To thinks it's bloody stupid that estate agents are only letting cash buyers, or people under offer view properties?

[fishonabicycle]

Surely this will just slow the market until it almost sizes up? Or is not happening everywhere?

I can understand people wanting you to actually be on the market, but wanting us to be under offer seems a bit silly.

if there are enough buyers around, it's not silly at all. Sellers want to sell, and sell quickly.

If you are really keen, you can always sell and rent or stay with relatives until you find the perfect home. You would be in a much better position if you are chain-free anyway. Cash buyers can be a pain, but chain-free ones are the most interesting ones.

@fishonabicycle

I can understand people wanting you to actually be on the market, but wanting us to be under offer seems a bit silly.

It does indeed. The pressure to find another house because yours is under offer is awful and must lead to a lot of expensive mistakes. At least if you’ve done some viewings you’ve got a bit of a shortlist.

It doesn't work at the top end of the market. If you're living in a decent family home already and are moving to a "premium" house, you would be crazy to sell before you find somewhere.

In our case, we are restricted to a handful of properties per year and a radius of 3 miles (schools related). Not surprisingly we've been looking a while!

Nobody says you have to accept an offer and just wait.

We offered - a very good offer, over asking price. We told them we expected to sell ours in under two weeks. We never expected them to take it off the market for us (although that would have been lovely). Turned out they had a few high offers from people with houses to sell, and then some lower offers from people who were proceedable.

They told us all they would wait two weeks and decide who to go with at that point. We sold ours within a week of going on the market, and we ended up having our offer accepted. By waiting two weeks to consider offers, they ended up getting a better price for their house.

When we sold our last house I only accepted viewings from people who had sold or were genuine cash buyers.
We went and looked at houses when we had sold. I hate pissing people about. One house we had previously had been extended. Half the viewers were people who had the same house and wanted to see the bloody extension. You get tougher with experience

Not the case here. Our house has been on the market for a few months, and as far as I know none of our viewers have had any such conditions, nor did we went we have been to view a couple of houses we liked. I wonder if it depends on the area and what the market is like in that area.

I put an offer in on a house a few months ago, just pre-pandemic. My house wasn’t on the market yet but it was market ready. I’m moving locally and my estate agents know how quick a sale properties like mine are. I put my house on with the same estate agents to motivate them. My offer was accepted and I was given 3 weeks to get a buyer. I got one in two.

If I hadn’t been able to do that I wouldn’t have been able to buy, as I know my house will sell quickly but it’s very rare for houses that meet my criteria to come to market.

Do people really go around viewing houses for sale just for the fun of it?

Yes, they really do.

Do people really go around viewing houses for sale just for the fun of it?

I don't really see the problem under normal times if the viewing is public. Organizing a private viewing without any intention to buy is crappy.

I have never seen this and have a dumb quesrion. If it says "cash buyers and people under offer" for sit mean that if you have loan approved and are currently living in a rented accommodation you cannot view that place? So you really need to have the full price on your account or be getting it from the house sale?

YABU OP

Sadly some people are just time wasters

When we sold our house two years ago we had a lot of viewings because it was nice house desirable area etc

Young couple FTB came round to look. Told us they couldn't afford it but we're looking at a similar house round the corner that need fully updating and they wanted to see how we had updated and extended ours

EAs will let anyone view a property, the last thing they want is a vendor complaining they arent getting enough people through the door. Vendors stipulate that they only want proceedable buyers to stop people traipsing through their home if they arent in a position to buy it. Very reasonable in my opinion.

In normal times I think it’s fair that anyone on the market be able to view houses.

However, right now viewing houses is much more difficult and dangerous than normal.
My parents are having to sell their home currently, it’s rural. My dad has cancer and is very unwell, it’s difficult having people traipse around the house and he has to go sit in the car whilst they do it. So no, I don’t think it’s worth them doing it for anyone not actively in a position to make an offer.

@Rewis I take it to mean FTBs too. Basically you just want someone with no chain.

I understand it entirely from the seller’s perspective (as someone who’s been scrubbing the sink with Viakil for the last half hour due to an open day today!) but it’s frustrating. We are in a fast moving area and wanted to see a house today as we’re being turfed out from 10 - 4 for the open day. I called on Weds and they wouldn’t consider as we weren’t under offer despite my explaining we had a full day booked and were in a speedy market (moving to a different area). They wouldn’t see us. We had our first viewing yesterday and have an order on already at 10k over asking, I’m now having to wait until the office opens and ask them to shoehorn us in for a viewing on this house as we’d like to get a chain lined up pretty quickly and this place ticks all our (pretty specific) boxes. Would have been SO much easier if they’d just let me make the appt earlier this week.

