To think it’s normal to take your kids to a house viewing?

[HouseMover2024]

Friend is trying to sell her house and has taken issue with people bringing their children. In her view, they should arrange childcare and it’s inappropriate for them to bring children. If they do bring their kids she thinks they should be left in the car with parents taking turns.

Friend doesn’t have children. She can’t relate to the fact that childcare outside of work time isn’t particularly easy to find.

Part of her reasoning is she has animals she says it’s not practical to remove and is worried a child might get bitten.

I have an opposing view and actually have taken my young children to viewings. I ensure they are respectful and take their shoes off/don’t touch anything. But it’s not always practical to arrange childcare especially at weekends. When my home has been on the market I remove my pets for viewings.

That depends entirely where you live. It’s a buyers market here. The house on our street has just dropped its price for the third time and has been up since September!

Yes but that’s assuming you have the choice.

They start opening cupboard doors and playing hide and seek and generally being a right nuisance. I had cats and I would usually keep them in one of the smaller bedrooms for the viewing.

Obviously that’s unacceptable but I’d be surprised if that’s the norm rather than you being unlucky.

@Tanger1neDream it is not a sellers market right now. Have you seen interest rates?

my condo is currently on the market. We have bought a villa so will be moving in a couple of months. If the condo does not sell we will start to rent it as a vacation home (live in the Dominican Republic) We have had people with children view and to be honest, they have all been lovely. HOWEVER. We have 2 big soppy standard poodles, and my husband takes them out during viewings. They (I hope) would never bite, but they would be really stressed with strangers walking around their home. The last people through were yesterday and the little boy asked where the dog was as he saw the food bowls. I told him we had two and they were down in the car. He lost it on me..hahahahaha about 6 years old and lecturing me on the dangers of leaving a dog in a hot car. He was fine when I told him that my husband was also in the car and it was running so had airconditioning , probably cooler than the apartment! Kids are not the problem, bad parenting is if a kid is running crazy in your home.

Taking my child was what got me the house. The seller was told my son was running around the garden and loved it and I could see him playing in it. She had a daughter a bit younger and loved that. Cheers boy!😂

We always took the children to a second viewing. They were well behaved always.

I remember the joy on my grandsons face when I went with DIL to visit a family sized house with a garden, second viewing. They were in a tiny terraced cottage with a concrete yard. He cried when we left. That alone decided the family.

I’m interested in all the references to second and subsequent viewings - I would only review if a significant period of time had passed.

@HouseMover2024 for us , with this new purchase , we had 3 viewings. The owners are not here right now so it was not bothering them in the least. It is in a gated community that is quite large , so we went early morning, lunch and dinner time to get a feel for the area and also to see how the sun was in the house thru the day and in the garden. This was over three days. We then bought it outright so the owners were very happy and we feel that we made a good choice , not second guessing.

If I were viewing a house for the first time then no I wouldn't bring my children with me, but maybe for a second or third viewing and only because they are of an age where I can trust them to behave appropriately. We are hoping to move house within the year and we will be asking family to watch the children while we view potential new houses.
As far as people bringing their children to view our house I have to admit I'd probably prefer that they didn't.

It's not necessarily about having the kid's input or even wanting them to see the place. Not everyone has the luxury of parents, relatives, friends etc. being able to step in and look after kids while they view a house.

Me too. We have only ever done one viewing. And then a full survey.

Nope.

It's not the potential buyer's home yet-so they don't get to decide who can and who can't enter the home.

And no-someone shouldn't have to put their dogs in the car (which is dangerous, by the way but the dog haters on MN wouldn't know or care about that) because someone else refuses to find childcare.

We usually always do a second viewing before offer. I’d say it was pretty standard. We then generally do a third, just before exchange or in between exchange and completion. We also have a full structural done too, but we don’t buy new builds or close and more period properties.

we did offer on this house after first viewing, but then also did the second viewing the very next day and met the owners, but we were relocating, and they accepted our offer and suggested it before we headed back.

I’ve also always welcomed kids. As I know how important that decision is, and welcomed second or third viewings. No one has ever asked me, but to be honest, if someone said I want to show my granny round, I’d be fine with it. Buying a house is a major life decision, and for me, it’s important everyone is comfortable.

so I don’t get these arbitrary rules some folks have, no kids, no second or third viewing, whatever, no wonder so many house sales fall through.

Where we are you can barely get viewings unless you have a buyer lined up or are cash buyers. There is nothing decent to buy anyway and hasn’t been for a while. Just new builds.

Which could just as easily bite an adult. She needs to remove the dog for viewings, not the other way around. Spoken as a dog lover btw.

This is the sort of intolerant little post I’d expect from someone who has never sold a property in their lives.

