AIBU to think we should be able to view a house even though we aren’t selling?

[HolidayHun2020]

So a house has come up for sale near us, we’re in a position that it’s not the ideal time for us to buy BUT for the right price and property we could make it work. Our house isn’t on the market but if we wanted to go for something we would put it up straight away. We plan to look at selling and actively trying to move within the next 6-12 months. I want to go and see this house as I saw it a couple of years ago and fell in love with it. It’s come up again, but the estate agent has said that we can’t view it unless we proceed with putting our house up and then if it’s a no from us on the house we are viewing we would then need to get out of the contract to sell our house!

AIBU that this is ridiculous? We just want to see this one house on the off chance it’s the one? If we offer and they say no under the circumstance fair enough. Should we just walk away until we are definitely ready to move.

Last time I sold a house agent sent 'skirting board kickers.. as they are called'

its so depressing as a seller and a waste of time (one person who came said 'i always wanted to look inside this house;... great - its lovely you have looked at all my things!

Just look online - and if you are seriously tempted put your house on the market!

I had to provide a "proof of funds" before my offer would be passed on for consideration.
If accepted, I had to be ready to exchange within 12 weeks or become liable for vendors fees.

So, there would be no point in viewing if I couldn't complete the above.

Fair enough, I say. They clearly didn't want / couldn't afford to get stuck in a chain.

Had one of these. His relative had lived in our house but he had never visited - said he just wanted to have a look at where she’d lived. I was livid !!

Well that’s ok then. You wasted the sellers’ time anyway because you weren’t in a position to offer, not having your own on the market.

But the point was they might have tried to sell super quick if they had liked it. They didn’t waste the seller’s time. What would have been worse is if they had put their property on the market, accepted an offer and then viewed, decided they didn’t like it and then had to pull out of their own sale this mucking about their buyers and the EA. I wouldn’t expect any obvious time wasters to be let through the door (as in just to see it out of curiousity) but people who are thinking of moving even at an early stage would be fine as sometimes a sale can take months and things fall through at a late stage and you never know that early stage viewer might be ready at the point.

I wouldn't have considered an offer from someone whose house wasn't even on the market. We sold to a first time buyer, and got our current house as we were told it was us bidding against another couple, but the vendor went with us as other couple were still on the market whereas we were SSTC without a chain.
Even if an offer was above asking, unfortunately I would reject it without question if they weren't at least on the market already.

When I sold my previous house we had a great deal of "day trippers", and the final straw was when one woman blatantly told me that she was just looking at my house to see how the 4 beds in our(newish) road differed to the 3 beds in it( she lived in a 3 bed at the other end of the road, and it was not on the market!). I told the estate agent that I wanted only those who were in a position to proceed through my door in future, whether that be sold or on the market. He wasn't over the moon, but hard cheese- I was the customer, who would be paying him a nice sum of money once he sold, so it made sense on all fronts.