Anyone else had viewings today?

[Chanel05]

I had 4 viewings today.

First time buyer, couple that have sold to a first time buyer, a first time buyer and a couple that aren't yet back on the market but they had sold and their sale had fallen through.

Anyone else had viewings today? How did they go?

Guess whose local farmers decided to do their muck spreading on our viewing day? 😂 We weren't holding out hope for this guy anyway but at least we know if he's still keen after that, he means it!

Well 4/5 showed up for our viewings from the camera activity in the garden and doorbell.

One of them didn't even come inside for some after speaking to the estate agent as they turned up late and there was another viewing going on and they didn't want to wait.... well be on time

Another one the estate agent said they were picking fault at everything possible such as a few weeds in the crack of the public footpath (its block paved) and a bit of 'messy' concrete near to the gas box where I've removed a dead plant that covers it. She even told me she's told them to buy a new build if they want perfect but they told her they cant even buy a 3 bed detached new build for the price of our 4 bed 🙄. I think they want the equivalent of the stay at the ritz at a premier inn price.

Let's see what Monday brings with offers if any...

I'm worried. Discovered today that there are five houses for sale in my village, three on my road, and at least one has been on for five months. The only thing that reassures me is that al the houses are different and are probably in a range of 125k difference.

Well we have an offer! Full asking so that's good. My concern is that apparently they ditched their last purchase just before exchange as they saw ours. What will stop them doing that again? They have only done one viewing on our house (for not very long), cancelled the 2nd viewing today and went straight to offer.

Second concern is that because their buyers were ready to exchange, everyone wants it all done by early september, and we haven't found a place yet!

@Maybenexttime08 well done and congratulations.

Sadly there is nothing stopping them doing it again and it grips my shit that people can get away with it having been a victim to someone walking away on exchange day for no reason. Don't be rushed by them, they put themselves in this position. Yes it's a bit shit for the rest of the chain but it's their actions that caused this issue.

@Maybenexttime08 their buyers their problem.
If you accept their offer I then surely the EA has told them you haven't offered on anywhere yet as you haven't found something that you like?
This is fairly normal, presumably they love your place to offer full-asking and to ditch their other purchase (which they presumably have spent money on surveys etc) last-minute and therefore jeapodizing their own sale?

No buyer/seller seems a 100% safe bet at the moment!

The story thickens. Apparently it wasn't them that ditched their purchase, but their vendor were not able to proceed.

However, they have agreed with their buyer that they will still exchange this week with a completion date set in September. Therefore they will be homeless if their purchase (ie. us) aren't able to complete on that date.

Seeing that we haven't found somewhere, that isn't going to happen in that time frame..

Luckily it looks like we have another offer so we don't have to worry about getting embroiled in this situation!

So I may have two offers coming (or may not who knows)

One person wants to talk it over with their family for their views and may do a second viewing if they are interested and then put an offer in (or not)

The other one wants to offer but the estate agent hasn't seen a DIP yet to see if they can proceed.

Little bit fucked off at the second one as I was told they 'qualify' all viewers before they view to ensure they aren't tyre kicking. Clearly this isn't the case...

When the EA says they qualify all viewers before they view they probably just mean that they ask their situation, but take their word for it.

Tbh I have never been asked before a viewing to provide proof that I have a DIP or proof that I have a buyer for my own property or proof that I can afford it or anything else. They tend to just trust what people tell them, in my experience. But at the point someone makes an offer then they have to do due diligence to check they are for real.

I totally get the process but but the EA told me that they always ask for a DIP and proof of funds to ensure they can afford the property if a FTB or a memorandum of sale and DIP if they are selling a property to save tyre kickers.

Estate agents are just liars to sellers as well as buyers

It sounds like your EA lied to you but outright lies has not been my experience (more like omitting to tell you certain things) so I guess it depends on the EA.

I've never been asked any questions by an EA before viewing - which always concerned me a bit!

