Has anyone viewed a house BEFORE theirs is on the market (& gone on to buy the house)?

[MajorClanger123]

We've done just that.. well, the first part anyway! Viewed a 'dream' house last week (friday), ours going on market today (monday). Houses are selling like hotcakes at the mo round us - our neighbour sold before even appearing on rightmove. But obviously that doesn't bode well for the house we really want (its only 1 mile away).

My big worry (obviously apart from losing dream house) is pissing off estate agent as if we don't get the house then we're not interested in selling ours. My best friend works at the agents we're using and says not to worry at all about that, people do it all the time. I just don't want to waste anyone's time.

Just looking for success (or otherwise ) stories?

Last two houses, I've done that. One was a new build but a very specific plot (which I missed by a day - but pushed myself to buy the house next door which was bigger). The one I'm in now, viewed in June, decluttered and decorated before putting on the market at the end of August, sold in September, moved in January.

It can be done - good luck!

We did. Used the same agent, made it clear our sale was entirely dependent on getting the purchase and went for it.

Ooh good - keep the good stories coming! We won't use the same agent as my best friend works for another local agent (same agent we originally bought our house with) so we're using her as she has been able to get us on the market in record time.

The dream house will likely sell super fast too, but one plus is that the dream house vendors are currently away on holiday (they arranged to put it on market when they were away so out of house for initial viewings) so, not sure how long they're away for but agent says nothing will or can be decided until they're back - buys us more time to sell ours hopefully.

We've lived in current house for 12 years - got married, had 3 babies here, are very emotionally tied to current house, so we're feeling super scared even considering putting it to market (I feel like a house traitor right now ).

Yes, that kind of how everyone does it here. Lots of people want to stay in the village and when a bigger family home comes onto the market, someone jumps on it and then sells their house.

Yes.

We tried a couple of weeks ago. Made an asking price offer on the Thursday which was turned down on account of our house not being on the market. We sped everything through to get ours on, but the one we wanted was SSTC by the following Monday. We were in the same boat that we only planned to sell to buy that specific one. The agent wasn't pleased but agreed to it. Used the same agent who was selling.

wouldn't worry about agent - if things are selling fast then they're getting paid a shedload for very little - in fact if you were able to view without your house being on the market then the sellers agent wasn't even filtering credible offers which is one of the few value add jobs they do in that kind of market.

Yes! We found a house before ours was for sale. We have an amazing estate agent who suggested that we enter a lock out agreement so the new house is SSTC and we have 4 weeks to sell ours, we have paid a £5k deposit for the pleasure! It's a gamble that we can get an offer on the table for ours but do able as ours is very salable and priced to sell. We've been looking for a year and keep getting gazumped by cash buyers or those in rented.

Yes, we did, went with same agent who knew we had no interest in anything else. It was a bit hairy when our first set of buyers pulled out and we had to go back on the market, but ended up with a higher offer.

This is what we have done both times we have moved. House in our area seem to go very quickly, so we didn't want a buyer for our property without having somewhere that we loved as much.

This time we saw the house in late March (plus quite a few more houses) then did some work to smarten ours up for sale - put on the market mid April, had an offer within a week and then put an offer in on the March house that we had loved (it had also dropped the price by £100k in that time too). Should be completing in a couple of weeks.

We did but we were lucky - sellers accepted someone else's offer, but that motivated us to get on and put our house on the market (with the same EA as they seemed to sell most of the properties we were interested in) not long after; we accepted an offer on our house within a week and were feeling a bit frustrated because nothing was coming on the market. Then the sale on the old house fell through and we got a call from the agents so we put an offer in straight away and our second offer was accepted :)

Yes, and it turned into the best situation ever - mine wasn't on the market, but I went to view a house literally across the road and up the hill from me. Loved it, and it had just been reduced by £70k too!
I put in an offer to the agent that evening, with him knowing that mine wasn't on the market.

Agent got back to me the next morning with a dream proposal - that the owner of the house I'd offered on would do a sort of swap, and buy my flat from me (to keep as an investment) in order that I could then progress to buy their house!!

To say I was surprised and delighted was an understatement! The whole process wasn't plain sailing by any means, however ultimately I did get my house, plus because my flat wasn't technically on the market with the agent, and most of the negotiations/setting up the viewing was set up directly between me and the owner of the house, I didn't have to pay any agents fees!

Good luck!

Thanks all! There is some hope for us yet then! We spoke to the vendors agent this afternoon to express our strong interest. We viewed Friday (2nd viewers) and they had 6 viewings Saturday. Agent said lots of interest on Saturday, but as yet none of the other viewers had called for second viewings or to discuss further, so hopefully that means no one was sat round the dinner table on Sunday mentally planning where they Christmas tree would go (like I was ) desperate to call first thing Monday.
Phew, forgotten how crazy this house buying lark is.

@MajorClanger123 how are things going? Hope you have a positive update!