Viewing not possible unless your own house is under offer?

[NotonMyHighSt]

Is this the case always?

One of my adult DCs is moving (house about to go on the market within days.)

They want to view various properties but agents are saying on, unless theirs is under offer.

Is this how it is now?

Years ago, we always viewed/ offered/ then sold ours (on the basis that it was taking longer to find ourselves new home than sell an existing one.)

I full get that viewings take time and vendors don't want time wasters but....

I think it started with covid, estate agents would only spend time with people, face to face when they were in a proceed-able position, it was gov guidelines during lockdown.

@Lupee

You have the option to go into rented until you find somewhere. But you cannot be waiting for someone else to get their house on the market, do viewings, get an offer they like etc. That holds the entire chain up.

Not for us! Worked perfectly for us last year :)

Wakeduplockie - it's been that way where I live since at least the year 2000. I'm glad it works for you though.

It's been like this in London since long before covid. I remember this from the when we bought our previous house in 2016.

in my area it is like this at the moment. Most estate agents are leaving it up to the vendors to wether they will let you view if your not on the market. Although manning staton is a blanket no where we are. if I ever do put my house up first I will not use them.
I find it frustrating as I had valuations back in January and we held of then as there were just no houses and we still haven't seen one so if we had put it up then like the state agents wanted we would have had to take it off again and mess whoever had wanted to buy ours.
a neighbour recently had to put theirs up just so they could view a house. they didn't like the house and took it back off market later that week. It's crazy.

Was last time we sold in 2017 and is more so now I believe. You aren't proceedable if you've got to sell your house, so no point showing you around.

Its nuts.

A big problem with offering first then selling is that most people’s budgets are dictated by how much they are offered for their own property something you can’t really know if you’ve gone to market. If you don’t get enough for your existing property the temptation is then to ask for money off the new place which ricochets up the entire chain. When the chain is built from the first buyer up everyone should already know that their finances hold up because they already know how much they’ll be getting for their existing property and how much finance they will need.

Very interesting thread. We've never started viewing until we were under offer and would regard viewers who were "just looking house not for sale" as time wasters. But seems in a minority! Of course, this has put us in the position of buyers agitating and going for not all the boxes tickers just to find somewhere.

This happened to me 20 years ago and I was a bit annoyed. My house sold a few days later and I admit we didn’t bother ringing back to see the house that hadn’t let us view a few days before. In those few days we’d seen about 12 houses and were happy with a couple of them. Maybe I’d have liked the other one better, who knows. And it was still on the market months later so I think the vendor was a bit daft.

It's not just having your house on the market with a buyer in place, having already moved out and be living in temporary accommodation is the new normal and is what is increasingly expected.

Sold our house earlier this year, buyer was "sold" and about to move out but this turned out to be a lie and they didn't even exchange on their sale for another eight weeks.

Currently selling my late parents home, went through the "best and final" offers with the EA yesterday and only those living in temporary accommodation with all the finance in place are even making it onto the list. Twenty viewings, offers from most with ten of these being over the asking price (all but one being families with no overseas buyers or investors in sight!).

It really is a dog eat dog world out there and you have to make yourself as attractive buyer as possible.
We are moving into a new build and I thought that was tough, buying privately is far worse!

The system is ridiculous , many people only want to move if they find the right property. I do not want to put my family under the pressure of having to rent or the financial pressure of paying rent. We have a house that would sell quite easily ( or so we are told) but have not put it on the market because we know so many people who have sold but can’t find anything to buy. I know that by not putting it on the market we are part of the problem but we can’t take the risk. Also with prices rising as fast as they are there are people who accepted an offer 6 months ago which is now too low for what they want to buy.

A house around the corner which might suit us came on on Tuesday, now has 2 offers , and several more in the pipeline .At least one person making an offer hasn’t even seen the property, apparently it’s now common to do this and then back out later if it’s not the right one. This house has a number of quirks which you would only know about if you view and which as we live only a few yards away we would be ok with but people have lost their common sense.

We sold our house, I told EA I wouldn’t have any viewers that were not SSTC, couldn’t see the point. You always sell first, then look, in a strong market, otherwise you are setting yourself up for a whole lot of disappointment. EA are really busy so they won’t take you seriously.

This has always been the case where we live. When we were viewing houses before we moved to our current houses they wouldn't allow viewings unless we were SSTC so even worse. We did sell our house very quickly but we then felt in a huge rush to find something

It makes perfect sense to me.

One of the worst things is offers from people who aren’t proceedable, or from who it is unclear if they are oroceedable.

Being proceedable means you have a buyer and you have the finance in place, as either a cash buyer or a mortgage offer in principle. These things also should be evidenced to the EA, plus the name of the solicitor you will use.

Once these things are in place, an offer can be accepted and the process moved along. There are still risks and chains can break, but there is the possibility to actually progress.

