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Original poster

What do you do about evening viewings of your house if you have young children?

21 replies

JulieAnderton · 15/06/2013 13:46

We've got a 2.4 year old. From about 5pm our evenings are busy with getting tea ready and eaten, bath and bedtime. She is usually asleep by 7.30-8pm.

This obviously means that early evening is very inconvenient when it comes to people viewing our house and even after DD is asleep I wouldn't want people traipsing into her bedroom (besides, it'd be dark in there!)

Is it OK to ask the EA to specify that we can only show people around in the daytime? I'm just a bit worried about putting people who work during the day off as they might feel at a disadvantage if they have to wait until the following weekend to view if others are viewing in the week.

OP posts:

Original poster

JulieAnderton · 15/06/2013 13:49

I should add that I am a SAHM, so I can be very flexible when it comes to daytime viewings.

OP posts:

AmandaPandtheTantrumofDoom · 15/06/2013 13:53

In all honesty, you will lose a lot of potential viewers if you can only do day time. Especially if your estate agent isn't open Sundays. That basically leaves one day of the week many people will be able to view. And most people have quite a short attention span on a given house, so if they happen to be busy the next Saturday or two, they won't look.

You could see it as weeding out non-serious buyers. But I also think it's true that many people don't know how serious they are about a given house until they are in it.

It also depends how vibrant the market in your area currently is.

We sold our last house with a 2 year old and a baby. My rules on evening viewings were these:

We will be in the house (unless we happen to be away or whatever);
You have to work round us;
You have to be out by 7.30 (which is when they came out of the bath); and
Please bear in mind that evenings are a pain for us, so please only properly qualified serious buyers. No speculative viewings, and always check whether they could do a daytime before agreeing an evening.

AmandaPandtheTantrumofDoom · 15/06/2013 13:54

ps. It was an evening viewing who bought the house in the end. As was the other offer we got (after taking ages, we had a mini bidding war at the end). Ours was a starter home for young professionals - exactly the people who can't come in the day and have weekend plans.

dinkystinky · 15/06/2013 13:56

We said daytimes to 6 at latest and weekends when selling our place when ds1 was 1 and a half. It worked out OK.

dinkystinky · 15/06/2013 13:57

Also see if estate agent will do an open house weekend day and you clear out for the day

AmandaPandtheTantrumofDoom · 15/06/2013 13:57

Oh yes, should say we were London. Most people at work had to travel at least 45 minutes to get to us I would guess, so most of the viewings that got booked were 6.45 or 7pm.

BackforGood · 15/06/2013 14:01

Depends how keen you are to sell. Most people looking to buy a house, would be at work in the day time I'd have thought, so will only be able to look at the sort of time you don't want them to, or maybe Saturdays.
I think you chat with the EA, explain it's really going to be difficult at that time of night, so you'd prefer it if you can make the appts for the weekend, but understand if there is someone who has to have an evening time, but you'd like to keep them to a minimum.

SingSongMummy · 15/06/2013 14:06

We said no viewings street 7pm and none between 1-3pm (nap time). We did end up allowing some evening viewings but they didn't get to see the babies room! We had 5 offers of the asking price within a week so it didn't affect our sale at all!

SingSongMummy · 15/06/2013 14:06

'After', not 'street'!

AmandaPandtheTantrumofDoom · 15/06/2013 14:09

If you had five offers in a week then it sounds like you were in a very strong market SingSong. If you are in a strong market (which can be specific to your tiny area or road, as well as general market conditions obviously) you can pretty much put any condition you like on viewings and not have it impact.

Kiriwawa · 15/06/2013 14:17

I did pretty much what Amanda said. We ditched baths (except at weekends) when the place was on the market too.

Original poster

JulieAnderton · 15/06/2013 14:18

Thank you everyone. We haven't chosen which agent to go with yet, but it'll certainly be something to talk to them about. When we had our valuations the EA's said that the market for our house (actually, it's a ground floor maisonette) is most likely to be retired down-sizers and buy-to-let investors, so it's possible that daytime viewings won't be off-putting.

As someone said, if someone is very interested and they are in a good position to proceed, then we could work around evening viewings. I just don't want loads of people in and out of our house during the busiest time of day for us!

OP posts:

muddysamazingyoni · 15/06/2013 14:25

When we sold our last house we were open to viewing times.
Most people wanted to view the house between 6-8pm. The way we got round this was I bathed and put DCs in pjs before 6pm, and sat and watched a DVD with them while the EA took the buyers around.
One buyer wanted to view at 7.30pm, I told the EA that the DCs would be in bed and she couldn't show their bedrooms. I took photos of said bedrooms during the day, printed them off and stuck them on the DCs doors.
This person purchased the house a few days later.

Eternalrealist · 15/06/2013 17:03

Well I disagree with the posters saying that not doing evening viewings will significantly reduce interest. Your house is a home first and foremost and you still need to live / exist in it whilst trying to sell. If you don't have DC or they are older then fine, go out fr a bite to eat or whatever, but Norway can I cope with my two very lively children running around during viewings ( ages 2. And 6!).

We allowed viewings between 08.00 and 15.00 four days a week and anytime on a Saturday, we had loads of viewings! We sold!

AmandaPandtheTantrumofDoom · 15/06/2013 17:10

I think that all the different views are really illustrating is that whether it affects you depends on :

how easy you would have found it to sell anyway; and
whether your target market is the type of person likely to want to come in the evening.

A strong market demand and you can get away with most things. An ok market and a target market of flexible people, you'll probably be ok. But a tough market and viewers who are likely to want evenings could significantly reduce viewings.

And, of course, none of us (other than those in a really strong market who sold in a week or so, where not much would have impacted anything) know how much quicker or more slowly we would have sold if we had been more/less restrictive.

poocatcherchampion · 15/06/2013 18:56

we just dealt with it. we fed dd before or after as we didn't want people to see the splat mess that produced and of course none of us were in the bath but children either in jammies or in bed we thought was fine. we let them go in the bedroom with just the light from the hall. no one minded and in fact all our viewer s offered! we mught have found it more tedious if the house took ages to sell but then again. I guess we would have been more desperate!

Elquota · 15/06/2013 18:58

YANBU. If they're interested they'll manage to come round in the day.

Northernlurker · 15/06/2013 19:03

When we were selling I think we were only asked for daytime or Saturday/Sunday.

mummy1973 · 15/06/2013 19:12

I think just be up front with the EA...communication is key to selling after all!

MrsJohnDeere · 15/06/2013 19:16

Compromise on bedtimes, it is only a few days out of a lifetime.

Here most people want to view between 6 and 7.

TheReverseStitch · 15/06/2013 19:20

We just explained when viewers arrived that we have little ones and they were just having their bedtime routine. I took them around the house and DH sat them on the sofa having stories etc until the viewing was over and then they went to bed immediately afterwards, just skipping their baths that night.

If it was an early evening viewing I gave them an easy dinner that wouldn't make much mess or cause any arguments, so just sandwiches or something, and I showed around the house whilst DH supervised at the table.

If the viewing was later, I just opened the bedroom doors and let them see the DC rooms with the landing light on. I didn't have anyone be tricky or difficult about it, they were all very understanding about it.

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