EA's, viewing and Covid rules

[Burnthurst187]

Hi,

I've called three EA's in the last week to try and organise viewing three different properties. Not sure if relevant but all EA's and houses are in the same small town

Number one said I can't view unless my house is for sale

Number two said I can't view unless my house has sold

Number three said absolutely nothing and that I could view next week

I then searched on Gov.uk and it states that if you're a serious buyer who is likely to make an offer on the property you can view, that's me!

I'm really confused. I'm considering calling back the EA who said I have to sell my house before I can view, the house I want to view is empty

Can anybody shed any light on this? Have you spoken to EA's recently, what is their stance on viewing?

Every EA we have spoken to in the last few weeks has been the same - we needed to be able to proceed straight away and there was always a long delay on the viewing.

Viewing could only be max 2 people for 20mins, masked and not allowed to touch anything (in an unoccupied house.)

I think estate agents (rightly so imo) are limiting viewings to those who are proceedable, it's the only concrete way to demonstrate you are genuinely in the market.

Sellers do not want an excess of people in their house who aren't able to buy now, due to covid risk. The agents we have been viewing with have been wiping down door handles etc after every viewing (and not letting viewers touch anything) so they only want to have to go through that faff for serious buyers.

It's having an interesting effect on the market around here though: the pace of the market suggests it should be a seller's market. But because everyone selling either has something they want to see (bit has to sell to do so) or is only suffering viewings because they really want to move it's actually more of a buyer's market than you may expect.