To be sick of time wasting house viewers?

[PinkBalloonsAndCherryCoke]

We've had our house on the market for just over a month, and during that time have had several viewings, of which most have been time wasters.

Our EA has said that in the current market it's best to let anyone view who wants to, as people have been known to view a house and like it so much that they then decide to sell theirs.

So far the time wasters we have had have been:

A couple viewing who took ages and really faffed around, asking lots of questions then at the end were chatting and said that they had already had an offer accepted on another house in our area and were going ahead with that sale and were due to exchange soon, but just wanted to see our house to see if the layout is similar to the one they are buying.

A couple who again took ages and faffed, and said at the end of the viewing that they are looking to move 'in a year or two' and just wanted to see what they could get for their budget!!

A couple who looked round and seemed to like it. The agents phoned them for post viewing feedback a couple of days later and the couple said that they were looking for a house with more bedrooms than ours has and that they didn't want a house without an ensuite. Our full house details are on right move and on paper details from the EA office, so why the heck would they look round a house knowing full well that it didn't have as many bedrooms as they want, or an ensuite?

It's really pissing me off! DH and I both work, and we have DC and pets. Each viewing obviously requires a certain amount of cleaning and tidying and preparing, and to find out after that it was just a waste of time and effort is so annoying.

AIBU to be pissed off?

We’ve just bought. In the end to save everyone’s time and sanity it was easier to do a drive by before booking an appointment to view.

There were plenty of lovely looking houses that failed when we did the drive buy’s.
Pylons - not shown in photos.
Noisy roads.
Dairy farms very near - quite a specialist no go!
Annexed off gardens being built on very, very close to original house - not shown in photos.

Some things you can’t see unless you book an internal viewing, but surely most people have definite ‘nos’ that either the details or asking questions of the agent can answer.

Drive bys- yes to that!

I saw the perfect 2 bed town centre flat witj balcony and off road parking in my budget - wow! Called EA for a viewing. He politely suggested I do a drive by. It was town centre, I knew it well what was there to see?

Bloody hell! Behind the beautiful period houses there was a ghetto. About 1/4 mile square tucked in behind million pound mansions. I turned round and headed back out. Thank goodness for that EA!

I've always let anyone view, sometimes saying "please ignore the meds" if I've not had time to tidy.
The last house we sold had mostly viewings from people with their houses on the market, but not sold. We sold it after not too long.
When we bought our current house we weren't on the market because we had no plans to move, but the most amazing house came up in our village. We viewed, loved, mortgaged our house to the hilt and bought the new house, letting out the previous one. Took a bit of financial gymnastics, but I'm so happy. We're now selling the previous house.

Completely agree about the drive bys, I've discounted loads of houses that way. We had a couple of feedbacks saying our house's location wasn't quite right. If you do a drive by and look on the map and street view beforehand you get a handle on the location surely?

We have had a few asking price offers but couldn't find anywhere to move to so we've taken it off the market. I'm dreading putting it back on because of the viewings. I think I'll go with an open house day and then if need be individual viewings but only from people in a position to move. Not people wanting a nosey!

After viewings when the agent phoned for feedback instead of giving an answer that was long winded, or vague, or seemed rude I'd often just say "no en suite" or "no off street parking" etc just to stop the EA hassling is. I suspect a lot of people do the same,
We looked at a few properties:
Property A claimed 5 bedrooms. We didn't need 5 beds and would have used one for storage (a 'bedroom' that was between the landing and thr master). In reality it was a slightly wider hallway to join an extension and no way at all a bedroom. Between that and the careful angles for the garden it wasn't worth pushing our budget or being landed with higher council tax. We said that the upstairs layout didn't work for us.

Another was out of our ideal area, but the plot was nice. We were willing to sacrifice some things and rennovate ourselves but after viewing it wasn't worth doing. We said that there wasn't the possibility of getting the featurws we wanted.

Another house required extensive renovations and structural work as the owner had split the house up into awkward flats and rental units. It was overpriced and had been on the market for ages. The seller opened by complaining about all the other viewers they had were timewasters because they'd not had offers or had only had lower offers. We viewed and priced the amount of work required at about £60,000 at the lower end. We told the estate agent that whilst the price is cheap for square feet, it didn't factor in the sheer amount of work and planning required to reconvert the property to one dwelling. It's still on the market. The seller is being a greedy fucker. There is a reason nobody has paid. We said it was too much.

We were very firm on that people's houses had to be on the market if they wanted to view, our house was on the market for 6 months and the constant cleaning and viewings was a nightmare.

We didn't look at any houses that insisted we were under offer before we looked. We were moving from a very high turnover area to a very low one and it just didn't make sense to us. I also assumed the vendors would be generally awkward - sorry!!
Had one agent phone begging us to view a house that they'd been really rude about us not seeing initially - they'd even told us the vendor was 'challenging'. Erm, nope...

It's driven me bonkers too. We had a woman who fed back how disappointed she was that we don't have a large workshop and a double garage. I don't think she had even read the details at all. And she wasn't even up for sale herself FFS

We're currently looking at houses. We have no need or desire to move just for the sake of it. If we find a house we love we'll list ours and hope that it sells soon enough to buy the dream house. Just because our house isn't on the market doesn't make us time wasters.