I think like everything the market varies so much that blanket rules just don’t really work. My mum and dad at the top end of the market in a sleepy village couldn’t operate on that basis, for the reasons PPs have mentioned. Our flat on the other hand is a totally different story.

Do people really go around viewing houses for sale just for the fun of it?

YES, they really do. I have been told independently by several different EA that this is a real thing. Time wasters who enjoy spending their saturday nosing round other people's houses.

Cutting this crap out and only letting people who are in a genuine position to buy is a GOOD thing. I dont want people who arent actually in a position to make an offer and proceed looking round my house, what on earth is the point of that?! It makes no sense at all. So, you look round, and love it. So what? thats all completely pointless and meaningless to me unless you can actually make an offer isnt it? I dont want to be told by lots of people "yeah! we love it....cant buy it though".
What a colossal waste of everyone's time.

I think it’s sensible tbh. I acceptances offer on my property last December but have only just exchanged, partly because of COVID but partly because of legal stuff. If I’d been in a chain it would have been impossible for the other people.

YABU I actually wish EAs would enforce allowing only those who are proceedable to view to cut out all the time wasting on both sides.

Don't understand people who see a house and "fall in love" with it even before they've put their house on the market nevermind going under offer. What's the point? Concentrate on selling your property so you are proceedable - just "falling in love" with a property is meaningless to the seller.

I'm not sure it speeds things along if the seller isn't planning to/willing to consider going into a rental property in order to ensure the sale completed. If they are, fine. If they can only proceed when they've found something that fits their circs, offer is accepted etc there will still be the same issues. It's a classic chicken and egg.

YES, they really do. I have been told independently by several different EA that this is a real thing. Time wasters who enjoy spending their saturday nosing round other people's houses.

Also people who are planning major works on their house booking a viewing on a similar property that has already done the same work.

Don't understand people who see a house and "fall in love" with it even before they've put their house on the market nevermind going under offer. What's the point? Concentrate on selling your property so you are proceedable - just "falling in love" with a property is meaningless to the seller.

I understand that but on the other hand, putting your house on the market and accepting an offer when you can't find somewhere to move to is meaningless and timewasting and expensive to the potential buyers.

@isabellerossignol

Don't understand people who see a house and "fall in love" with it even before they've put their house on the market nevermind going under offer. What's the point? Concentrate on selling your property so you are proceedable - just "falling in love" with a property is meaningless to the seller.

I understand that but on the other hand, putting your house on the market and accepting an offer when you can't find somewhere to move to is meaningless and timewasting and expensive to the potential buyers.

It certainly is. When we bought our current house the vendors really dragged their heels. The sale was held up for weeks because they couldn’t find something else and we were desperate to move. In the end we had to set a deadline and say we’d pull out if they didn’t meet it.

Do people really go around viewing houses for sale just for the fun of it?

Some do. When we put ours on the market six of the first eight to view lived locally and were considering doing the same/similar extension to ours so came for a look. One viewing was someone on our street blatantly just being nosy, not expecting DH to be doing the viewings himself.

@Hardbackwriter - it's going on the market on Monday. That was always the plan. Houses on my street are selling very quickly. I can't get to the other end of the country for several weeks now to look at houses, hence why I did so last week.

I'd like to be moved by the end of September. If you don't want to sell me your house, fair enough. We don't all have the luxury of being able to travel 5 hours each way to view a house.

@lyralalala that's ridiculous! A lot of the houses on our street have had similar extensions and loft conversions and quite a few of us have looked at each others before doing ours to get ideas and to discuss builders, pitfalls etc.

Under offer means nothing. Until you have exchanged it's all pie in the sky. Especially if the buyer is in a chain or needs a mortgage.

And I still can't believe that many people would waste their Saturday afternoon having a look around strangers' houses. WTAF?!?

Yabu I think. I understand the concept of viewing to see if you want to put your own property on the market, but it's soul destroying to make your house 'show home ready' each time, to discover the viewer isn't even proceedable.
I had one woman view my home years ago because she told me she had a similar layout, liked my decor and wanted to replicate it -she'd got past the EA by saying she was under offer. I couldn't believe she told me - she thought I'd be flattered! I was young then and just thought oh well, better look round then! Inside, I was sooo disappointed as I'd got hopeful each time I had a viewing and had gone to such effort to stage the house.
If I was putting my house on the market now, I'd stipulate proceedable viewers only, especially if I needed to deep clean each time due to Covid risk.

Well now we have the situation I expected. Ours is under offer and purchasers are under pressure from their buyers to find a place quickly. We haven't even seen anything yet, let alone something we'd like.