Can I start viewing properties before putting my house on the market?

[toja555]

Please see my other thread which explains the situation.

I would love to sell my house and buy a maisonette, but only if I found an ideal property. I am not in an urge, so I don?t want to put myself in the situation where I have an offer and have nowhere to buy. On the other hand, I am not fussy about selling price of my house, I just want to sell and move rather than chase the best offer.

Can I start viewing properties and tell the agents the truth? Or they won?t allow me to view?

Not really, if you want to be taken seriously then you at very least need to be up for sale. Your ideal home could slip through your fingers as most vendors won't accept any offer you may make until you are "proceedable" ie under offer or not dependent on selling. Without wishing to pry didn't you buy fairly recently and are pg ? Have you checked the situation wrt to any mortage or would you be self financing ?

Yes, of course. You might want to fudge it a bit with the EAs though. We said we were 'on the point' of putting our house on the market. Nobody turned us down for a viewing.

We started viewing properties once we'd decided to put our house on the market but before we'd done the necessary bits and bobs to get it ready for sale. Though we're almost certainly not going to go with any of the ones we saw at that point, it gave us a very useful insight into what was available and at what price, and in what condition.

We are ourselves in a position where we sold fast and have had to rush to find somewhere we like enough to offer on, and TBH, I feel rushed and rather insecure. Of course, looking before you go on the market yourself doesn't mean the houses you like will still be available - will depend on the area.

LIZS, you are keeping an eye on me, aren't you Yes I bought fairly recently and I am pregnant, hence the only option for me at the moment would be to port my mortgage to a new property (to avoid early repayment fees), but if I wish to sell/buy after the baby is born I would have to wait until I return from my mat leave.

Am at close conjunction of 'not really' and 'yes of course'!

I still hold by what I said - they might not take you altogether seriously but we were not refused a viewing just because we weren't on the market yet. Depends on area and how fast it moves.

I would hope that a house (which I want to sell) would generally move faster than a maisonette (which I want to buy), that would be favourable to me. As Reshape said, it is difficult to get useful insight by only wandering the streets of desirable areas...