Requests to Estate Agent selling house

[Blobby10]

I have an estate agent coming round tomorrow to discuss putting my house on the market. Am I shooting myself in the foot by asking for the following:

1. no viewings unless they can proceed ie no house to sell or house sale already agreed.
2. at least 24 hours notice for viewings
3. feedback - please call /message me within 48 hours of viewing, even if its only to say you can't get hold of them!
4. dont open the cupboards/airing cupboard or stuff may -will- fall out (I think I know the answer to this one)
5. please guide me how to present the house in a more attractive manner

Having been messed around hugely in every house sale I've done over the years, I really want to be the one in control this time. Am I unreasonable?

I think maybe by saying no viewings unless they can proceed will limit you a lot. Ideally yes you want someone in a ready to go position but not always possible.

We saw our dream house on a wim really. Friend sent me a right move link. Was a Friday and I had mine on the market by Monday am and 3 full asking price offers by COP that day. If people are serious they'll do whatever they can to be in a position to buy your house

Fair enough for 1 and 5, the rest make you sound a bit - hostile, really! I know selling a property is a stressful business, but you don't want to put potential buyers off by raising the possibility of being difficult to deal with (which is what I'd think if a vendor had a list of conditions like that tbh).

We just sold our house in under 3 weeks (London) and i had no stipulations like yours at all, I have been trying to be as accommodating as possible. But I suppose it depends on how fast moving the market is where you are.

We are house hunting in another part of the country and started looking before our house went on the market. We knew it would take us longer to find somewhere to live than to sell our house (still haven’t found anything) and I found it very obstructive if we weren’t allowed to view some of the houses because we weren’t proceedable at that point in time. We had seen one house before ours went on the market and were just about to offer on it last week only for the agent to tell us that the vendor wouldn’t accept anything under asking. Now that’s a different story but my point is that you may get viewers who haven’t sold yet, but who will sell a few weeks later and then make you an offer.

Our agent would send us feedback within 48 hours, this was very helpful, so you can always ask if this what they would do anyway.

We are seeing a house tomorrow where the vendor stipulated that children are not allowed in to view, and we had to wait over a month for the viewing - whilst the house looks lovely I am concerned that the vendors may be very tricky to deal with and this is putting us off the house already.

1. It is possible for a prospective buyer to go from not having their current property on the market to being under offer and proceed-able in a couple of weeks. Many parts of the country are experiencing a slightly tougher housing market than they have done for a while, do you really want to limit your options?

1. Not unreasonable, but perhaps be prepared to make the odd exception if a good prospect requests a viewing at short notice.

1. Always found feedback to be largely useless. People rarely tell the truth, and when they do many estate agents are too cowardly to pass it on to the vendor accurately.

1. Some viewers are rude enough to open cupboards without asking. Impossible to guarantee.

1. Keep it clean, tidy and clutter free.

Was it impeccable on the inside Puff? Is that why they didn’t want children round?

I wouldn’t agree with 1 or 4 (surely buyers will want to open the airing cupboard) but the rest seem reasonable to me.

For your first point you could explain that that is your ideal to the EA but that you will except other viewings if the buyers seem serious. Have it as a guide but not a rule.

Similarly to MintyPea, we saw our current house when the previous one wasn't even on the market. As soon as we had seen the new home, the old one was put on the market with several offers and we were proceedable within less than a week.

Cupboards can also be important as buyers might like to see the space available (applies to kitchen or airing cupboards and not furniture you'll be taking).

I think its reasonable, most estate agents are yes men so will agree to it all to get a foot in the door!

I would consider putting a camera somewhere prominent, we were not present at any viewings as we had already moved house but we were able to watch the viewings and it was fascinating to over hear what the agents said to the buyers and vice versa.

Littlelongdog, in my view it's a doer upper (haven’t seen it yet) but the agent said something about artefacts that the vendor was concerned about. It is an open day so if i was the vendor I would just remove the artefacts beforehand. We will take turns seeing the house so that one of us will stay outside with the kids, but I guess my point was if as a vendor you come across as difficult before people have even viewed the house, this can be off-putting for buyers.

I think its reasonable, most estate agents are yes men so will agree to it all to get a foot in the door!

That is a very accurate statement!

I would consider putting a camera somewhere prominent, we were not present at any viewings as we had already moved house but we were able to watch the viewings and it was fascinating to over hear what the agents said to the buyers and vice versa

Not sure I'd like that too much!!

Timeless19 err... did they know they were being filmed?

I would never buy a house that my children couldn’t view.
The first request will really affect who will come view.
I think 24 hours notice is desirable but you have to be prepared to make exceptions.
Feedback largely useless unless everyone is saying the same thing like ‘priced too high’!
You can’t not allow people to open doors to closets/cupboards etc - sort them out.
Definitely ask your agent this - in the US agents are very upfront about how you present your house. Here I can’t believe agents don’t tell the sellers to at least clean out the junk!

at the camera!

As a potential purchaser I would be completely put off from buying your house if I got wind of any of this. You sound like you'd be hard work to go through the process with and would be very demanding and controlling of the process, when I would prefer to deal with someone more realistic and easy going. I feel you would really add to the baseline house buying stress. Your house would have to be utterly amazing with no compromises to get past that. (Indeed, we didn't even view a few houses that were otherwise quite good because the vendors were so inflexible over house viewings etc).

