more housebuying advice needed....

[katierocket]

help needed please. We are looking to move and house is going on market on Sat. We always swore that we would wait until house is under offer / sold before we started looking (even if that meant going into rented for a while) so that when we saw want we wanted we'd be in a strong position. BUT have just seen dream, dream house, going to look at it tomorrow but looks perfect and in area we love in which house very rarely come on the market. SO the question is - if we like it how can we persuade the seller to not carry on with viewing etc & convince him we are serious.

Any ideas? anyone ever been in this situation?

I don't think you can. The seller is after the best price he can get. What incentive is there for him to withdraw it from the market just because you have said you really really want it? You could enter into a lock-out agreement, for a price, but that would depend on the seller's willingness to do so. A lock-out agreement is a contract where the seller agrees not to sell to anyone else provided the other party can proceed within a certain amount of time. The other party usually has to pay a fee for this. Thing is if you suggest this very early on in the property's marketing, you'll probably give the seller the idea that he has a very desirable property and therefore the consideration (the amount you have to pay for the lock-out) is likely to be substantial.

Do you think your house will sell quickly?If it does the other house will probably still be there!Good luck.

hmm... i think you are right freckle, guess I am desperate!, (but realise not good to come across as such!) Touch wood our house should sell quickly. We are in a supposedly desirable area (but don't EAs all say that) where houses infrequently come onto the market.

ks - i know, it's daft, I might not like it but it does look perfect.

Put a link up and then we can try and put you off it. (Actually, I'm just being nosey really)

Katierocket, we've been through this recently. We were advised to have a buyer lined up for our property before searching for a house. The problem was, despite our buyers being patient, we couldn't find that 'dream' property. Eventually, they pulled out. This happened several times. It was an excrutiating long process, we became thoroughly demoralised and finally took our house off the market. Four weeks later we found our dream home and had no buyer.AAhhhh!!! Undeterred we put an offer in and much to our shock, the vendor agreed. We knew we were running a risk of other offers, etc but we just held our ground. After a gruelling few months we secured another buyer for our property. There are absolutely no guarantees in this business and we had a rocky ride throughout it all. The final outcome was that we bought our dream house and absolutely love it. Just go for it and see where it takes you. It's a hideous journey but you'll get there in the end.

I don't know if they have such a thing in the UK, but here (US) they have something called 'sold with contingency', which means that you have the rights to buy the house first if someone else makes an offer, but if another offer comes in you only have 72 hours to come up with the money to buy the house. Sometimes this makes other estate agents less likely to show the house, because there is a good chance their client won't get the house.

However, the reason I know about this is because we got this house that was sold with contingency because we made an offer and the other party couldn't come up with the cash in 72 hours.

Katierocket, sorry if I repeat what somebody else has said, my suggestion is that if you find THE house, don't express any interest until your house is sold, it is very common for estate agents to tell you if a house you are viewing has got some interest/offer before the viewing, if other people like it after you have expressed interest they may even raise the price a bit (or a lot) in order to be chosen, leaving you as a bad option in the eyes of the viewer.

You can always tell the agency that the house seems like a good oportunity but you will need to see more. That can even help you to get a better price in the future.

PS. I started looking before our house was sold and it really helped me to realise what we could afford and to make a more realistic idea about our "buying power". So, no nasty surprises once you have accepted an offer.

we put our house on the market, found the one we wanted, but our sales fell through time and time again, however due to freakish good luck we have just sorted it out properly and are due to complete, I would never look again until someone was having a survey done it is heartbreaking to put yourself through it and not fair to the sellers either ;(

thanks for the views, it's a nightmare isn't it. Why is it that buying the most expensive and most important thing in your life is so uncertain and seemingly so out of your control. Will let you know what happens after viewing, maybe it will be yuck and therefore end the whole issue!

well...it was gorgeous, and perfect. arrggghhhh

I would still go for it! Even though you are not in a good postion to have an offer accepted, it's worth a try. The most unpredictable things can happen along the way and if you really emphasise to the sellers how interested you are and develop a rapport with them, it might swing your way. We were in exactly the same position as you and thankfully, because they took a liking to us, we now own the house!!