Without a buyer, viewers cannot be taken seriously. Sometimes they aren’t even on the market. It can take weeks ir months to get on the market and to get an offer, and then that offer might be from someone who hasn’t sold too. So everyone expecting the person buying to have an offer is simple and sets a standard which is simple, understandable and allows chains to progress.

The alternative could be you have an offer accepted by X. However, you then take 3 months to get an offer on your property. So the sale of X and their purchase of Y cannot proceed. And then when you finally get an offer from Z, they haven’t got an offer on theirs and that takes another 3 mo this…..so you’re actually 6 months from any progress in the chain, assuming Z has an offer.

People just need to plan ahead. They shouldn’t expect to decide to move and then to go viewing next week. They decide to move and get their property ready and market it and apply for mortgages. This could take days or weeks or months. It’s the prep work. Only when that’s complete they start viewing.

Most people who’ve bought fairly recently understand thi is how it is….and it works when everyone sticks to it. In hot markets EAs will stick to it. No one thanks them for an offer which is accepted and then is still unproceedable weeks or months later which makes chains collapse and never get moving. It’s in cooler markets hat EAs desperate to show properties so they can keep their clients, will start letting those who aren’t oroceedable look.

Personally, if I were seeking I would always insist any viewer had a buyer and a mortgage offer in principle, if needed and the EA could verify those. Yes, I might miss out on someone who just might sell quickly and be the perfect buyer in a couple of weeks….but I could more likely avoid someone who makes an ‘empty’ offer, which means the chain collapses and I lose the hosue I offer on, because my buyer cannot proceed.

It's only the case since covid. It's frustrating.

We are on the SE, UK,even when we last moved 10 years ago, first question that was asked by EA was if our property was UO they would communicate with each other
Property here sometimes goes UO in 3 days
The tidying up,I can't believe how messy and untidy some peoples properties are. I previously had 4 kids at home,3 dogs,2 cats,etc,my house never looked like that.

@WombatChocolate I get your point but the market has reached stalemate and needs more property to come on to get it moving.

We are at the stage where we are moving from a property we have been in for 25 years. I know of at least 5 other couples like us who will only move if they find the right property, none of us have got our houses on the open market because we don’t want to just sell for the sake of it . Most of us have no mortgage or a small mortgages compared to size of property ( say less than 10% LTV) . We have family houses which are in very short supply.

Agents are actually telling people not to assume they can rent as there is no rental property either, anecdotally I know of one couple who spent 6 weeks in a hotel because rental is so scarce . A young couple in our village are now 8 months post accepting an offer on their house, they found a house to buy but now their vendor can’t find anything so is likely to take house off market. They don’t want to accept their buyer and rent because see above and rents are around 3x their mortgage payment do they are likely now , after 8 months, to take theirs off the market.

If more people were allowed to view, more houses might come on the market . In the area we are looking of 20 mile rural radius there are 6 detached houses with 3+ bedrooms , they all have issues. There is massive pent up supply as well as demand

If we were allowed to view then we might put our property

@YukoandHiro

It's only the case since covid. It's frustrating.

No, it was the case when we bought in 2017. The market was extremely fast paced, so no point showing people who hadn't sold.

Peaseblossum22 but if I have several proceedable people wanting to view, I won't bother letting an unproceedable person view. I won't accept your offer, because you can't move forward. Why would I wait for you to get your house market ready when I've got others who've already accepted offers?

The market here is very fast paced, several offers for each property.

In lots of ways we are similar to you, we aren't willing to move for any property and properties in the bracket were looking for are few and far between, but we accept that we have to have an offer on ours before we could buy.

As I say I understand the point but I think EA should be a bit more flexible . My dm sold to two people who apparently were proceedable but both lost their buyers. She then accepted an offer from some people who knew the house well who were completely honest that they would only put their house on if they could have hers . It went very smoothly although slowly.

She bought as a cash buyer , initially EA wouldn’t let her look because her house wasn’t sold . They would not budge untilI rang them ( with her permission) and told them that no she hadn’t sold but could still write a cheque for the asking price that afternoon if they wanted her to.

For the record we haven’t sold but are still able to buy. Most agents are just obsessed with whether we have sold our property though. I have people every week putting notes through the door asking if we want to sell. We did sell a few years ago but couldn’t find anything to buy, we pulled out. It wasn’t pretty and I’m not keen to repeat the experience .

HRTT but no it is not always the case. I have just bought a house without mine being under offer. Ours went under offer about two weeks later. We listed it as soon as offer accepted.

It’s absolute BULLSHIT that some estate agents won’t allow this. It would really help things at the moment.

This thread proves it’s not a blanket rule. In some cases it will come down to the seller rather than the EA of course.

Also what is ‘proceedable’ no one is really proceedable unless they are a cash buyer. Just because they have an offer on their house which may or may not conclude . A local EA was telling me that not only is there mad buying there are also a very high number of sales falling through, so you can never really know . He also advises clients not accept offers from anyone who hasn’t seen the property first

We always moved into short term rental before buying a house. Being able to move quickly with no uncertainty always helped us secure the house we wanted , even if we were not the highest bidder.