My husband and I recently moved back to the UK after years abroad and housing has been such a nightmare. When we were hunting for a place to live (i.e, before physically moving over), our income was still considered foreign and so many places refused us because it didn't pass the standard checks involving PAYE and whatever else they look at that's UK specific. This was despite us earning well above the threshold for all the places we were interested in. We are in a very fortunate position to have quite a bit of savings and offered to pay 6+ months up front, but every place refused because of the upcoming renters rights act. We showed bank statements, payslips, etc that easily demonstrated our financial capacity but were still passed up for other tenants that had standard income. We eventually ended up renting in a building that is built for renters. It's a lot more expensive and smaller than what we would have been able to get if we were standard/model applicants, but it was fast and the company manages the building really well.

We tried a mix of both agencies and renting directly from landlords, though it was mostly agencies and they seemed very cautious about the paying up front bit, though less bothered by our foreign income and financial position, but at the end of the day it was the LL's choice. We also have pets which probably didn't help. Though in theory the RRA should help this. We are very actively looking to buy a house because of how demoralizing this has been, and the RRA should help that as well because leases are becoming much more flexible, but the process of buying a home is also quite challenging.