Buying before on market

[Ihearyou22]

Hi everyone,
Looking for thoughts. Very early on our journey and saw a house we love, we aren’t yet on the market and would probably take us a few weeks to get ready. We want to put an offer in (accept that it could well be rejected) as the house closes this week. They are moving to a new build so looking for a 5-6 month handover. We have a mortgage in principal and the deposit will come from the equity on our current home. I want to do it because if it’s a no then my mind is at ease, gives us more time etc but if its a yes do you think this is a silly thing to do?

Many thanks

Depends what part of the country you live in possibly, as I know in my area you cannot even book a viewing if your own property is not even on the market.

They would be mad to take their house off the market if they accept your offer. They’ll probably say, “yes fine but come back when you are under offer with a completed chain. In the meantime ours will stay on the market” or something similar.

We did it, but we are in a very hot area and could be confident our house would sell quickly. We offered with the provision that the seller could go to other offers if we didn't have a buyer within 6 weeks. We sold our house less than 2 weeks later.

As above although it is fair to say that the market has changed in the past few months.

Sold 2-houses in the past year (ours & late parents) and in both cases you didn't even get a viewing without being either a cash buyer or sold and living in temp accommodation.

As I say, market may have changed.
As a minimum I would expect them to say they accept your offer but will leave it on the market and see if anyone more ready to proceed comes along.

Cool, thanks I think they have other offers which is why it’s going to closing. If our offer is rejected it just puts our mind at rest as it wasn’t meant to be. The agent said to us they are looking for someone who hasn’t sold yet due to the wait to move. Felt it was maybe worth a shot. Properties here tend to be under offer within 10-14 days rarely seen longer than that so selling doesn’t worry me but would like my house to look it’s best before hand.

Whilst they may be happy to entertain offers from people not yet on the market I suspect they would expect it to go on the market once the offer accepted and not a couple of months down the line.

Tbh I would completely understand. Think we’d be ready to go on in 3 weeks, 4 weeks max. Probably leave it and hope something similar comes up soon. A lot of pressure to get organised when we both work full time and although we would power through and we have family on board to help it’s probably just not the right time. We have been back and forth about what to do for the best. Feel that as they have other offers it allows them the opportunity to reject ours if they wish. Just unfortunate timing what’s meant to be and all that! Thanks for taking time to share opinions and insights. Good to get them from people we don’t know rather than our family.

What have you got to lose?

No reason not to give it a go!

Putting your house on the market with the same agent might give them confidence that yours can sell fast.

🤣 oh no! After reading the replies I was thinking we should leave it and you have come back with this 🙈 DH is off tomo so will have another proper discussion and see what we decide! Anyone know if we can get them out now for valuations before we are photo ready? With it being a bank holiday not going to be able to contact anyone till Tuesday.

I know several people who have offered before being on the market and successfully bought. It works if you

• have a desirable property/ in a desirable area and will go under offer easily
• sell with the same estate agent as the on going purchase (provides more reassurance and obviously gets estate agent on board).
• move to sell immediately. So not waiting to get get house spruced up etc. Vendor will want to see evidence you are committed to sale your property immediately. You are proceed-able until you are under offer and who knows what chain you could be in so they'll want that established asap even if completion isn't for a while.

Realistically if they have a good offer from someone in a position to proceed they are unlikely to choose you so you won't be able to haggle on price.

We got valued before being photo ready - we didn't make any major changes, just freshened some paint work - and just let the estate agent know our plans. I don't think it made any real difference to asking price, but I definitely feel it helped us find a buyer quickly

I might be as the above posters have stated.but if so what have you got to lose by trying.they can only say no.
but they could discuss it,here your story and think differently.

We did it, they left it on the market but were happy to consider our offer and keep us informed of other offers in the meantime. We had listed and accepted an offer on our house in less than 10 days. The agents of the house we offered on then fucked us about so much we withdrew our offer and had an offer accepted on a different house instead, bur proof it can be done quickly.

When you say you need a couple of weeks to get the house ready for listing, what really needs to be done? We took a weekend to declutter a bit and give it a good clean and tidy the garden then listed it looking like a family home rather than the spartan box/show home often touted on here as the only way you'll ever get an offer. We had 7 viewings and 2 offers, one at asking price and one above, within 4 days of listing. We went with an independent agent who is very well reviewed locally and who proposed a slightly lower asking price than other chain agents who I felt massively overvalued the house (and all the - overpriced - houses they're marketing on our estate still seem to be up for sale weeks later with no progress). The agent photographed it when he visited to value and had it online within 48hrs. If you're in a fairly popular area and have a decent property then I don't think there's any need to take weeks over it the way lots of people do on here, nor did our agents who advised us not to waste time painting etc. (Although we did touch up a couple of areas and ysed a magic eraser on some scuff marks). If you want to put an offer in on a house and have it taken seriously then I wouldn't take weeks to titivate your own property before going on the market. Put the graft in over the next couple of days and get the wheels in motion now.

I made an offer this week on a place despite mine not being on the market. We were met with a cash buyer who was willing to pay more and so our offer was rejected. I wasn't massively surprised but I suspect most sellers would go with a cash buyer over someone not yet on the market.

BUT our offer was at least taken seriously.

Thanks for all the input, will share with DH and see what we decide. We were meant to have a tiler out last week who let us down and it’s a job that really needs to be done as a few damaged tiles. Need to enlist someone new and get that done. Got a half done paint job too but other than that it’s simply cleaning/tidying. I could be way overestimating time frame but concerned about getting a new tiler out quickly. May get them out to value and say we know this needs done and it will be done in next week or 2 type thing. Will contact their agent and see if he will take us on in the hopes it does take some fear out of it for the sellers. I didn’t think of that as an option but I definitely see why that would be helpful in this situation.

We are in the process of this as looking for a very specific property which is very rare on our budget.

Our offer was accepted with a 2 week grace period to sell our house. We did that but unfortunately our buyer is in the same bought. Our vendor has given us another 2 weeks for that to be sold.

Although it helps that the property we want is niche and will only be suitable to a small percentage of buyers which is why they’re willing to wait I suspect, as have been on the market for a while and reduced with not a huge amount of interest - they just want to see we are progressing.

Edited to add; in between our first and second viewings (which were about 10 days apart as it’s the other side of the country), we had our house valued and photos taken so it was ready to go on the market as soon as we made the offer.

So we had our house valued and proper visit this weekend arranged to get us on the market. As suggested we (so far) are heading down that route with theirs so thanks for the tip. We put in an offer today for what we could afford, I doubt it was enough. Just the wait now to hear back and see how it goes. If successful great we will steam ahead onto the market. If not we will still go ahead but at our own pace. We are no worse off as we love our home and have just started to look. We hadn’t planned to move just yet but was always on the cards for later. Once you start though you get the bug!!

I think it depends on your area, so maybe speak to the estate agent? Where we’re looking, the agent won’t even let you view unless you are under offer or chain free

It doesn’t seem to matter here at all, one of the houses we viewed was for an online company and when I phoned was a Manchester number. She did mention that if not on the market don’t usually get viewings but when she checked where we were looking and our address she booked me right in. Properties go very quickly especially in my specific area. Always sold in no more than 2 weeks even ones that need some amount of work done. I’ve spoken with 2 estate agents and they are coming round to value. So will see who we fancy going with. One of them has given me a valuation over the phone (their agent) based on photos when we moved in and prices in the area but I feel he was over valuing us which has put me off. I’ve a fair idea of what houses like mine go for and feel he was trying to get us to up our offer!