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?

We did this - weren’t thinking about moving and out perfect house came up.

We made an offer and said we’d get an offer on ours in a week (which we did). It all worked well because a FTB bought ours, so a short chain.

I’d much rather have an offer from someone who loved my house with a tiny chain, than someone who had ‘sold’ there’s but had a large chain.

It all depends on the market / how quickly your house will sell and who to.

No, I wouldn’t. Neither would I allow a viewing without your own house on the market.

No. Used to be Normal to do this years ago and we bought before we sold. Now, I wouldn’t entertain a buyer who hadn’t sold. If, where you want to buy is in a good location, I’m afraid others will be far better places than you for a sought after road or two. I’m afraid you might be the most risky buyer. I would sell and be prepared to rent.

Is it more of a thing in England to have sold your property before looking at another? I’m in Scotland, in a very fast paced market and we had no problem viewing and putting in offers even though our property wasn’t on the market(sealed bid system). When we did have an offer accepted ours went on sale the following week and sold within 24hrs. I’m always surprised at people saying they would refuse viewing just because I’ve never encountered it here. Not criticising of course, just noting the difference!

@Reggieflow I think the increased inclination to refuse viewing if not already sold is in part driven by not wanting lots of people in your home during a pandemic (and agents perhaps only wanting face to face if proceedable). It’ll be interesting to know if it becomes more common place in the future. I confess when we saw our dream house I did say we could proceed without sale of our current house because I thought they might not let us look if not.

That makes sense. I wonder too if it’ll become the norm. Rentals where I live are very hard to come by. Throwing pets/school into the mix and it’s nearly impossible here to get a tenancy for under a year. The sell up and rent plan isn’t always straightforward.

It does depend on whether it is a buyers or sellers market, and how fast the market is at the time.

The ‘no viewings unless you are a ftb or under offer’ thing round here has been because the protocol for viewings during COVID have included the vendors being out of the property, for example, and all viewings done by the EA. The stamp duty holiday has caused a very fast market and no one selling has wanted to eat around for a buyer to sell.

But in a slow buyers market a seller would do well to snap up an interested buyer and hang in to them.

No, never.

Would consider you a waste of time.

@paisleybandana

So... What on earth do you do if you've accepted an offer on your house but then you can't find somewhere else to live? Especially if you live somewhere with few rental properties?

You have two options. Either pull out of the sale or move into rented. Rental properties are few & far between where I live too but with a wide enough search area and a few months notice you'd get something. Doesn't have to be perfect as hopefully you would only be there 6 months.

Well I’m glad the previous owners of my house did.
We weren’t even thinking of moving house until we randomly checked rightmove. Fell in love, booked a viewing, had offer accepted, instructed estate agent selling the house to put ours on the market and a week later we had sold.