Open Homes or Booked Viewings? Running Rental Viewings in NZ

Two ways to show a rental

Every private landlord and small property manager in New Zealand ends up choosing between two formats, often without deciding to.

An open home is a fixed window, say Saturday 11.00 to 11.30, advertised with the listing. Anyone can turn up. You stand in the kitchen, answer the same five questions, and hand out an application link.

A booked viewing is a time agreed with one person or household. It might be ten minutes on a Tuesday evening or a slot inside a longer block. You know who is coming, and you know when nobody is.

Neither is better in general. Each suits a different property, a different week and a different tenant situation.

When an open home is the right call

An open home works when demand is high and the property is easy to show:

• The place is vacant, so there is nobody to disturb and nothing to tidy between groups.
• You expect plenty of enquiries. Ten booked slots on ten evenings costs you ten trips. One open home costs you one.
• It is close to where you live or work. A half-hour window is cheap when the drive is short.
• You want people to see the competition. Not to drive up the rent (see below), but because a busy room tells applicants to get their application in rather than think about it for a week.

The weakness is that you do not know who is coming. You might get twenty people or two, and you cannot follow up with anyone who did not leave their details.

When booked times are the right call

Booked viewings work better when:

• The property is occupied. The current tenant has a right to their home, and a stream of strangers through the lounge at no notice is not a good way to end a tenancy. Agree times with them in advance.
• It is rural or far away. A booked viewing means you only drive out when someone has committed to a time.
• Demand is lower. Five enquiries do not justify a Saturday open home.
• You need to show it outside working hours, one household at a time.

The weakness is admin. Every booking is a thread of messages, and every change of plan is another.

The middle option: an open window with booked slots

You can have both. Set a window, say Saturday 10.00 to 11.00, split it into 15-minute slots, and cap each slot at a few households. People book a slot rather than just turning up.

You get the single trip of an open home, a list of who is coming, and a room that never has thirty people in it at once. If a slot fills, the next one takes the overflow. If nobody books the last slot, you leave early.

Cutting no-shows

People who do not turn up usually did not decide to waste your time. They found another place, forgot, or felt awkward cancelling. Three habits deal with most of it:

1. Confirm straight away. When someone books, send the address, the time and what to bring, in writing, at once.
2. Remind them the day before. One short message with the time and a way to cancel.
3. Make cancelling easy. A link or a one-word reply. Someone who can cancel in five seconds frees the slot for the next person; someone who has to phone you will just not come.

If a person does not show, one polite follow-up is enough. Our no-show script has the wording for the confirmation, the reminder and the follow-up.

What you can ask for at the viewing

It is tempting to hand out a long form at the door. New Zealand's Privacy Commissioner is specific about this. Its rental guidance for landlords says the only information you should need at a viewing is a person's name and contact details (Office of the Privacy Commissioner, rental guidance for landlords, checked September 2026).

The same guidance sets out what comes later:

• At the application stage: name and contact details, proof of identity, whether the applicant is 18 or over, how many people would live there, and details for referees, with consent to contact them.
• Once you are negotiating with a preferred applicant: what you need for a credit or criminal record check, and evidence they can pay the rent.

It also says landlords should not collect information about how tenants spend their money, so bank statements to see where the money goes are out. Tenancy Services makes the same point about collecting only what is relevant to the tenancy (tenancy.govt.nz, pre-tenancy applications, checked September 2026).

So at the door: names and contact details, and the link to apply. Everything else waits until someone applies, and the most sensitive checks wait until you have picked someone.

The rent is stated, and you do not invite higher offers

Whichever format you use, two rules sit behind every viewing. A rental must be advertised with its rent, and you cannot invite or encourage people to offer more than that rent. A packed open home is not an auction, and "make me an offer" at the door is exactly the kind of invitation the law rules out. Tenancy Services also says a tenant can still offer more on their own initiative, and a landlord may accept that (tenancy.govt.nz, charging rent, checked September 2026).

We cover both rules, and what else belongs in the listing, in what an NZ rental listing must say.

This is general information, not legal advice. If you are unsure how a rule applies to your property, check with Tenancy Services or a lawyer.

Where Loftfolio fits

Loftfolio gives you a rentals website of your own, with every listing on its own page. Applicants book their own viewing from the listing page. You set the slots and the number of people per slot, they get an email confirmation and an email reminder the day before, and they can cancel themselves. That works for booked viewings and for the open-window-with-slots approach above, on every plan.

A New Zealand rental on Loftfolio cannot be published without its rent. No other NZ rule is built in, so the rest of this post is still on you.

What it does not do: enquiries that arrive through Trade Me, by phone or by message do not appear in Loftfolio on their own. Reply with the listing's link, and they book and apply there, where everything ends up in one record. Reminders are email only.

Let people book their own time

If the evenings of message tennis are what you would like to stop, look at the demo agency to see the booking from the applicant's side, or read the features. Plans start at US$39 a month, charged in US dollars, with no contract.

Related: Rental property inspection checklist (NZ).