Can't even get a house viewing?

[Mamaslave21]

How are people managing to move with the market how it is right now?

Where we are in the South East there is very little coming on the market. What does come on (as long as priced right) is selling within weeks. We have a house that is very likely to sell within a fortnight based on other houses that have gone to market so far this year. It's fully renovated and in a very desirable area. We are worried that if we put it on the market now with very little to buy, we will put ourselves in an awkward position. Rented accommodation isn't an option we would consider.
We feel that if the right house came up we could move quickly but agents are not even allowing viewings unless you are under offer. Is this how it is in other areas too? Since January, there have only been 2 houses come to market that would be a worthwhile move for us, but both garnered so much interest that even if we could view, we may not get the house.
Is this how things usually are, or is it just the current market?

You have to be sold first where I am. No-one will accept offers if you're not proceedable, and most won't even allow viewings... so we listed first, found a buyer, they agreed to wait until we'd found something, we offered and now we're waiting for our seller to find something. It's taken two weeks all in all so far.

Most houses here are selling within a day or two of hitting Rightmove...

It wasn't like this last time that we bought, but I'm not sure that it'll settle back down anytime soon.

You’ll have to go on the market. It’s just the way it is at the moment. If you sell yours before finding one, your buyers will just have to wait.

I think this is a chicken and egg thing. If you aren't under offer, and others are, why would a vendor agree to you viewing their house if it's a quick moving market and others are in a position to proceed with the sale. I'd suggest that you have t get yours under offer, and accept that you may have to go into rented / stay with relatives if the God of suitable houses doesn't smile whilst you're then looking for a purchase yourself.

We have no relatives here so that's not an option, and neither is rented due to pets.
My worry is that a buyer would not be willing to wait the 6 months or so that it could take for us to find somewhere. We want to upsize in the exact area we are in now so it's a waiting game for something to come up at the best of times.
It was so much easier the last time we moved when we didn't have children and schools to consider.

And this is exactly why we may see lot of collapsed chain this summer when someone in the chain has not managed to find a place to move with buyers down the line already waiting for months as they had to be under offer before offering.

Yes we had to be under offer ourselves before anyone would seriously consider our offers. We're up north, popular city.

I think this is the basic problem with the property market at the moment. Nothing on, so no one lists their own, because they're worried they won't be able to find anything, so nothing comes on. And on it goes... Such a pain!

Just go on the market and be clear about what your circumstances are, and that buyers will have to wait for you to find something to buy. In a hot market and a desirable area buyers will wait- we've had buyers wait for 6 months whilst we found something to buy, so it is do-able.

It's exactly the same in the NW, hardly anything being listed at all and no viewings unless you have sold STC.

Where we are, you can get viewings through some agents (although not all) if you're not under offer. But you can't actually place a bid if you're not under offer, and properties are going so quickly that it's sort of pointless to view things really as by the time you've got your house sold the one you wanted will probably be gone.

It's a tough market right now!

My worry is that a buyer would not be willing to wait the 6 months or so that it could take for us to find somewhere.

We worried about that too... and we managed to do a few viewings with an EA that didn't mind us not being sold yet, but they wouldn't accept an offer from us until it was.

So far, our buyer has been lovely, and we've been fine with waiting for our seller to find somewhere to move to. There's a little bit of me that's worried that he won't find anywhere and will pull out, but we've all agreed not to start paying for solicitors/searches etc until the chain is complete, and so far everyone is happy waiting.

The properties we would be waiting for are generally probate sales of houses that require everything doing. If we could even get a viewing of one we would know if we are wasting our time or not. We could sell our house having never set foot in the type of house we are waiting for and then find we actually don't like them in reality. Such a waste of everyone's time. Unfortunately, in the area we are there are only 3 or 4 different styles of house of which only 2 are bigger than what we have.

We are in a similar position. We have sold our house (as we had to to view anything) and still haven't found anywhere months later. We are looking for something very particular and wanted to find before we sold but due to Covid you can't do it that way round now.

Our buyers are being patient but it's getting to the point where we will either lose them or we will have to sell and rent. I think we will likely sell and rent, despite really not wanting to, as I would hate to miss our ideal property because we are not proceedable

What I did in a similar situation was not to list but look for properties that online ticked the boxes.

I'd go and look externally (drive by) a couple of times at different times of day to check I wasn't missing anything obvious (traffic/parking issues/neighbouring property well kept etc).

When I found one (my current home actually) I rang up the estate agent said I was very interested - so much so I'd list my house with them "today" if they got me a viewing.

They asked some reasonable questions about my current property and agreed it was "desirable" and would sell quickly.

Got the paperwork sorted with the EA that day and a viewing the next even though my house wasn't officially on the market yet.

