is close to heaven 😂😂

On the topic of great views, here is a real one from a flat in Peckham today. Yes, you see it correctly, it’s a flat fully out of wood w some lovely floors. Is it a yes or a no?

Ok, the London rental fun continues. 😅 How about LIVING IN AN ACTUAL F-ING DUNGEON CITY CAVE no windows and all for 3k? At least the floor is polished & there are no carpets. How is this real life even?

In London rental news, that nice (but overpriced) place in Peckham won’t happen as owner believes they can get the full rate despite the property sitting on the market for over a month. We tried to negotiate an 8% discount & pay upfront. Dude wanted us to buy our own washer.

Oh! After we pulled our offer estate agent tries to low key email guilt us for not wanting to pay 49£ extra a month to make the deal, saying it’s insignificant money. Bro, it wasn’t insignificant to the owner otherwise he would have taken our offer. 600£ is not insignificant 🖕.

See how he is trying to undermine us but then also be relateable & friendly. That is a shit-sandwich, made to make you feel like shit but you are not sure why because it’s squeezed between niceness. He is low-key calling us cheap & unreasonable.
Fucking London rental market. 😂

We wrote back:
“With all due respect “Chad”, if 49£ is an insignificant amount then the owner would have accepted our fair offer.”

Fuckin’ delusional estate agents. Don’t let anyone make you feel less, especially not a douche who came to a showing without keys & 30 min late.

What would have been professional is if *Chad the estate agent* wrote:

“hey Vic & Jel, sorry this deal didn’t work out, let’s keep an eye open if anything else works for you. I have this property (insert property) if it might be interesting?”

Maybe I would have given 49£ then.

It gets better. Shitty estate agent now writes a long email stating how we can’t negotiate a flat based on our preferences around safety since we live in Brixton. And that our 8% negotiation down on 3033£ pound flat is unfair to the owner. Let me take out a small violin.

Note to all renters: you can negotiate on anything & everything you want to. This dude pulled up with stats & shit trying to belittle us that we don’t have a voice because we currently live in Brixton. Fuck off.

My assumption is that he is angry the deal didn’t go through. Property didn’t sell, then it didn’t rent for over a month. They are unwilling to adjust the price for 8%. Estate agent decides to make us feel bad for wanting a better deal on an unusual property. We won’t respond.

Sad thing is, we really liked the property & would have taken good care of it. I was worried about the area due to previous assault history & this insensitive douche didn’t even consider to think why maybe this variable mattered to us. I liked the property enough to go for it.

I just can’t get over how unprofessional this estate agent was.
- showed up late with no keys to property
- we had to hunt him down to get info
- shamed us for our offer
- shamed us for our preferences on amentities, worries & whatnot
- belittled our knowledge

That damn estate agent upset me so much I had to crack open a can of beans to calm myself down. #rentinginlondon

London flat hunt continues! Oddities continue every day (as well as crazy prices). How about an exercise bike right in front of your fridge 😂😂😂 I am not making this shit up... *screaming inside*

Hahaha! 😂😎 Remember the “Chad the lettings agent” from last week? Well he came back a day after to say that he talked “some sense into the owner about the washer”, after he said in the previous email that owner won’t budge at all, hinting we were unreasonable.

I guess he realised that the property that was already sitting on the market for over a month at 3k that doesn’t have a washer isn’t going 2 move that fast after all. How about being nice to potential renters & not tell them that 600£ extra a year is insignificant? Good luck bro.

London rental market depresses me, primarily because you can’t believe anyone or anything.
We want unfurnished property, we search unfurnished properties, pictures show it’s unfurnished property, description says can come unfurnished, we call: it’s only furnished. 😖

Update: Seen a flat I love today but it’s over our budget. We put in an offer we can do & hopefully it goes through. If it doesn’t I will be hella sad. I want to get a new start here in London when it comes to housing, this place would be it 🙏

We didn’t get the flat :( someone scooped in with a similar offer but was faster. Heartbroken, but the #londonrental show must go on. Sad I have to still look at properties that either have abysmal design choices or are simply f-ing dirty & still over 2k (notice the bed). Gross

I'm shocked how these owners & lettings agents don't even care to move the f-ed up bed, because they know someone will rent it at whatever cost. London housing market needs to die in flames of fire.

THE PLOT THICKENS on the London rental market. The flat we loved, showed up again on Rightmove last night at lower price (close to our offer). Everyone I called or msged except the realtor we gave our offer to is saying is still available for viewings. Did we get cock-blocked?

I am one moment away from doing a full on catfish on this fuckin' property to find out the truth.
Can someone be so kind and find out if this is STILL available for offers / viewings : rightmove.co.uk/property-to-re…

Thank you friends for helping out. Few feelers out in the market to find out what's happening. Now we wait.

UPDATE: I see one of the properties was under offer at a different agency, but we were told there were two. That said, this experience uncovers that there is so much that can be done to improve letting agent processes - especially in terms of availability & between agent comms.