@Sunshineface123 do you not think that your refusal to allow viewings like that might have contributed to it taking so long to sell? You don't know what those potential viewers have got to sell (or if they even need to). It might be that their property will be easy to sell due to area or type of house, whereas yours wasn't.

Restricting viewers might work in a buoyant seller's market, but in the current situation with property prices dropping, people feeling nervous about what the political mess is going to bring, it makes no sense.

Sittingonaspindryer we actually brought that rule in after a few months as were really getting fed up of people basically being nosy! We lived in a slightly unusual house in terms of age and layout. It just saved us the hassle of constant house prepping unless it was, in our eyes, worth it. Maybe it would've sold quicker but I honestly don't think so, who knows!

go back to the agents. tell them you will only allow people who have sold.

I'm looking to buy, atm, and I feel so bloody guilty every time I see one and say 'no'. It's a horrible feeling, to know that the vendor has taken all that trouble, but what can you do? Not go unless you're 99% certain you'll be making an offer, before you even view the house?

I wish the EA would take accurate reasonable photos. Saw one today where the photo of front view of the house showed a nice old path leading to a little front garden with a lovely little tree and lawn. The reality? All that belonged to the house in question was the path, the 'front garden' belonged to the house opposite, which also had rights to use that path (right in front of the livign room window) to get to their bins which were stored right by the house I was looking at. FFS.

Another one where the back garden looked huge and wild in the photos - reality was only half the garden belonged to the house as the two neighbouring houses didn't care about their back gardens and no fences had been erected.

I hated being phoned by the estate agent the day after i'd viewed somewhere asking for feedback.....sometimes there is nothing you can put your finger on but you just know the house is'nt for you....the ea would be really pushy....i just used to not answer the phone.

Thanks everyone for the replies!

We're still very much on the market and still very much getting timewasters.

Worst one was a man at the weekend who was a complete cocky, sexist twat who was full of himself. When we showed him the utility room he said to DH 'Oh that's her room then' and nodded towards me! Amongst other twatty comments. He then kept DH talking for 90 MINUTES about himself and why he was moving, and his job, and all kind of other shit.

Then the feedback he gave the estate agent was he didn't like the house!

Fair enough he didn't like it but keeping someone talking for 90 minutes after a viewing when no intention of moving!? Seriously?!

OP you have my sympathy. That last fellow sounds absolutely obnoxious.

When we sold we used an online wstate agent so organised the viewings ourselves. I say viewings - we had one and that couple bought so we were lucky. We did really struggle to get a viewing for the house we now live in which is explained by some comments here about vetting. We wanted a 4 bed with ensuite. We bought a couple 3 bed without.

Refusing viewings just creates a sense of desperation in both sellers and buyers. I am not convinced it is to protect the needs of sellers.

We did once do the open days for a friend who booked 4 then managed to book herself on weekends away for each one. That was a weird experience. We had one couple turn up who said they had no intention of buying but lived round the corner and had always wanted a nose in. They were extremely rude and in the end racist. They were there about 90 minutes.

Then we had a woman who was dressed extremely bizarrely - like a strange mix of charity shop things. A big fur coat, a sort of cocktail dress and stilettos. She left other people in the car outside and practically ran round the house barely looking at anything. We tried showing her things and she was just not interested. She then bolted out the door and they drove off fast. Weird

We were meant to have a viewing at 1pm and the viewer didn't turn up! The agent phoned them and they'd 'forgotten'! They only booked the viewing yesterday!

When we sold out place we had a week of viewings pretty much every evening - constantly having to keep everything pristine and not eating dinner until much later than we'd like. A woman came with her daughter, liked the place and booked a 2nd viewing with the husband too - and never bothered to show. Then we changed and said we'd just do viewings on a Saturday.

Same couple that didn't show before wanted to view. Decided to let them as they were between 2 other appointments anyway so no extra effort. So they show up, I answer the door with a cheery "Hi come in" Show them through the Lounge/dinner and into the kitchen with all the usual spiel. Out into the garden where I explain that some damaged brick work would be repaired before the sale went through. Woman said "OK". That was the first word either of them uttered to me. RUDE!

I think only you can make the call between wanting a quick, hassle free sale and potentially losing out on a buyer because you turned down a viewing or accepted a lower offer, or getting your house ready each time but knowing that they might be a time waster.

When I sold my flat I stipulated I only wanted buyers in a position to make an offer and sold within a week. I probably could have got more money had I waited but decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

Having said that I just bought a house in an area where the property market is moving very very fast (northern city) and as a result most agents won't let you view unless you can prove proof of funds etc. They know that they could sell the property three time over in most cases so can afford to be picky.

Unfortuneately, in most circumstances letting people view your property is part of the deal if you want to sell it. Buying a property is a substantial investment. I will view a property I am interested in and we will make an offer if the property meets it's brief and our requirements. Vendors can demand how ever much they want but they should be realistic if they want to sell their property.

Best one we had was an old man that first was a cash buyer then wasn’t had a few investments to cash in first. Turned up without booking and brought his wife’s family. They were looking in the window and scared the shit out of me. Then he asked us to take 30000 of the price as he liked it but wanted to build an extension!!!

I recently moved flats (rented) and my parents were badgering me to go look at anything and everything. They don't seem to get that is a waste of everyone's time and exhausting.

This bought and sold a few years back, I don't think we really looked at houses for the sake of it then but we were moving further so we did a bunch in one day while we were in the area.