Making accessible rental homes easier to find

At Rightmove, we often hear of the challenges and frustrations that wheelchair users experience when looking for their next home.

They’ve told us it can be difficult to know if they should consider viewing a property because there isn’t enough information on the listing to help them to decide if it is suitably accessible.

If you’re one of the 1.2 million wheelchair users in the UK and are going through the process of trying to find a property, we want you to know that we are trying to make things better.

As a starting point, we’ve called upon a number of experts to help us to create a guide to the kind of information that could be included in rental listings, and this week we’ve sent this guide to all estate agents who advertise on Rightmove.

Our ambition is to create more consistency in property listings, and to introduce relevant filters in the future, to help more tenants find accessible homes. The guide is the first stage of moving towards this.

One of our experts is Guy Harris, the founder of AccessiblePRS, a site dedicated to helping to increase the supply of accessible wheelchair housing in the UK. As both a wheelchair user and a property expert, Guy has the expertise and first-hand experience to understand the challenges that those using a wheelchair have to overcome to find the right rental property.

He says the key challenge is that we simply aren’t building enough accessible homes in the UK. And there also isn’t enough clear information on which homes are really suitable for wheelchair users or disabled renters, and really accessible.

This includes things like confirming a home has step-free access to the entrance of the property, along with wheelchair accessible parking and a level, spacious bathroom.

Putting property listings to the “3am test”

Speaking to estate agents in a recent Rightmove webinar, which focused on ‘Helping more tenants with accessibility needs find the right home’, Guy explained the “3am test”, which he says is a good way of testing and improving the information tenants can find at a glance on property listings.

“When a disabled renter or someone with accessible housing needs goes to property listing websites, they have to do a bit of detective work on the incomplete information to determine if it’s accessible,” he said.

The ambition for Guy’s “3am test” is clear: online property listings should provide enough information for a wheelchair user, or someone with accessible housing needs, to be able to view that listing at 3am and find enough information to enable them to be the first person the next morning to confidently book a viewing.

Key phrases in property descriptions

So we’ve worked with a panel of experts to create a list of factual key phrases, which are supported with guidance on when to use them in property descriptions. These include:

1. Step-free access to property

This should be indicated on a property listing if a wheelchair user can enter the property without further assistance.

If there is a single step up to the front door, this should be noted in the property description, using the phrase ‘Single step access to property’.

2. Wheelchair accessible parking

When there is designated wheelchair accessible parking near the property, which is defined by the Blue Badge system.

3. Level access throughout property

When the kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom are all on level access with the main entrance to the property.

4. Wet room within property

When there is a designated wet room – a waterproof bathroom with a shower area level with the floor.

5. Step-free access into garden

When there is completely step-free access to the garden of the property, if it has one.

Some Rightmove users have asked us to create search filters for accessible properties. We hope, as a starting point, we can create more consistency in the terminology used in property listings, which will in turn provide key phrases to help to make it easier to search. This will then create a standard for accurate and reliable search filters, based on the thousands of property listings uploaded to Rightmove by estate agents every day.

Share your feedback

The above list of key phrases isn’t exhaustive, as we know what might be accessible for one tenant may not be accessible for another. If you have any feedback or suggestions, we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch by emailing: talk-to-us@rightmove.co.uk.

The image for this article is by Marcus Aurelius, from Pexels