There needs to be a way to "kill a listing" the moment it is gone, under all platforms & agencies. At the moment, potential tenants are dealing with "ghost" properties, or even being lured into seeing things based on something that is gone #londonrental

I want to be confident our offers reached the owner, and many times with letting agents you are not sure. Like in this case of a flat we loved, we never filled out the application or gave our full info, they just took our names down. You want to know where you are in the process.

UPDATE #10283823903: Twitter friends came through & it's confirmed that the property has been let out today, the agency is not tuned in between others or themselves. The new listing is still live tho. I don't know if our offer from 2-3 days ago ever made it to the owner.

UPDATE: We have a new flat! 🥳 Thanks to help from @mfok & @rachel_grrr with our previous email sleuthing , we ended up getting a better letting agent on the case that was EFFICIANT. She found us a similar flat asap, we negotiated price & put in a holding deposit today.

Sidenote, that property with the crazy realtor where the owner didn’t even plan to provide a washer is still on the market 😹 They came back to us to say that they will provide a washer. Buahaha. No. I’m so petty I will track to see when it will discount & for how much.

We negotiated the price down to a reasonable one, & when we stated that this feels more in tune with the market, “Chad” wrote back an essey why this property is so highly priced (overpriced). We finally told him he is being unprofessional with all this crazy email mansplaining.

Major takeaway from our second #rental experience in London is:
1. Enter fast & negotiate on a property (we negotiated all prices down), look for “stale” properties even if price point is crazy they can open up
2. If letting agent is shitty, it will affect your offer success

Oh, and we paid more than the “letting agent Chad’s 49£ is insignificant” price we were to pay for that property. Why? Because things were smooth, transparent process & no bullshit. Also, benefit of the property was clear. Just because owner thinks it’s nice, buyer might not.

I know this thread is very first world, but it’s an important reminder to only pay the price you believe something is worth (in context of the place & timeframe) & don’t let anyone use your insecurities, guilt or shame to kick out money from your wallet.

You know how we celebrated 4 weeks ago that we found a new London flat & all went well? Well my friends THINK AGAIN! Can't share the full story this minute, but I am fucking fuming. Long story short, no flat yet.

#rentalthread I’m so sad. We found the flat we wanted, put in holding deposit only to find out that the landlord doesn’t even own the property yet. They kept delaying for a month since holding fee, pushing the day.

As we waited more properties showed up at a much better price - 300£ less per month. It was evident the market has adjusted & we over-offered. As there was no flat yet, other opportunity on hand, holding deadline long gone, we told the agent that we need to find a middle ground.

The agent went MENTAL. Complete crazy. Yelling, rude. Never saw anything like it. Note that we weren’t even able to see the flat as it kept being delayed (we saw others same format in the building), no contract existed, they didn’t even own the property! It is wild.

The first contract draft he sent us (before we understood they didn’t own the flat yet) was filled with errors and random clauses. He made us take the risk of waiting, and couldn’t even have the decency to understand the market change. Instead dude went nuclear mode.

I never in my life experienced this level of crazy and rude when dealing with estate agents. Some of it is downright abusive. London rental market is pure and utter shit. It’s also tenants market now, & it needs to adjust. He flared up when we mentioned UK law around holding fee.

Imagine getting angry at the law protecting both sides. Anyways, we ended business there & went to find another property. It shook me tho to spend a month hoping, anticipating, packing to just have someone drag us along on a property they don’t even own.

It should be illegal for estate agents / estate investment to list flats for rent that they do not own yet. I have never seen this before. Sigh.

In other news, that Peckham flat is still on the market, almost 2 months after they didn’t want to include a washer.

Oh & to be clear, we just wanted to adjust the price for 100£ per month, to get closer to the market & agent didn’t even let us discuss it. Instead he started offending us, screaming, saying rude things, guilt tripping. Took it very very personal.

That said, we put in a holding fee on another flat in the same building after the crazy guy hung up on us.

It comes furnished so will have to store the stuff somewhere but it is what it is. We had a lovely agent help us this afternoon, she was great. Women are great.

All in all, we’ve seen many properties, spoken to many agents, had 2 deals fall through, crazy landlords holding on to idea of super high rents & a dream that recession is not looming. It is. Negotiation shows true face of someone. I would not want this man to manage our flat.

I am also invigorated to get that money to own again. This rental shit in London is not gonna do.

Oh and a bonus - the shitty agent asked us to send our LinkedIn profiles to check us out. I should have walked away that moment. You live, you learn.

London rental shabang - episode 58:

#plus Waiting to sign a contract for another flat at this moment. Fingers crossed.

#minus The place we are in AGAIN leaked water after rain, this time all over our equipment.

If new flat passes, I’m out of this dump on Saturday.

London rental UPDATE:

You will think I’m shittin’ you but the estate agent who went mental on us yesterday, is in news today saying he had sex with plenty of women in breach of lockdown & is against lockdown. WTF London, WTFFFFF 😂😂😂😂😂 Dodged a bullet there, right? Uff.

You can’t make this stuff up. 😹

FINAL UPDATE on my rental journey in London: We just signed for a new flat. Last minute save after chaos of crazy *dailymail* estate agent that dragged us for a month. I feel happy to get back to work with a calm mind. Will be in this one for 2 years at least. Kids, we did it.