Put in an offer directly after viewing which was accepted on the basis I sold mine within 6 weeks (which I did - actually 2 weeks).

Moved in 12 weeks later.

Key to this strategy is being very, very focused on what you want.

It won't work if you're dithering over xyz features/locations.

You also need to do your homework on the property you want to buy because it's not a tactic you can use repeatedly.

Unless there's a very good reason to back out (something serious re: survey) you've got to commit or you'll find yourself blacklisted by the EA.

Unless there's a very good reason to back out (something serious re: survey) you've got to commit or you'll find yourself blacklisted by the EA.

Ugh, this worries me.

We put an offer in last week, and that same night I downloaded the Land Registry info to make sure there were no stumbling blocks - ex spouse's charge on the property, horrendous easement, that sort of thing. The flood risk came back as very high. 1 in 30 risk per year sort of high. So we had to email saying that we wouldn't after all be putting in a sealed bid against the other people offering, and were withdrawing our offer (attaching the Land Registry flood risk report, as evidence we weren't just being flakey). The agent was clearly pissed off, but what choice did we have? I'm worried tbh that they will just not take us seriously in future, but I will also be interested to see if the other party, now the property is listed as 'sold', pulls out when their solicitor does the same searches. Not even sure a house with that sort of risk is going to be accepted for insurance, these days.

Next time, I'll run the searches before making any offers.

DeRigeurMortis We thought that tactic might work but the agent wasn’t interested at all. Unfortunately the properties that have come up that would work for us have been on with the same agent. This agent refused to come and value our house a few months back unless we guaranteed going straight on the market. That was just before things went totally crazy.

We have narrowed down where we want to be to two streets basically already.

@perfectstorm if the bidding hadn't yet progressed to sealed bids I doubt the EA will hold it against you. I think it's only a real problem if you have an offer accepted and then pull out, and even then you might still get away with it if you do it quickly (not if you wait until the week before exchange!)

Two streets! That's a very narrow search. If that's where you want to be then perhaps you can send a note to those properties and see if there is any interest.
Otherwise you need to list and hope for the best, or it may be best to pit a move on hold for now

We are in the opposite position...
We’ve bought but can’t sell ours...
One agent says that houses are selling within weeks but I’ve looked at their website and the only ones that are selling are the underpriced ones..
Anyone want a lovely house in Bedfordshire countryside? 😉

Some one has to be willing to end the chain. I am moving some distance for my daughter's school. I went under offer so immediately started viewing and had an offer accepted ten days later. Unfortunately, despite assurances from the agent that the vendor would go in to rental (which I asked again before spending £1000 on a survey), she now says she will not, so now I'm faced with missing the stamp duty deadline and having to rent, as I am not letting my buyers down and do not want to be dependant on buyer's timescales. This is difficult as I have dogs too. But someone has to and I'm willing to - some landlords do allow pets, or worse case it's kennels. I just wish my vendor felt the same (I have offered to share the stamp duty saving if they would move in to rental). I am also looking on rightmove in case another property comes up, but none has.

Very common to require you to be under offer- it was common even before Covid but more so now. You say it would take 2 weeks for your house to sell, but you don’t know that and neither would your seller. If you’re serious then you need to get your place under offer and then be honest with your buyer/ find somewhere ASAP/ be open minded about renting if they won’t hang around. There are places that take pets etc (I rented recently with a cat and 3 kids). Just try to complete outside the July/ August peak season.

If its only two streets you might as well just leaflet all the houses and hope to get one off market.

Yep , where we live you have to be under offer before you’re allowed to view a property
The prices have gone through the roof here , and anywhere decent goes within a week

This is a problem if you let it be....,.a fast market is a great time to move but you have to commit. So many people talk about moving.....but are playing with the idea...which is why EAs pick the visually serious buyers and sellers.

Try moving when houses take 9 months to sell. Then you manage a sale and it falls through and you needs to wait again etc.

The decision is how much you are prepared to do things that don’t exactly match your ‘wants’ v how much you want to move.

I would suggest your location search is so precise and researched that you don’t want to compromise that......so consider what you will compromise ie renting, listing and asking buyer to wait etc.

Finally I am not sure the stamp duty holiday is doing any buyers any favours. It’s a cost but if you were offered 3% saving on an oven would you rush out tomorrow? When stamp duty comes back I am sure prices will soften back to post Covid levels when the real market was softening anyway.

List, tell buyers the position....get yourself in a position to view and offer...no harm in doing that at the least 👍🏻

I'm quite surprised that agents round here haven't been requiring that. There is very little available in our price bracket and having lost one chain because we couldn't find anything we wanted to buy we are trying to find something first.