Renting through Home: how our lettings search works

Finding a rental property in the UK can move fast. Good properties in popular areas let within days of listing, sometimes less. Home's lettings search is built to help you find the right rental quickly and make an enquiry before someone else does. Here's how it works.

Finding rental properties on Home

Head to properties to rent and start with a location. Home currently tracks 1,249,531 live UK property listings across sale and rental combined, so a search on location alone can return more results than you can usefully scroll through. You can search by town, city, postcode or street name, and the same principles from our guide to searching for property on Home apply here: narrow first, then browse. As with our sales search, a radius option lets you set a distance from a central point, which is useful if you're anchoring on a workplace, school or station.

Map view gives you a spatial sense of where properties sit. For rentals especially, proximity to transport and local amenities tends to matter more than it does when buying, so being able to orient the search on a map rather than just reading addresses is helpful.

Filters that matter for rentals

The most useful filters for a lettings search:

• Monthly rent, set a maximum budget. Be realistic: the stated rent is the monthly figure, and you'll usually need to show you earn around two and a half to three times the annual rent (subject to your landlord or agent's own criteria).
• Bedrooms, minimum or exact count.
• Property type, flat, house, terraced, detached and so on.
• Furnished / unfurnished, not every portal makes this easy to filter on; it's available here.
• Available from, useful if you have a move-in date to work around.

Keep filters broad enough to get meaningful results, then use them to narrow. If you find nothing at your maximum rent in a given location, it tells you something real about supply and price in that area.

What the listing shows

Each rental listing includes the monthly rent, the deposit (required to be stated by law), the number of rooms, key features, photos (where the agent has provided them), and the letting agent's contact details. From the listing you can enquire directly.

If a property has been let or taken off the market, its status will reflect that. We try to keep listing statuses current, but if you enquire on a property and it's no longer available, the agent will let you know.

Enquiring on a property

When you enquire through Home, your message and contact details go directly to the letting agent. Include a few key details in your first message: when you want to move in, how many people will be living in the property, whether you have pets (if relevant), and whether you're in employment, self-employed or a student. Agents get a lot of enquiries and a complete message tends to get a faster response.

Identity and referencing checks

Most letting agents require referencing before offering a tenancy: employment checks, credit checks and previous landlord references are standard. Some agents also carry out AML (anti-money laundering) identity checks, the same requirement that applies to buyers. Home supports ID verification for both buyers and renters through the platform; if your agent uses this, you may be able to complete it online rather than in person.

Finding the right agent

If you're searching for a rental in a specific area, look directly at agents active in that area too. Some landlords list exclusively through local independent agents rather than the larger national portals, so browsing directly can occasionally surface properties you wouldn't otherwise see. Once you've found a place and have a moving date, check the broadband speeds available at the address before you sign, since it can vary block to block even within the same street.

Start your lettings search and filter for what you need.

Further reading: the government's How to Rent guide.