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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be annoyed by not being allowed to view a house unless my house is sold.

220 replies

LemonSwan · 15/03/2021 17:08

I found a house I potentially really like, although its very unusual so absolutely have to view it to be able to be certain. It could be a disaster.

Apparently I need to have sold my house to view it!?

Our non negotiable requirements are very unusual and do not come up regularly (c. once every 3 months). I have been looking for a long time and only viewed 3 houses which were discounted because one was riddled with damp smell, another the seller was just pretending to sell (trying to get the agri tie removed), and the other looked bigger in the pictures.

What would you do in my shoes?

Voting:

YABU - Put my house on the market and sell it just so I can view this house which may be a complete non starter.

YANBU - Or just forget it and move on.

OP posts:
notanothertakeaway · 16/03/2021 08:05

@harknesswitch

We're having the same issue but we are the sellers. Our estate agent won't entertain anyone viewing our house unless they are in a proceedable position. So viewings are just not coming through
@harknesswitch surely, as the client, it's up to you, not the agent?
JoesM12 · 16/03/2021 08:18

We recently went to view a house that we thought we loved from the photos. When we got there it turned out to be not exactly what we thought so it wasn't for us.
We aren't particularly desperate to move but would love more outdoor space for our children so will only consider moving for the right house.
We had our home valued last year but it isn't on the market.
I don't see why you can't go view a house until yours is on the market? Just tell the estate agents it is?
If you love it after viewing then get yours listed right away!
If the house sells before yours does then it wasn't meant to be I guess.
You can't be made to feel guilty for inconveniencing the vendor by going to view because surely they can't be expecting every person that views to make an offer?

Nith · 16/03/2021 08:29

If you need to move before the summer anyway, what have you got to lose by putting your property on the market now? As people have suggested, put a note through the door of the property you're interested in, you might be able to bypass the agent.

Malin52 · 16/03/2021 09:05

Ridiculous. Tell them you are keeping the current house to rent out.

I've been to see around 50 houses in the past year. All of them looked perfect on paper. They weren't. The 51st was.

Bythemillpond · 16/03/2021 09:22

We have a quirky house that is not very saleable. We put it up and had 8 viewers in 2 days.
3 offers from 3 couples none of which had their homes up for sale.

First one has their house up for sale snd had accepted an offer in 3 days and cross fingers and touch wood it is going through
We went with one of those £99 on line estate agencies and were more in charge of everything.

I hope you find something.
What I would say is that if the place you want to view has been up for 2 years then I am assuming it is over priced as well

rippledegg · 16/03/2021 09:23

Stop going round in circles. Speak to the sellers directly - it's very unlikely they will not allow a viewing after being 2 years on the market

TinyTear · 16/03/2021 09:34

Have you thought about inspecting a bridging loan, if you show the estate agent the proof of an agreement in principle that could count as proof of funds, then you could sell your house when you knew if the other one was suitable

Bythemillpond · 16/03/2021 09:45

Or tell them you are cash buyers (inheritance/lottery win etc) so you don’t need to sell your home right away

Alsohuman · 16/03/2021 09:48

@Bythemillpond

Or tell them you are cash buyers (inheritance/lottery win etc) so you don’t need to sell your home right away
RTFT, you have to prove you’ve got the cash.
ItscoldinAlaska · 16/03/2021 09:54

I have sold my house and have barely got through the door. All the houses round here are going to FTB. even if you offer full asking price first. I am afraid if you don't have your house on the market, you are the bottom of the pecking order and rightly so. Some of us can't move even when we have done all the right things.

Bythemillpond · 16/03/2021 11:24

you have to prove you’ve got the cash

Sorry missed that bit
I must admit I have never been refused a viewing and have hopefully just sold my house to someone who at the time of the first viewing had not got their house on the market but 3 days later had put theirs up for sale and had accepted an offer.

GinaJaffacake · 17/03/2021 00:10

@ItscoldinAlaska, how can all the houses be going to FTBs? Are they buying all the 4 and 5 bed family homes too?
I totally get that they want you to be in the market but to expect you to have acc roan offer is just ridiculous. We have bought and sold a lot of houses but we still view about 20 to every one we buy. And the further up the chain we’ve become the more we’re moving because we’d like to or fancy a change rather then we need to. This has made us far fussier and more discerning. What this means in practice is that we will only sell for the right house rather than sell because we need to sell. So what’s the point in selling when it could take years for the house you’d like to come up for sale?

Bouledeneige · 17/03/2021 00:24

Where I live the estate agents do fully research if you're procedable and under offer. They ask who your house is on the market with and call the other agents to verify.

I think I felt like OP to begin with but given how strange the market has been I followed this approach. I didn't get the house I put my house on the market for but got something just as nice if not nicer months later. The whole process has taken 7 months with part of the chain collapsing etc so its been a long and slow process. Buyers will hang on - I was very clear I wouldn't be moving unless I found something I really, really wanted to buy and I did a lot of viewings.

