Would you accept an offer from someone who didn't yet have their property on the market?

[Dawnofanewera]

I'm in a bit of a twist about this one.

Currently living in a perfectly nice house (a bit small but enough for us). Want to move a bit closer to preferred secondary school but houses local to their rarely come up for sale. Anytime one comes up it goes really quickly in a matter of days. I'm reluctant to put my house up for sale until I've found a house on one of the selected street I want (near the school) If I found a house I would put ours up for sale immediately within days and willing to price competitively so it sells quickly. But would you if you were selling be prepared to accept my offer if my house wasn't yet up for sale?

No, I probably wouldn’t. I might say the offer price is in the right sort of price range but I would not accept until you were on the market. I would then know how realistic you were being.

No I wouldn't entertain your offer. If those houses sell quickly, I imagine they will only consider offers from people who have already sold (or are at least under offer) or cash buyers.

No, I wouldn’t myself.

No, I wouldn’t. I’d assume you weren’t serious.

Could you get all your photos done etc and then stick your house on purple bricks the instant you see something you want to view?

No. Sorry.
I also think you’d struggle to get a viewing for another property. IME estate agents want to know what your position is before arranging viewings, so that they aren’t wasting their time with those that just want a nosey (I’m not In any way suggesting that this is you!).

No I’m afraid I wouldn’t either, especially if there were other potential buyers ready to go

No

No way.

We accepted an offer £12000 lower (about 5% of asking) from proceedable buyers and that was compared to buyers who were on the market.

Absolutely not especially if your house wasn’t even on the market, sorry

We’ve been in your position and the seller gave us three weeks to get an offer on ours. Which we did.

Nope.
I wouldn't entertain an offer.

No definitely not. I had a few offers on my house from people in this position and declined them all.

Are you sure you would be able to view properties? I find the first question agents ask when you request a viewing is, Have you sold your house?

Oh wow that's a unanimous no then! @reefedsail that's a really good suggestion I will look into that. I just don't know how to proceed as I don't want to give up our near perfect house and then be stuck with something we don't want

You don't have to give up your house. Just be honest with potential buyers that you haven't found yet and not to start instructinf searches or surveys until the chain is complete. And if you don't find anything to buy then drop the whole plan and stay put (assuming England)

And another No from me.

You can always put yours on the market but make sure everyone knows you don't have anywhere to buy yet: they can decide whether to put in an offer or not.

We sold earlier in the year, our estate agent wouldn't even entertain people who weren't on the market for viewings let alone offers, as our house is also in a desirable school area.

Likewise, our vendor had received offers higher than ours but we had sold so they accepted ours based our our position to proceed.

No. But in your position, I would ensure I was 100% ready to go on the market and explain to the home owners that I really want their house & that mine is going on the market the same day with the intent to buy theirs. Some may pause marketing for a week or so.

What would be the point? When people put their houses up for sale it's because they want to move, not wait for months for someone else to sell. And I've been in your position, certain that my house would be snapped up because the road was so popular. It didn't, and we came off the market.

I wouldn't. My husband and I don't have immediate plans to move but we've already agreed that if we do decide to move, we'd probably try and sell our house then go into somewhere rented until we find somewhere we want to buy. A few of my friends are moving house / have moved recently, and it's just been crazy. One of my friends was in a situation at least three times where they were offering the highest bids, but were being rejected in favour of buyers who had already sold their house or were already on the market. There have just been so many stories of houses selling so fast, sellers are just trying to cut down on as much potential hassle as possible!

I would provisonally accept but wouldn't take my house off the market or put it as SSTC so others could still view it, and i may accept other offers. As soon as you had sold i would then take off market

We had 2 offers from people on the market but not under offer themselves. We thanked them for their interest but were quite clear we couldn't consider their offer until able to proceed. Both claimed they would be under offer within days. Neither were.
I wouldn't have taken seriously any offer from someone not even on the market. Sorry.

If you are dead set on quite a small area and houses rarely come up there, I would move into rented and then be ready to pounce.

No, I wouldn't. It might take you months to sell your house, all the while the seller would be stuck in limbo. We had an unprocedable buyer offer on our house and we told them we would be happy to accept their offer once they had sold but we wouldn't be taking our house off the market in the meantime. We had an offer, got to exchange, chain fall through, resold and got to completion before they even got an offer on their house.