Risk of annoying EA with too many viewings?

[DespairingInLondon]

We're FTB about to start looking and the process feels a bit daunting and unfamiliar.

Our search area is fairly small (within a short walk to our school), so we'll be dealing with a small pool of EAs and a small pool of suitable, stupidly expensive properties.

We don't want to just settle for something we don't love but I worry that we'll annoy the EAs and get blacklisted if we view a lot of properties and seem too picky. Is this a legitimate worry?

How many houses did you see before making an offer?

We were looking in one specific area and told the agents we would want to view everything that came up within our budget as we were very open on layout, work needed vs no work etc. I think it’s pretty standard? As it was we only saw 4 places as we loved the second one (which we didn’t like at all on paper!) but we have continued to look at everything if nothing had appealed.

I think you'll be fine - you have a small search area and sound reasons for it being small. As long as you are in a solid buying position (good deposit, mortgage decision in principle) then they will just want to sell you a house!

We didn't view that many, but did a lot of research/analysis of Rightmove listings and so discounted a lot of properties without actually having to view them.

OMG I have been looking since March. Was in a chain, pulled out of the Purchase (problems with survey). Competed my Sale. I am still looking. I don't care about annoying them, they annoy me enough, ha ha. But I am in London so there are loads of (annoying) EA, I hate them all :-)

If you are in a good position, and are not wasting time don't worry. I saw 40 places as a FTB (but in a tight radius of about 1/2 mile, all similar properties) - no one got annoyed/accused me of timewasting. This was some years ago

Looking at 10-20 properties with various agents typical ESP as a FTB (for later purchases, buyers are often working on a more specific list). It can even play to your advantage having seen properties with agents as they will be aware of you when the right property comes up

I only viewed one this last time. But I did a LOT of careful looking at online information, the listing, the area, streetview, EA's plans, maps, and measured up aerial photos.
Even before t'internet the most we saw for a purchase was 3. One wouldn't do when we saw it because ithas an odd layout, which you'd know now from plans- back then all you got was a polaroid and an A4 sheet of info. One we offered on but it was a surveyor's nightmare, the third we bought. But I had waded through piles of EA's A4 sheets before we found those 3.

Proper research saved me wasting a massive amount of time on houses that would not have worked for us. And it saved vendors wasting theirs, and getting their hopes up of a sale only to be dashed.
You ought to be able to narrow it down a lot if you use the info that out there these days.

I viewed 83 houses. Probably across 10 EAs.

As long as you're a serious buyer and give clear, honest feedback, I wouldn't be concerned. This is one of the most expensive purchases you'll make.

I think you get a gut feel within the first few minutes of a viewing. I'd didn't bother looking upstairs in a few houses and didn't go inside a couple. I didn't waste the EAs time when I knew we wouldn't buy those particular houses.

Agree with @BlueMongoose about looking at floor plans. As a FTB, I did not appreciate how stressful it is to get a house ready for viewings, & you can tell a lot from the plan/photos, but I think that was a learning process for me

I also wouldn't worry too much. EAs want to be able to show that they're getting people in for viewings to prove to the vendors that they're doing a good job.

I would actually be more concerned about annoying the vendor of the house that you end of offering on as it's more likely that that's where it will fall apart (bitter experience of selling two houses to first time buyers). If you want to minimise the chances of this happening you need to:
a) Read up on the process if you feel unsure about any stage of it
b) Be completely on your solicitor/mortgage company and know what the next stage of the process is, when it can be expected to be complete and who owns the action
c) Ask as many questions as you can up front, otherwise it can really delay things and is stressful for all concerned especially vendors who are also managing their own onward purchase as well.

I don't mean this harshly, it's just my experience and there's every chance you won't be like that at all. It is worth remembering though especially if you're in a real sellers market like most places are at the moment.

As long as you've read the particulars and been sensible in what you want to see, then you'll be fine. What I mean is, note how many bedrooms they've got, whether its on a main road or not. It's very annoying for the seller if you go "oh we need more bedrooms than that etc" You're the buyer here!

Yep - as long as each house you view has no dealbreakers that you could see from the particulars, then it's fine and nobody will be annoyed.

On the other hand, one of the many reasons we got rid of our last agent were because they were sending round people who weren't even on the market (we asked for "proceedable only" due to being a neurodiverse family with four children and we both work long hours), people who had elderly relatives they wanted to move in and we have three floors "oh, there are a lot of stairs", another one who said they would want to extend the place but they only wanted it for five years so they weren't going to bother, and the best one of all - somebody who actually wanted to buy something in a town 20 minutes drive away with no direct public transport.

I figure if our agents felt it was okay to send round that lot (all 20 of them spaced out and no sensible offers, three months of utter stress and hell) despite our requests, then you're certainly not going to be annoying agents if you've done your due diligence on each place you want to view!

I wouldn’t worry about annoying the EAs. We really had no idea what we wanted as we were going from a flat to a much larger house & initially looked at everything in budget.

If you’re like us you’ll be fed up after about 7 viewings (it takes up a lot of time) and you’ll also become very good, very fast at calibrating what you want from a floor plan, aspect and location. Once we had calibrated our desires we only needed to see 3 more homes.