Offering etiquette?

[PanadTe]

Is it okay to make an offer on a house when your own isn’t even on the market?… With the view of putting it on if offer is accepted.

I wouldn't take the property of the market until yours had sold if you offered on my property. You are not in a good offering position. Get your house on the market so you at least look like you arr doing something. Especially the way the current market is.

It's fine to offer, it's just highly unlikely to be accepted

Unless you are in a proceed able position and don’t rely on your current house selling to buy the new one then the chances of your offer being accepted are very slim. You can contact the estate agent but at the same time I’d also be getting them or another EA to value yours to get it onto market.

Some vendors won’t even accept offers if the house is on the market and hasn’t sold. Delays the process.

Thank you.

We have someone coming to value ours on Thurs, to go on the market asap.

I’m just hoping the one we like is still available. Also hoping ours goes quick as we’re in the most sought after part of the village and 3 have recently had offers within a couple of weeks.

If the sellers are sensible they won’t entertain an offer from anyone not in a position to proceed.

They probably won't accept your offer but if is a decent offer they may be prepared to wait for you. That would prevent anyone coming in with a lower offer but is further along than you being the only offer on the table.
It completely depends on their position but if I were you I would contact the estate agent with what you intend to offer and let them know yours is going on the market soon and as soon as you are proceedable you will be offering xx amount

So essentially your offer would be "we'd like to pay £X at some time at some completely undefined time in the future, and even paying that much is probably dependent on what we have decided our current property is worth and god knows how realistic we are. We also can't give you any information about how long a chain we'll bring with us if we do ever proceed on the purchase. Of course, we will have every opportunity to change our minds and negotiate down from this price later in the process. You, meanwhile, can take your property off the market, refuse to let people see it, even if they are ready to buy, and you lose the chance to sell it to anyone else who can move faster. And if we fail to sell or change our minds, you just have to start the whole process again weeks or months later than you intended."

Is that an offer you'd accept?

this is interesting, because as a buyer, i wouldn't make an offer on a property in this market unless the seller (in a chain) had already found their next property. chains are falling through, or the seller is taking several months to find their next home, and many buyers are becoming put off by this.

Have bought & sold quite a few houses now and there's no way an EA would advise their client to accept an offer from a buyer who hasn't sold their own house. You will not be considered procedable.
The best you can hope for is that they say thanks very much, if it's still on the market when we've sold then it's yours (they will only do this if it's asking price or above of course)
This puts them in a really good position in the meantime to negotiate other potential buyers upwards. They will be telling everyone they show around that they've had an offer.

Far better to get your own on the market pronto at a sensible price so that it sells quickly.

That’s not how it works though. Some people won’t even let you view if you haven’t sold.

I know it's not how things are done traditionally, I understand the pain. But in all honestly, this is what me as a buyer is feeling and we aren't looking at chains, completely put off. Most people we know are. Some people I know are waiting months for their seller to find a house, still nothing. Some buyers are pulling out, it's not worth it especially after spending on surveyor and searches etc. It needs to change somewhere otherwise no one will get the chain moving. Might as well work down the chain for once. Personally, I am not spending money on a house with a seller who hasn't found a property yet when I know that in this market it is likely it will cost me time and money.

@froyoisyuck I agree it can be frustrating but it's not going to change any time soon. You'd be better selling and moving in to rented while you look if you're worried about chains. We ended up doing this. Not ideal but made things a lot more straightforward.
Alternatively you can test out how serious your seller is by asking them if they would move into rented if they weren't able find a new property within a reasonable time frame. People shouldn't be holding up chains for months on end.

Well then you’re not going to find a house to buy unless you go for a new build.

We viewed properties before we sold and had an idea of the one we wanted but couldn’t offer before we knew how much we’d sold for and were proceedable. You can’t work down the chain because if you haven’t sold you can’t know your budget.

Well if you put it like that!!…. 🙈🤣

You can make the offer, but I wouldn't accept it until you were procedable. We're viewing before we've sold but we just plan to tell any houses we love that "if it's still on the market once we've sold, we do plan to make an offer"

There's no real benefit to offering before you've sold. Offering before you've sold yourself gives the seller the upper hand, in that they know you're very interested and they can use your offer to get other people to offer higher.

And if it takes you another two months to sell and the house you like is still on the market, do you want to be tied to the same price you offered now?

I’d say it depends on the market where you are and where the vendors are in the selling process.

We as vendors are currently under offer while our buyers are marketing their house. We’ve given them a certain amount of time to make progress. They have already appointed a solicitor and are moving forward with enquiries, in order to show us that they are serious.

The house we’re selling is well priced but pretty niche. We know our buyers love it. We’re also fed up with cash buyers or let-to-buyers who think they have the upper hand and make cheeky offer after cheeky offer, or who suddenly reveal that they will actually have to get a small mortgage, or indeed sell another house. At least we know exactly where we are with the current buyers, and we’ve been honest with them.

i think a chat with the EA (fingers crossed it’s a good one) would be in order.

We had our offer accepted before being on the market, but it was because the seller knew that our house would sell quickly due to school catchment areas. We were on the market within a week and sold within a week of being on. Moved 6 weeks later.
In Scotland so don’t have a ridiculously slow property buying/selling system!

Exactly! Sorry @PanadTe. I hope you manage to sell yours quickly.

Yes, just word it appropriately.

Tell the agent you want the house, happy to pay xx and are putting your house on the market specifically to buy this house and hope to wrap it all up as soon as you have a buyer.

Are you putting yours on the market with the same agent? This would help!

Unfortunately not as their EA is moving away from urban sales and focusing on rural.

That's a good thing to ask actually, I'll try that (regarding them moving to a rental). The thing is, as I've just discussed with my partner, they can say they will, but don't actually do it. Personally, i would go as far as making an offer with the condition that if accepted, we won't start the process until they've found a property. I think that's fair. Others may disagree I guess. Agree, it's all completely frustrating though!