Although I partially agree with you on the dog in the car thing, (perfectly fine for one of the owners or kids to sit in a car with a dog for 20 mins if not too hot or cold) I do believe they should be moved outside for viewing, anyone with a dog should have the agent do the viewings and they should go walk the dog whilst it’s ongoing.

We always had at least two viewings at different times of day. Ideally one midweek and one weekdays.

We discovered on a second viewing at one place that the nice quiet weekday neighbours were anything but on a Saturday!

There is no way I’d consent to any viewing without me in the house. Have sold several houses.

I did some of the viewings when I sold my previous house and I was staggered at the behaviour that some parents thought it was ok to let their kids do, when I was showing them around my house...kids running ahead into rooms, touching and messing with things, trying to turn the TV on, opening cupboard doors and pulling my cats tail. Mostly zero attempt at control from the parents and on two occasions I had to step in and nicely tell them to stop doing things. One set of parents I was fuming (when their kid was rough with my cat) and threatened to end the viewing if they didn't manage their child. Hideous.

Fair enough re who can enter someone's house (although that may well limit the market).

But, as I said, we visited a house when I was pregnant with DS where the dogs (Dobermans) had been put in the kitchen. But we needed to see the kitchen - and not just from behind the stairgate type thing they'd hemmed the dogs in with.

I wanted to check the cupboards, look at the oven, check the boiler - see if things work.

I'm buying the house and the kitchen fixtures are part of that...well in this case NOT buying the house as they refused to move the dogs outside as it was raining. If I can't see the whole house I'm not making an offer. And as we had no mortgage, were in rented accommodation and could move fast it was their loss I'm afraid. Sometimes people just can't cope with dogs. My mum, for example, couldn't be anywhere near Boxers as she'd been attacked by one when she was younger. She'd had other dogs all her life but she'd cross the road if she saw a Boxer coming towards her. And a dog bounding around is as distracting as a kid running about if someone wants to look in rooms.

@LondonJax i agree you need to feel
comfortable and access the property without restriction.

Two completely separate issues-
— is it ok to bring kids? Yes, provided you don’t let them dick around.
-should she remove the dog? Also yes, assuming she wants to sell the house.

Potential buyers do get to decide that they don't want to visit or buy the home though. The fewer viewings the less likely they will sell.

Unless your friend lives in an area where houses are "flying off the shelves" at asking price or above then she's very foolish to consider banning children attending viewings.

Must people looking to buy a family sized house are likely to have a family, surely? A lot of us can only view at weekends because of work. Nurseries and schools aren't open then. When we last moved we went to a lot of viewings over a 1.5 year period until we finally bought. We have no grandparents to babysit and our regular evening babysitter had a Saturday job in a shop. Plus often there was one viewing in the morning and another in the afternoon. I can't imagine any babysitter agreeing to two separate one hour slots! It never occurred to me to ask to bring them and the EA/vendors never seemed at all surprised. The EA would sometimes politely ask that the children stayed in the room with us as we viewed and that they did not touch anything (which we would have ensured whether or not we were asked).

"Waiting for a second viewing" would not usually have been an option as the market was very buoyant at the time and if you liked a house you had to snap it up quick. Our kids wouldn't have got a final say but their input was among the factors we weighed up. One time my son absolutely hated the room we would have allocated him and that was one (of other) reasons we discounted that property.

We did go to a couple of open house/sealed bid viewings and I was a bit shocked that some families just let their kids run amok but the EA was quite firm at addressing that.

I've also sold two properties and some people brought kids which didn't bother me though I did expect them to be kept under control and they were. Most people do know how to behave. For most of the viewings though we all went out unless the EA had asked us to fit in an evening session. I dont have a dog but if I did I would have taken doggo out too or kept him/her contained if we were showing round. If your friend's dog is prone to bite them surely adult viewers are equally at risk as child viewers?

On the subject of vendor v EA viewings I generally think it's best if the vendor family is out so the purchaser can look freely. The vendor looking you up and down is a bit disconcerting! I'm in England though and I appreciate customs are different elsewhere. Plus the vendor was present when we viewed our current house and we bought it anyway.

Sorry?

We’re fortunate to live in an area which is very sought after due to school catchment areas. We frequently receive estate agents’ letters asking if we want to put it on the market. We had it valued about 6 months ago and the agent said it could sell in a weekend.

Wd like our neighbours and we won’t be short of offers - so yes, if somebody’s DC start behaving badly in our house they will not be living there in the future. It’s as simple as that.

I appreciate that we are very fortunate to be in that position.

In doing so I’d be following in a family tradition- my parents turned down a higher offer from a complete jerk who parked inconsiderately blocking a neighbour’s drive and was generally rude when they showed him round.

Off you go, sunshine - you’re not having my house if you’re rude or a terrible parent.