We are buying and estate agent just asked if we were ready to proceed but didn’t ask for any proof or numbers before viewing.

Just joining those of you on the viewings journey.

Our house went on the market ten days ago, we had three viewings requested last Monday, to take place last week. All three viewings happened, all were positive about the house, two have decided not to offer, one wanted the weekend to think about it, and not got back to the agent yet, so assuming that won't come to anything. No requests for viewings for a week.

How long has everyone been on the market? And how many viewings have you had? We've not sold a house for almost 10 years, so no idea what's normal these days?

We went on the market in early March and finally accepted an offer yesterday. We had 27 viewings but I know that that is an unusually high amount to not sell faster! It does feel like things are picking up a bit round here (Sussex) and 3 viewings in the first week isn't bad. Good luck - hope you don't have to tidy the house too many times :).

@Yyfandes We've been on the market 4 months now with only 3 viewings (and obviously no offers). That's very normal around here, there are three other houses in the village in our size/price bracket that have been on a similar amount of time and not sold.

Congrats to those who have had offers and fingers crossed for those who have had recent viewings.
We’ve been on for just over a month. Three viewings in the first week with positive feedback but no offers and nothing since. Tumbleweed.
We’re in a small town where nothing much is moving at the mo. But still feeling pretty despondent about it all, particularly as we’ve only been here a year so were only just getting over our last experience of estate agent/survey/conveyancing hell… 😣

We had feedback from our viewing and I'm fuming about how time waster-y the guy ended up being. We knew it wouldn't be an offer we could accept as he wasn't even on the market, but this takes the piss:

"they thought the property was lovely however living in the city centre they would miss walking to the coffee shops etc. They have also realised that his partner who has a help to buy ISA can't be use it until January next year."

FFS, we live in the countryside. It's very clear if you do a second of research on the area that it has a corner shop and that's it. I'm not even going to mention how angry I am about the ISA.

@ClonedSquare I had the exact same feedback from one of my viewers. 'Where are all the shops?' Do they not even look at google maps before viewing?!

Argh.. had a few of these personalities ..

Selling a house makes you realise even more how ‘special’ some people are.

i wouldn’t even view a property unless I knew what was around the area, was willing to accept the differences in where I live currently versus where I’d be looking to move.

The worst thing about people like this is they have zero consideration for all the time they waste that belongs to others. Pure selfishness as well as a lack of common sense obviously inhabits that ‘special’ person.

@79andnotout I sent an email back to the estate agents basically saying that it's the person I'm emailing's fault, but we were really irritated to have our time wasted by people who hadn't even sorted their finances. Maybe if they hear that from seller enough, they'll start researching their buyers better.

I wish there was some kind of database to hold viewers responsible for their feedback. Like they said they didn't want ours because it's rural, so they could be flagged up if they tried to view other similar properties. Or the other time waster we had who didn't like new builds and wanted period features.

Obviously I know that's never going to happen but I can dream 😂

@ClonedSquare - yes unfortunately a few utter timewasters slip through the nets. Most of our viewers were not proceedable but were at least very pleasant, and were in the same boat trying to sell theirs. Selling at the moment is utter shit. We do have buyers but think they're getting cold feet so no idea what we'll do then.

Can't edit but obviously in my post I meant "NOT the person in emailing's fault"!

@79andnotout Yes, I can understand viewing while you can't proceed but I've just emailed the estate agent to say we won't accept any more viewings from people who aren't even on the market yet.

Hopefully your buyers hold their nerve. It's such a shit time on either end of the transaction at the moment, I can see why buyers are getting overwhelmed as well.

@AshRJ It's so frustrating isn't it! Literally putting the postcode into maps would show "oh hang on, there's nothing but fields for miles around this village".

I totally understand that it's a big jump from the city to our area. It's the jump we did when we bought this place! What we didn't do is go into it blindly and waste people's time. 🤬