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Original poster

If you viewed houses before yours was on the market…

61 replies

Floopdifloo · 04/10/2023 13:41

…how serious were you about selling?

Somebody has booked in to view and I’ve just found out their property isn’t even on the market yet. I’m just wondering if it’s worth all the effort of getting the house spotless or whether I should just cancel it and tell the agent not to allow anyone to view who isn’t on the market at least.

Just to add - I have a disability and making my house like a bloody show home multiple times a week is absolutely exhausting.

If people just want something to do rather than being serious about buying then I’d rather cancel, but I wanted to see if anybody has actually ended up buying a house after viewing in this situation?

OP posts:

JustWimpy · 04/10/2023 15:51

Jessforless · 04/10/2023 15:43

I’ve bought and sold three houses and always found where I wanted to go before I put mine on the market. It was finding the house that made we want to move, so I don’t think I’d ever do it the other way around.

Same here. Have bought a few times after hurriedly putting my house on the market after viewing something I wanted. Many people only decide to sell if they see a house they really fancy first.

Beangrove · 04/10/2023 15:58

We will potentially be viewing before we have sold and we are very serious - the issue we have is that houses on our estate get snapped up really quickly, and the place we are looking is a small village with houses only coming on the market occasionally. Previously we've always sold, rented for a bit and then bought as a chain-free buyer but the rental market is so crap with hardly anything available either here or there, it's not an option this time.

I do fully recognise though that makes us less than desirable as buyers, and we might lose out to FTBs or other who are more proceedable, but there isn't much we can do about it. We'll just have to put an offer in and explain we will go on the market pretty much immediately if our offer is accepted, and hope for the best!

Oneblindmouse · 04/10/2023 15:59

I I viewed before putting mine on the market but I was able to pay cash and rent my house out if it didn't sell straight away. Vendor's agent was happy to let me view.However it was April 2021 when the housing market was crazy. Put mine on the market the day after viewing/offering on new house. 4 days later had open house and 4 offers. Moved in August 2021.

Jellybean23 · 04/10/2023 16:02

We were very choosy and knew it would take a long time to find our next home so didn't put ours on the market until we'd found it and had an offer accepted.

good96 · 04/10/2023 17:44

You could have an ‘open day’ on your house - and have viewers come in during appointment slots? More people potentially coming and possibility for an offer….
I’d do this on a Saturday if you can.

housedramas · 04/10/2023 20:15

I put mine on the market to buy a house that I'd fallen in love with. They wouldn't accept any of my offers and I found our now house which will cost me less long term once I had placed it on. Dream house is still up for sale five months later...

EmilyMay89 · 04/10/2023 21:07

We viewed one before we were on the market. Loved it, had the same agent out the next morning to do our valuation. On the market just over a week later and we managed to sell quickly and had the offer accepted on the house.

For us we knew ours would sell quickly and not much we liked had been coming up

Saz12 · 05/10/2023 00:28

Both times we've sold having already had an offer to buy accepted.

BUT thats because we had a very specific list of requirements for our purchase. If I was selling a fairly standard house in a fairly populous area, then itd be different. If you're selling an unusual property or very rural area...

lljkk · 05/10/2023 04:46

Back in 2021-22, friend went to lots of viewings, but then never sold. She mentioned her current rates is 1.9% until 2027 so she must have fixed in 2022.

I would like to know how many PP offered, got their offered accepted, and then accepted offer on own property within 10 days, did so in last 9 months. I get impression that rapidity would be unusual right now in England.

Roselilly36 · 05/10/2023 05:07

When we sold it was a very different market then, we were downsizing due to my disability, so I told the EA no viewings from buyers that were not in a position to proceed, after a few time wasters.

I can’t see why it necessary to have viewers that aren’t in a position to buy, when they have seen photographs, video, floor plans etc. when you have SSTC, then by all means view. This is what we have always done.

To view and offer before you have sold is putting the cart before the horse, you could end up very disappointed if you can’t buy the house you want.

Good luck OP I hope you find a buyer soon.

Netaporter · 05/10/2023 05:16

@Floopdifloo a lot of estate agents are trying to drum up trade at the moment so I’d be grilling them as to why they think you should do the viewing for these people? Ultimately, it is your house so you can decide what conditions you place on viewings.

Open houses are great if the property is not lived in IMO, but I think I’d be stressed with too many people opening up my cupboards if the EA allows a free for all….

EmilyMay89 · 05/10/2023 05:44

@lljkk mine was within the last couple of weeks

SoftKittyBazinga · 05/10/2023 05:52

We viewed our home before being on the market. But we had an EA lined up. Ours was sold within 2 days of our offer being accepted on the house we wanted to move to

Pamcakey · 05/10/2023 05:52

We weren’t on the market but dead serious.
We were looking for something very specific (this was the first house that ticked the boxes on paper in a year of looking nationwide) and we knew our house would sell quickly.

