Anyone had an offer from someone who has never viewed their house?

[Pixiedust1973]

That basically! DH & I received an offer tonight from someone who hasn't viewed the house! They know the area & its their absolute maximum apparently so they thought they had nothing to lose. They're good buyers because they're chain free, & want to move first week in March! Sadly the offer is too low. We reduced the house very low in order to sell quickly after our chain collapsed & simply cannot afford to drop 55k off our original asking price. Our EA is going to ring round the chain tomorrow to see if the other 2 parties can drop 5k each, then if we drop 5k on ours we can swallow up the 15k we need to enable us to proceed! Everything crossed!

Yes. We sold our last house to someone who hadn't viewed it. He was buying to let it out. He knew the sort of houses in the road . He knew the houses had been part of a self build co-operative originally and had a really good reputation in the area. He was on good terms with the Estate Agents who know he was looking for a property like ours, so, when our sale fell through and it meant the chain would collapse, they must have mentioned it to him and he bought off us without viewing it. Very grateful we were too, as it happens.

However, that is a different question from "Should we sell to cash buyers even though they want £55K off the price we need, which is already reduced from the price we wanted?" Obviously, how much £55K is as a % will come in to your thinking, but if you aren't buying and selling in million pound territory, then that sounds like a very cheeky offer indeed, which most of us wouldn't be able to absorb.

Yes, she was a total time waster and had no idea about basic life, let alone the house or the area. We declined, she was an idiot and the offer was an insult anyway.

I haven’t personally, however when we were looking to buy our first house we came very close to doing this a few times out of desperation. Almost all of the houses in our price range were STC within a week of being listed, (we viewed for nearly a year) and there were a few times when we considered just ringing and putting in an offer then actually making a decision after we got the chance to view.

We never actually did this, as we realised it would likely waste everyones time, but I’d still be wary of it myself especially if houses are selling quick in your area/price range.

The house we eventually bought came on the market on a Friday, we viewed Saturday and come Monday we were in a bidding war. If they’re FTB they may well be in the same mind frame as we were.

were sold STC within a week*

Interesting to hear from someone its worked out for BackforGood I'm gutted the offer isn't higher. I do feel like we reduced it far too much already. I'm not talking really expensive property. It's in an expensive area, so you don't get much for your money. Priced it realistically to start with at 425k & accepted an offer at 389k only because we negotiated a significant reduction on an ongoing purchase. Unfortunately this left us in the position where if we lose this house then there is literally nothing else we can afford. When our buyers lost their buyer we remarketed at offers over 400k, which ia a complete bargain considering comparables are on at 440-450k. Yet still people take the piss. We've had 2 offers at 370k, which we simply can't accept, & now this one at 375k, which if everyone reduces 5k we could end up getting around the same as the first offer, as we're on with Purplebricks, so saving 6k in agents fees. Everyone gets what they want, in particular the cheeky buyer!

My friend has just accepted a cash offer on her house and the buyers are not bothering with a survey.

I did. Recently bought a house on my ideal street for a bargain (grew up in the area, know it very well) and had to make an offer without viewing as I was out of the country and it would've sold quick; its a 4 bed detached on the nicest road in the area priced incredibly low due to it being, frankly, a shithole. That doesn't matter though cause I'm knocking it down and rebuilding

Ive cash bought a property & not had a survey done myself Namethecat, but I did look at the house. Offered the vendors 10% under asking price direct. Was really awkward but worked out ok.

Good work there blaaake

I don’t know if people are taking the piss though if they’ve only seen the property advertised at the new price? I’m in the process of offering £325K as a starting point on a property that’s on the market for £360K. It’s been sitting unsold for a year. The estate agent was quick to tell me that it was originally priced at more. That’s irrelevant to me. And the property would obviously have sold if it had been marketed at the right price!

Thanks OP! wish I could say it was going as smoothly as I made it sound, but that's more to do with local cunts busybodies objecting to my planning application rather than the way I bought the house!

My friend bought a house that they'd previously lost out on. So when it came back up for sale they put offer in without viewing. (effectively they had viewed it just not when it was for sale that time)

I get nervous when things seem to be too good to be true (chain-free, want to move fast) and alarm bells start ringing. Has your EA checked them out to see if the claims are true?

If you cant afford to accept it, you cant. I think whatever the price, buyers like to have a discount from asking price. So when EAs convince you to reduce and tell you thats the price theyll get, its always a lie, theyll always phone you with a fantastic offer, thats - guess what- lower again!

Personally Id be suspect that actually they were offering just so they got it off the market and had no intention of actually committing to buy without viewing it.

I agree with @Sunnyshores - a few years ago we kept missing out due to a fast-moving market. When a great property came on we tried to offer without viewing but the EA refused saying they had a policy against that. Obviously this was when the market was more buoyant but the principle remains.

Good luck @Pixiedust1973 - it is truly miserable buying and selling (we've just done that and don't plan to move again for a very very long time!).

I'm wary of cash buyers as they have a lot of power and can be quite bullying and threatening to existing chains (no ties to a property) we had one who didn't do a survey and they kept threatening to pull out we ended up having to move out earlier than planned to complete their purchase of our house which was a massive pain and expensive but they said they would pull out if we didn't

Yes. They were from out of town and had requested a viewing when they were in the area. It was short notice and I was sick at the time so we couldn’t accommodate them. They later put in an offer without seeing the inside. The EA recommended against accepting, and we had an offer from someone else so we went with them. We wanted to sell to a first timer rather than someone who was buying to let, so it worked out for us.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable selling to someone who hadn’t viewed the house unless there were very unusual circumstances.

Bought our house without seeing it! And that was in the days before Streetview!

As an ex estate agent, this happened a lot. (Good buy to let area)

A family I know put an offer in without viewing. They really wanted a house in a particular area and had missed out on one of the same style before. So when they spotted this one advertised, they moved quickly, offered and ended up buying it.

I wouldn’t accept a much lower offer though!

Our agent rang the person who made the offer to see if it was a mistake & if they really intended to offer on a house they haven't seen. Apparently the offer is the highest they can go to & they know the area, the type of house & the fact that its priced competitively to sell so thought they'd try their luck to see if we would be able to accept it before potentially wasting our time in coming to view.

This morning our EA was on the case & trying to get everyone in the chain to come down by 5k, & even seeing if other EA in the chain would potentially reduce their commission fee a bit to enable their vendors to reduce. No such luck!

We did have another viewing today though from someone else who knows the area & the style of house. He actually lives in a rented house in the next street, so can't complain its too small because he would of known what to expect before he arrived lol. Fingers crossed!

My oh bought our house straight away. Not without a viewing strictly because he had gone round there to make an offer but we would have bought it anyway as it ticked so many of our boxes! I didn't view it til much later.