We advertise most homes on Homefinder for one week – from 12.05am every Thursday morning, to 5pm the following Wednesday evening. This is called the ‘bidding period’.
Homes are marked as either P – meaning ‘Priority’, or ‘1st’ meaning ‘first-come-first-served’.
If a home is marked P, you have until the end of the bidding period to make a bid for it – 5pm on Wednesday. There is no advantage to bidding earlier in the week or trying to submit more than one bid.
But if a homes is marked ‘1st’, it usually goes to the first person who bids for it - so the sooner you bid, the more chance you’ll have.
Find out more about the Priority of homes.
Getting a Homefinder home – your step-by-guide
- 1. Are you registered for rehousing?
Not sure? Find out here
- YES – go to 2.
- NO: start your registration here.
- 2. Have you had a letter from a landlord saying they have
everything they need and that you can apply for homes? (this may
take a couple of weeks after you first register for rehousing)
- YES: go to 3
- NO: You can browse all homes on Homefinder, but you won’t be able to bid for any yet. You may still be waiting because you haven’t sent the landlord handling your application all the documents they need, or because the landlord is still confirming the information you sent. Contact the landlord for more information.
3. You’re ready to bid for homes, but you must log-in first.
To log in you need:
- your date of birth (or the date of birth of the person who completed the rehousing registration); and
- your rehousing applicant number. This number is on the letter you got from your landlord telling you that you can bid for homes.
If you have problems logging-in, contact the landlord handling your application
- 4. Your personal page: ‘My Homefinder’
- After logging in, you get to your personal ‘My Homefinder’ page. From
here you can get to parts of Homefinder that are customised to your
own application. This is the page you come back to when you want to
go from one customised part of Homefinder to another.
- On this page we ask ‘what
do you want to do?’
- If you want to see the homes you can go for, and bid for a home, pick: ‘Look for homes, bid for homes’.
- 5. Are there any homes showing?
- YES: go to 6
- NO: This means there is nothing available that matches your household offered by a landlord you want. But we put a fresh batch of homes on Homefinder at 12.05am every Thursday morning – and individual homes can go on any time – so look again!
- 6. The list of homes you can bid for
- The list shows all available properties that are suitable
for your household (based on the number of people, their ages and relationships
to each other). If a home is in an area you don’t know too well, check
out the area guides, and the
map of rehousing areas.
- You can change
the list so that it shows only the areas you said you preferred when
you originally registered for rehousing.
- The list shows the type of
home: house, flat and so on. If you’re not sure what this means
check property types.
- Find out more about a property by choosing its ‘Details’ button. Here you’ll see the name of the landlord and more information – whether it’s got a garden, what sort of heating it has, if children are allowed and so on.
- 7. Are you interested in the property?
- YES: From the Details page, put the property in your ‘Homefinder basket’,
by picking the ‘Add to basket’ button. This takes you straight to your
personal ‘Homefinder basket’.
- NO: Go back to the list of homes and look for another.
- 8. Your Homefinder basket
- Choose what to do next. You can: delete the home in your basket if you change your
mind about it; or add another home by going back to the list of properties
you can bid for.
- When you’re happy with your selection, bid for the home,
or homes, in your basket by picking the ‘BID for homes’ button. Don’t
worry if you think you might want to bid for another home later – you
can make as many bids as you want during the bidding period.
- When you make your bid you’ll go straight to a page called ‘Your bids’.
- 9. Your bids
- Here you can see the bids you have made in the current bidding
period, and any you have made in previous bidding periods. You’ll see
the ‘status’ of the bid – whether the landlord has not decided who gets
the home yet, or if your bid has been unsuccessful for instance.
- If you change your mind about a bid in the current bidding period you can still withdraw it, although you can’t do this with bids in previous bidding periods.
- 10. Can you see bids that you have not made personally?
- YES:
This happens if you are an ‘emergency rehousing applicant’ – in this
case certain landlords automatically bid for homes for you. You can
not remove these bids.
- NO: Go to 11
- 11. When do you find out about bids you have made?
- If you have not heard anything within about 10 days of
the end of the bidding period (for a Priority ‘P’ home), or within 10
days of bidding (for a First-come-first-served ‘1st’ home), please assume
you have not been offered the home this time. See ‘finding out about
bids’.
- If you need to know more about the progress of your bid, contact the landlord of the home.
- 12. How does the landlord decide?
- If it’s a 'First-come-first-served' (1st) it usually goes to the first bidder. But most properties are Priority (P) homes. This means the landlord uses their own rehousing rules to decide who gets offered the home first.
- 13. If you are offered a home
- The landlord will write to you to offer you the home, and give you a time and date to come and see it before you take it.
How do you know who got homes?
- You can check the rehousing status of the person who got previously-advertised homes. You don’t need to be logged-in. Go to ‘See who was offered previously-advertised homes’.
What’s my rehousing status?
- If you haven’t been successful with a bid you can compare your own rehousing status to the status of the successful bidder. (Each landlord gives you a rehousing status based on your circumstances - see landlord's rules.) You need to be logged-in to do this - go to the ‘My Homefinder’ page and pick ‘Check your rehousing status’.
Problems, complaints, questions?
- Homefinder works like an agency – advertising homes on behalf of about
twenty Manchester landlords. The landlords decide the rules about rehousing
priorities and who gets offered their homes. If you have a query about
your rehousing application, or a bid for a home, please contact the
relevant landlord.
- But if your query is about how the Homefinder
service itself works, please check our list of complaints, problems
and questions.
- If this doesn’t help please contact us.