We made an offer and asked for a 2 week grace period to sell our house. We sold within that timeframe and moved in 6 months later.

Totaly · 05/10/2023 05:58

When we last brought the market was similar, some didn’t allow viewing unless sold. We never went back to those houses.

When ours went on the market it sold in a week.

Some agents called us to ‘now view’ and we refused. We didn’t want to deal with someone not prepared to put some effort in.

We didn’t mind mess or clutter despite the TV shows at that time.

Photio · 05/10/2023 06:18

It depends on the circumstances of the people looking. If people are looking for a forever home they may be sitting waiting for something in a specific location to come up, and then they'll be deadly serious about selling theirs to move. No point putting theirs on market until then.
Likewise with older people downsizing who may be waiting for a particular type of property eg. bungalow, ground floor flat etc

Holly2285 · 05/10/2023 06:23

When I sold my last house, I viewed lots of houses before putting mine on the market. Wanted to get a feel of the sort of property could afford and which area etc. Ended up deciding to buy a new build. Put my house on the market on a Friday, had viewings that weekend and on the Monday accepted an offer of asking price to the first people who viewed.

SuddenlyOld · 05/10/2023 06:24

Validus · 04/10/2023 13:54

We viewed before we had the house on the market. Essentially there would have been no point selling ours if we didn’t find somewhere we wanted to go.

We loved it, offered and were accepted. As it happened our sellers needed a bit of time themselves due to issues with their purchase, so the timing wasn’t an issue. We then spent a month tarting our house up. Our own house then sold within a week.

We did this too. Were looking for a year, viewed and offered on one on the Friday, ours went on the following Tuesday and sold in 2 weeks. We exchanged last Monday.

ShitMermaid · 05/10/2023 06:24

good96 · 04/10/2023 17:44

I am thinking of doing this.
Wednesday 12-4 and Saturday 10-3 for example it’s probably easier for my estate agent too. Less driving for them.
I only have to clean up my children’s Lego a couple times instead of 20 times 😁

eurochick · 05/10/2023 06:29

Very serious. We had already "sold" our house once but couldn't find anything to buy so the chain collapsed. We took it off the market until we found something, confident it would sell quickly again. We found a house we liked, quickly put ours back on and it sold in a few days, as expected. We are now living in the house we viewed without being on the market.

bluebird3 · 05/10/2023 06:46

We are in this position and very serious about buying but also have a specific set of requirements that we are looking for and rarely see a house that ticks the boxes. It's been 6-7 months of looking and we've viewed only a handful of houses. We have two small children and a dog and there is no way to keep our house ready to view indefinitely. Tbh it's quite cluttered - which is why we want to upsize. If we found 'the' house we'd go immediately to get a storage unit, remove half our contents to it to make ours viewing ready and then get on the market asap. Our house is in a popular location and is likely to sell quickly.

NoNeedToHurry · 05/10/2023 06:55

We viewed our current house when we had no intention of selling or moving! I am interested in house prices etc and often look on Rightmove as a hobby... then one day I saw a house for sale near us which seemed perfect for us and affordable which I never thought possible. So I rang the estate agent to book a viewing - honestly it was to see what was wrong with the house as to why we could afford it 😂
I loved it, we put ours on the market immediately, moved in about 8 months later. I still haven't worked out what was wrong with it and we've been here 5 years!

GCSister · 05/10/2023 07:07

We viewed before we had the house on the market. Essentially there would have been no point selling ours if we didn’t find somewhere we wanted to go.
Same for us.
I'm not putting my house up for sale until I find something better. I'm only requesting to view houses I'm serious about and my house is ready to sell ( had the pictures done etc) and I know it will sell quickly.

It's disappointing when we are refused a viewing, especially when the houses we are asking to look at have either been up for ages or are still up for sale 6 months later.

BungalowBuyer · 05/10/2023 09:52

In terms of tidying up, my experience is that once you're on the market (you've decluttered and done a deep clean) you have to stay fairly viewing ready, once I was ready for the photos I could get the house back into viewing condition without about 20/30 minutes of getting in from work, quickly put personal things away, vacuum where needed, litter tray in the car etc. and I'm not naturally a tidy person.

My EA clustered viewings as much as possible but second viewings in particular were done individually and short notice.

All that said I wouldn't have accepted viewings unless people were in a proceed-able position as we were keen to move quickly.

romatheroamer · 05/10/2023 11:31

I'm fascinated by this thread wondering where pps lived and were their houses fantastic? I've never sold really quickly and always waited until under offer before looking which does have its disadvantages. I'd prefer to do it the find and then on market way but not confident as pps of selling quickly. Thinking back, quicker sales were always in London.

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