5 tips for renting with a young family and a dog

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Lately, I’ve been posting a bit more about life as a mum, and today I wanted to talk about our renting journey. You might know if you’ve followed us for a while that we currently rent in the lovely village of Henley in Arden and I often get asked about renting; since so many people obviously own their home at our age! So today I thought I’d share our experiences and tips for renting as a family with a young child AND a dog…

1. Be upfront

We’ve always been upfront about the fact we have a dog and a child; since some landlords don’t want to rent to tenants with dogs and children; which is frustating.

We have found most to be understanding but have offered to mitigate this risk by paying a larger deposit, paying rent upfront, and meeting us in person-we have a small toy poodle and when we say ‘dog’ I think people often think of a giant destruction-prone breed which couldn’t be further from the truth!

2. Offer to go the extra mile

Renting is really competitive where we live so we have offered to go the extra mile to secure our house which we absolutely love!

Although people don’t often agree with spending money on rented properties, in this case we offered to put carpets into the new house as we really want to be here long term.

If you have a dog and it’s a furnished house or flat, offer things like to cover their sofa with sheets or pay extra for a deep clean and furniture clean.

Hundreds of people applied as it’s really rare to have a garden where we live, so our willingness to go the extra mile helped us stand out!

3. Make sure you use a reputable landlord

We use a letting agent but if you’re dealing with someone directly, you need to make sure they are reputable.

You can use a service like RentProfile to check they’re reputable and also make sure they are part of a deposit holding scheme.

Your landlord should also have insurance and you can use a tool to compare landlord insurance to get an idea for the kind of thing they should be covered for.

4.Keep your landlord informed

Keep in touch with your landlord and let them know about everything going on in the house-for example, that small crack in a bathroom tile that has sprung up might seem minor but if the tile eventually splits, it could be a lot more expensive to replace!

Staying in touch helps build that trust so you can really relax and feel like it’s your home.

5.Don’t let anyone ‘rent shame’ you.

I find that there’s a lot of shame around renting a property with people thinking you should own a property instead and renting is losing money each month. However, we’ve known lots of people who have equally lost money through buying a property that’s gone down in value or even our grandparents who had to sell their home to pay their care fees. It’s a choice to rent or buy but not one you should feel ashamed of!

If you’re looking to rent for the first time, especially with a child or a dog, I hope these tips have been useful!