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’s ok, don’t take your kids. I’ve a different opinion, we always wanted our child to feel involved. Clearly the decision was ours, but we always made sure ours were involved and asked if she liked the house. It worked for us, if it doesn’t work for you , then don’t take them.

what you can’t do is decide what my family do. Only your own.

Def not for a first viewing, also v awkward when vendor is in

Why would you want to do your own viewings? Genuinely, when you’re selling you’re advised to depersonalise your house and make it appear a neutral space. I would absolutely loathe a viewing where the vendor was showing the house - I think I would feel compelled to make polite comments and avoid asking the more probing questions.

Ideally I wouldn't have taken my children to viewings when I last moved house as they are a distraction from looking at the property properly; they were toddlers at the time. But all viewings had to be at the weekend due to the distance and we had no childcare so they had to come.
Your friend should ensure the dog is out if it has a bite history, for any viewers adults or children, I don't see what the difference would be here.

Of course you can take children to a house viewing. What a weird thing to get sniffy about. Potential buyers viewing your house with their children. They are their family FFS.

If you're buying a family home why would the family view it?

If she has uncontrolled pets that may bite that's the issue.

Why wouldn't

We always tried to avoid bringing them if we could ie going during childcare hours, but we didn't have any parents or anyone around when we were house viewing so it wasn't always possible if we needed to view on a weekend etc. Just the way it was, not everyone has childcare readily available.

To be fair I hate vender lead viewings too, but the whole neutralise and depersonalise is over and crap advise, it’s only relevant if you have a very out there sense of decor.

I take my daughter on house viewings. It will be her home too so she's involved in the process.

I'm also selling my house, my dog is out of the house for any viewings. I don't know if anyone viewing might be afraid of dogs so I take her out to make viewings more comfortable and stress free for all parties.

We have no choice but to take our 18mo daughter living 3 hours from anyone who can watch her. Hasn't been an issue so far. Seen a fair few!

We did arrange childcare and didn't take ours to viewings, we thought they would be distracting when we were trying to have a proper look around and also it's not exactly the most fun for them. However if we didn't have childcare available (like many don't) then I don't think it's a issue at all to take them.

Whether they do or not, it’s commonplace. Some agents charge less for the vendor to do the viewing.

As long as they weren’t running amok I wouldn’t mind but I wouldn’t want children running hands down my walls or anything like that. When we sold our last house someone brought 2 children with them who were fascinated with the chain on the flush of the downstairs toilet, we had to ask them keep an eye on their children. We made it clear we had dogs in the house during viewings too. After the constant toilet flushing incident we made it VERY clear we would ask potential viewers to leave if we felt their children weren’t respecting our home or annoying our perfectly behaved dogs. I won’t go into the couple who felt it acceptable to feed (and encourage their children) to feed my horses grass cuttings from a verge that had been freshly cut.

It’s just silly to have a dog with a bite history in the house when anyone is in your home.

@KittytheHare

Why would you want to do your own viewings? Genuinely, when you’re selling you’re advised to depersonalise your house and make it appear a neutral space. I would absolutely loathe a viewing where the vendor was showing the house - I think I would feel compelled to make polite comments and avoid asking the more probing questions.

It's the vendor's choice how they go about selling their home. You said you didn't understand the OP because the vendor wouldn't be there. Some people choose to do their own viewings 🤷🏻‍♀️ I'm surprised you didn't know this.

I've had far too many viewings with shite estate agents who don't know the answers to basic questions about the house their showing. Useless middle men.

Yes it is common place, many people dislike it, I’m one of them, I feel like I need to say it’s lovely and other nice things, but it is common place.

if your friend is so intolerant though that she doesn’t want to remove her dog, and she doesn’t wish kids in the house, then she should have the agent do the viewing and she walks the dog .

Wow! I can't believe she is letting people view the house with a bitey dog in there?! I wouldn't view the house with a dog in it, but I am scared of dogs! It also puts me off when people do their own viewings!

It’s normal where we live to do your own viewings. You don’t need to view a property if you’re not happy that the vendor is showing you around.

We got asked many questions that the EA couldn’t answer ie in situ liveries, hacking tracks, schools, if we were affected much by tourism in camper vans, what the winters were like etc. Many sellers of rural properties prefer to see who would potentially be purchasing their property. We live in an area where a lot of properties are bought for holiday lets, we wanted to be sure ours wasn’t and were happy to wait for the right person.

Tbh I think often vendors do viewings so they can offer greater flexibility than agents.

I prefer to have an agent show people around. But sometimes do it myself because they’re not available and ultimately I’ve wanted to sell. The better the market the less accommodating agents are.

We tried to arrange viewings for when the the children were in nursery but it wasn't always possible and, unlike PP, we don't have family babysitters on tap. We weren't going to pay £15 an hour to a babysitter to viewings when it's not necessary.

OTOH, various of the houses we viewed clearly owned dogs but we never saw a dog on a viewing - I think the norm is very much not to have them there. Especially terrible idea if the dog bites. Your friend could end up with her dog put down if it bites a viewer

We had to take our dc to a few when they must have been 1 and 2, both carried.
They obviously didn't get a say.

Childcare fair enough, but to give opinion on a first viewing no way. Unless the child's stumping up money they don't get a vote. When an offered been accepted/process is underway, then yes the get to look round.

We always took dc (no childcare available and they’ll be living in the new home so were involved in conversations). Your friend is weird.

When dc were at school/nursery we were at work!

Seller doing their own viewings tends to put people off massively.

Seller doing their own viewings tends to put people off massively.

It's the norm in Scotland. Many estate agents will charge to do them on the vendor's behalf.