I would consider putting a camera somewhere prominent, we were not present at any viewings as we had already moved house but we were able to watch the viewings and it was fascinating to over hear what the agents said to the buyers and vice versa.

Love that idea but I'm showing my own. Very few people have opened cupboards and then only in the kitchen.

I've always been given 24 hours notice whilst I was still living there but now the house is empty I'm not bothered. I can quickly dust in half an hour.

Most estate agents won't say a thing about staging in my experience.

The important things are
get rid of clutter
make sure everything is clean particularly sinks, windows, mirrors and toilets. And chrome or similar should be polished
get rid of clutter
make sure not to cook anything greasy or curry or fish etc within 24 hours
get rid of clutter
have the windows open where possible - at least before anyone comes so the place is fresh
get rid of anything that isn't needed and or beautiful
get rid of clutter - reduce ornaments to a minimum
depersonalise - one or 2 children pictures are fine but no pets and no adults
For the first week - if you can - kennel or cattery your pets and remove anything that says you have them. After the first week if you haven't sold at least see if you can have an neighbour or family to have them during viewings.

Make sure no furniture is in the way of moving round the house. Reduce furniture to the minimum you can, the rooms look bigger
Get rid of clutter

That's about all I can think of - and I'm selling. My house has sold and the buyer pulled out on the day we were going to exchange, so I have already moved.

Yes, I'd say you are shooting yourself in the foot. Truth is, I'm not prepared to put my house on the market until I see something I'm interested in as the market is slow.

Also, if I'm going to buy a house, I'm going to be opening your cupboards to see the size - I don't care what you have in there. A flat I lived in had what looked like a full sized cupboard from the outside but was actually only half depth on the inside.

24 hours notice for me is fine, as is the requests for feedback.

Our camera was sat on the bookcase in full view but we never explicitly told our estate agent it was there. I presumed they would be familiar with home security devices and clock it on their own time.

One of the reasons was that our agents knew we had moved out and I didn't want our house being used for secret trysts without our knowledge ;-) it wasnt! But also we wanted to check that the viewings that they said were happening were actually happening.

Some very interesting points of view and thank you to everyone who has responded. General consensus seems to be that those requests would be too much

@Pinnacular I have always been very accommodating in previous house sales and always ended up getting the real rough end of the deal so this time I really want to try and do things more on my terms ie completion date to work with my purchase so I don't have to move into rented (have had to do this for the past 4 house moves as I was desperate not to annoy my buyer but the people I was buying from couldn't have given a stuff about me)

The house will be clean, is freshly painted and tidy but I need some guidance on whether the more showy things - flowers, cushions etc are worthwhile. It looks a bit bland compared to others on Rightmove which look like they are presented more like a show home and 'dressed' to sell.

Re the cupboards - I do intend to sort them out ! It would never occur to me to look inside a wardrobe or airing cupboard when viewing a house - I would feel like I was invading privacy, I'm not saying its wrong I just find it interesting that so many people would do this.
Don't have a camera although it would be very tempting to install some in each room for honest feedback!

Please don’t ask for no 1. Everyone has to start somewhere.
If everyone stipulated that, the market would come to a standstill.

Ime- your estate agent will do what they want anyway, do you have anyone that could recommend someone.
You could ask to do the viewings yourself?

Completion dates are more the area for the solicitor, you can be firm there!

Having had breakages and damage caused by children during viewings in the past I can see the reasoning behind the no children request.

If parents can keep them from pulling things off walls, picking things up and bashing them on tables, or stop them opening private drawers it helps a lot, but many don't. I don't want them touching my belongings, they do it even as you are watching and expecting the parents to parent.

Completion dates are more the area for the solicitor

Not really, often solicitors have neither the time nor the inclination to get involved in sometimes lengthy negotiations over what completion date all parties are satisfied with.

If you've got a specific completion timeframe to work to the sooner it's communicated to others involved in the chain the easier it will be to accommodate.

The only thing we stipulated was only show people who were proceed able. Didn’t stop the sale from falling through tho.

With one agent we facilitated over 66 viewings (lost count after that) we later found out the owner of the estate agency paid his mate £15 to view houses...he booked him in for 3 consecutive weekends to keep the ‘stats’ up...they also showed people who loved the house but could only afford 165k when they had valued it at over 265k 🤷‍♀️ And forgot to do the ecp 🤬

I often did viewings with a couple of hours notice, however if I couldn’t make it I couldn’t make it. And if I had no one to take the dog out it just wasn’t always possible.

If I, as a buyer, were presented with a list of requirements to view a house, I would simply look elsewhere.

I would assume the owner was too difficult, or even deranged, to bother dealing with.

As for an Estate Agent, you are paying them, so really you can do what you like, within their terms and conditions.

@Malvinaa81 I wasn't planning on giving this list to the agent to show to potential buyers! It was just some things which I wondered if it would be OK to ask the agent as they were things which have really put a strain on me during previous house sales.

We are looking to move but don't want to be in a position where we are sold and then can't find anywhere to move to as there's not much coming on the market. So we've viewed a couple of houses that have come up that met our criteria and as soon as we find the one we will list ours and hope.

Not ideal but I know so many who have sold and not found anywhere!

If you stick to number 1 you could miss out on buyers like us.