House for sale - question about viewings

[susan198130]

We put our house on the market with an estate agent that a lot of people recommend. I've never sold a house before, so just wondering if this seems normal.

The house went onto rightmove and a few other property websites on Friday morning. By 3pm on Friday afternoon, we had 14 viewings lined up for the Saturday a week later. I was a bit skeptical about making these people wait over a week to view the house as they could easily find another house in this time, but the estate agent said they like to do block bookings like this because it drives competition. So it's like one in, when they leave, next one goes in.

Anyway, so after the 14 viewings being booked, we've had 4 cancellations and only one additional viewing booked in since. It just seems odd that we got all those viewings booked in within the space of a few hours and then only one additional in the following 6 days. Is that what normally happens, that the majority of viewings get booked in straight away and then it fizzles off?

I mean the reviews I found for this estate agents were unbiased (well I'm almost certain they were anyway), I found them by doing a search on a local facebook parents page, but there's just been a few things that I'm pretty sure he hasn't followed through on. First, he told me that they like to list properties on Wednesday evenings because this seems to be a good time, but then he told me he would list it on all the property websites on Thursday. It wasn't on any of them by 10pm on Thursday night so I messaged him, he said he'd uploaded it to the portal so it might be a delay on their end, which doesn't add up because it didn't go on any of the other property sites either, and I'm guessing they don't share the same portal. Also, he said our house would be advertised on all of their social media, it hasn't been.

He also said that they do a walk through video of your house and 360 (I'm sure he said you get both), but we just got the 360 video.

This isn't one of those fixed fee agents or pay upfront ones, it's a percentage of the sale, so he doesn't make any money off me until if/when my house sells, plus he uses an external professional photographer to do the videos/photos, so he must have to pay out for that, unless they have some kind of agreement with them.

I don't know, I guess it's just the viewings that's making me wonder.

Hi, yes this does seem normal to me. The estate agent is right, they will normally want to wait a week so that they get enough enquiries that week so they can have a busy "open day" and create some competition amongst potential buyers. If they did viewings straight away, it would be one viewer that day, another the next, another the next. Not only difficult and time consuming for the agent (hard to hear i know) but it won't creat excitement. We went to an open day last week and people were queuing out the door. 9 offers and I think it went for £50k over the asking price (we put £40k over and weren't in a chain and were rejected!) might not have happened any other time!

Ours wanted to put ours on the market on Boxing Day as it's the most popular day of the year, and not do viewings til mid January. I said no because I thought that was too long a wait, so he put it on New Years Day.

In terms of people cancelling, people probably will cancel if they have to wait a week, but you don't cancel if you have a good feeling about the property. Take comfort in the fact they probably wouldn't have offered anyway - I don't think it's a problem.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on! X

It's the "new normal" estate agents are doing all the viewings at the moment and most have "Saturday boys and girls" (actually the ones we encountered were at the other end of their career) to handle the viewings (during the week the office based staff nipped out to do viewings). I didn't like it either. The reason for lots of interest on day one is everyone searching on their books will have got the information on the "new house"

I’m in Scotland where the sellers usually do the viewings rather than the agent, and I’d expect to be able to view a property within 48 hours of contacting the agent. Fastest turnaround from enquiring to viewing was for the flat I’m in now, and that was 20 minutes.

Serious buyers will have email alerts set up so most bookings are taken within 1-2 days.

An open day is a great idea. You can prep the house for the day instead of faffing about with accommodating daily viewings. It also means that offers come in on Monday and can go to best and final by Wednesday or Thursday midday. At least that’s what happens in my area.

Wow kittenpeak, that's crazy! I'm definitely not expecting any £40k over the asking price offers, but fingers crossed it does create a bit of competition that isn't the result of people just getting carried away in a bidding war and then withdrawing their offer!

I think I just base it on what I'm like, I'm quite impatient, so having to wait over a week to view a house would bug me. The estate agent I'm using, it's the guy that owns the company that is doing our viewings so at least I'm confident we have an experienced estate agent doing it, and they do seem to be very highly recommended.

I think I just feel a little anxious about it, plus there was a very similar house that went on the market the day before ours and has already sold, and their asking price is £20k more than we're asking. Well, we're asking for offers between £400k and £425k, but I'll be shocked if we get near the £425k.