If the house you're interested in has been on the market for two years its perfectly possible that they have had offers or chains fall through before and that's another reason why they won't entertain viewings by people without an offer on their place. If you've been mucked about before you're quite allergic to it.

When my purchaser fell through I might have considered letting someone non-procedable through my door but really they just wouldn't have been able to move fast enough to re-build the chain. Its just been so dicey keeping chains afloat in these fevered times of stamp duty reduction and job insecurity/lender caution. Estate agents want solid chains to get their fees and they are working bloody hard for them.

Original poster
LemonSwan · 17/03/2021 23:56

@GinaJaffacake

Think you hit the nail on the head there! Its those who dont need to move but want to move and are being fussy.

I have just seen a wildcard come up. Its not what I was going for but I am getting itchy feet now and my partner likes it. Its not the forever home I was looking for but would be a good stepping stone.

Going to try to book a viewing tomorrow and get the estate agents round to value/ take pictures so we are ready to go if needs be.

This one is more appealing to standard buyers so I can see the benefit of being on the market/ sold for this type of home as it could go quickly. I still dont understand the requirement for niche homes/ part business estates but so be it.

OP posts:
Directionerforever · 18/03/2021 00:28

I don’t really know what people mean when they say mortgage in place? Surely in many respects an AIP isn’t worth the paper it’s written on as you could just throw any old figures into a calculator and get an AIP saying they’d lend you half a mill? And you can’t get a mortgage approved without a property to buy. So what does mortgage in place even mean? Or what do people expect if you say your mortgage is in place?

I’d move for the right house but I have a very small search area and would be worried about the risk of selling with nowhere to go.

Original poster
LemonSwan · 18/03/2021 00:36

They mean AIP directioner

I agree its silly. I havent done an AIP yet either because half the properties we were looking at would make an AIP useless as thats for residential only and we would have needed a part business/ part residential mortgage which are completely individual to the property.

It takes 24 hrs to get a residential AIP. The same amount of time you really should think about a house after viewing it and before putting an offer in.

OP posts:
Bythemillpond · 19/03/2021 10:29

Doesnt having a mortgage in place mean that all the figures and credit file have been checked and the mortgage company is willing to lend up to a certain amount for a house if the house is worth it.

Directionerforever · 19/03/2021 12:21

I’ve only bought two houses so not the most experienced in such matters but I didn’t know it was possible to start the process without having a house to base it all on?

LuaDipa · 19/03/2021 13:48

I think it is somewhat strange to be turning away potential buyers. We must have viewed a hundred houses before we found our current home and have never heard of this. But when we found the one, the vendor understandably refused to even consider our offer until our house was SSTC. I would definitely put yours on the market.

Holyforkingshirtball · 19/03/2021 14:01

We've just sold our house - we deliberately didn't start looking at houses until we had an offer because I was afraid that we would find the perfect house and then ours wouldn't sell (its rural, with land so not your standard house).
In the end we had 2 offers for ours, but one of them was from someone who's house wasn't even on the market - she then got upset when we accepted the other (slightly lower) offer from a buyer who had sold.
We only let her view as we were having 3 other viewings and figured 1 more wasn't much more hassle, but if we'd not had the other viewings we wouldn't have let her come round as I wasn't going to the bother of getting the house in a fit state for viewings (with 2 small children) for someone who hasn't even taken the first steps towards selling theirs.

Bythemillpond · 19/03/2021 15:25

Holyforkingshirtball

In our case we put what we would consider to be a difficult and quirky up for sale and had 8 viewers and 3 offers all from people who hadn’t put theirs up for sale.

We accepted all their offers but it was a case of if and when they sold. The first came came back 3 days later with a firm offer on their house. We shall see how we get on.

Piglet89 · 19/03/2021 15:53

We accepted all their offers.

In that one sentence is just one of the many, many things that are completely messed up about the English property system.

Springsoonplease · 19/03/2021 16:03

Estate agency practice has changed . It used to be that yiu viewed a house then they would agree to wait till yours is sold if you offered on it.
The only way i have found re this is to put my house up for sale with the same agent who is selling the house i wanted. Whilst it does not stop someone else buying it or trying to .. telling an agent you are listing yours with them with the spefic aim of buying that one will sometimes work as the agent works extra hard to market yours as thet know they will get two sales or lose your buisness if yoy take yours off the market due to losing the house you want .
The other aporoach would be to explian yiur sit to the agent and ask the vendor to make the exeption due to yr very spefic intrest. After all , the agent works for the vendor .

PegasusReturns · 19/03/2021 16:39

I think it depends what sort of house you are buying and the value.

If you’re at the upper end of the market and looking for something very specific then you need to find a house first. Then sell. When I sold my last house no one was proceedable when they viewed. But once they wanted it they moved very quickly.

Bythemillpond · 22/03/2021 11:02

Piglet89

What exactly was I meant to do. They knew that until they could sell theirs then they couldn’t proceed

Even in other systems they would have to sell their own before being able to proceed