Is this normal when your house is up for sale?

[homeandstay]

Light hearted.

Pulled up to my drive today and a couple are trying to look into our garden (it's hidden by a garage), when asked if they're ok, they've said they have booked a viewing for Saturday and just wanted a sneak peak.

Second Lady yesterday asked if she could come in and have a look and was taking pictures of the front garden 🤣

First time sellers.

Not sure if it’s normal but we’ve just put our house up for sale and I’d be delighted if we had that much interest!

I do walk slowly past the house we’re planning to buy quite often and have a good look but I’d never set foot on the property uninvited.

I drove past my first house afew times.

Not brave enough to try and look in garden.

I think it’s normal for people to walk past/ drive past slowly to try to get some information ahead of the viewing.

Not normal to ask if they can come inside though! If it’s being marketed via an EA most people respect that you want viewings to be booked through the EA.

I have had an offer accepted on a house and check on it at least once a month (sellers are taking forever with their stuff) but in my case its stood empty so I'm not spying on anyone.

Normal to drive past the house at different times if the day to see whether there’s parking, etc, and I think a photo (from pavement) is okay. However, actually intruding on the property is not

It's how we ended up selling our last house! Had viewings who were meh - the old tales of the wrong number of bedrooms, tyre kickers etc... and I happened to be sat at home, Saturday morning, in my PJs under a duvet while DH and the kids were out at an activity - I'm not joking - a whole family suddenly appeared peering through the windows at the front of the house.

Since they'd seen me and knew I was obviously in - I had to go to the door to see what they wanted, ended up doing an impromptu viewing and cash offer on the table by the end of the day via a very very bemused estate agent wondering where the hell the offer had come from.

In our case I think it was an influx of families from Hong Kong into the area looking for a street where they could buy multiple houses for different family members and we had a couple up for sale in the same street.

Fairly normal. People get pretty over excited and nervous about buying a house. It's a lot of money.

Yes - I’ve known it happen. We’re on the market right now and I’ve actually had someone look into windows because my car wasn’t on the drive…
They were alarmed when I started talking through the Ring Doorbell!!

I know someone who had a drone flew over the house just to see the garden and rear access etc. They bizarrely admitted this to the EA when they viewed.

In a nutshell, yes.

When we have bought locally we have always conducted a few casual walks and drives past before viewing to check out the road/neighbours etc

You’ll always get some CF that oversteps though!

I would find that intrusive & creepy if I were the home owner.

Would still sell them the house though 😜

We had quite a few people do drive bys and walk bys at our last house but it was really obvious as we lived at the end of a cul-de-sac.

Pretty standard behaviour, fine as long as they don't actually come onto the property.

If I was genuinely trying to sell a property and had the time to spare, I'd probably offer to show them the garden and put the kettle on for a brew. They know you're not ready for a viewing booked for Saturday, but if you're all serious about buying and selling there's no harm in having a brew sat in the garden and chatting about the house and the area.

I did a few drive-bys when house hunting. It's nice to get a little lay of the land beforehand.
In the case of one property that was clearly empty, I parked up and had a little peer through the windows and the back gate.
The house I'm in the process of now buying is still occupied, and I'd never dream of doing that!

When we bought our flat (FTB) we often walked over to just have a look at it. That was after we'd had an offer accepted.

We definitely walked past houses we wanted to view to get a feel of the area & neighbours, but we wouldn’t have dreamt about nosing into the garden etc (we didn’t even look through the windows as we walked past).
Not long after we went up for sale someone hovered a drone above our garden, which I’m pretty sure was someone just being nosy..I wasn’t impressed.

Doing a walk or drive past is totally normal.

This is how we bought our third house. Drove past a few times, and walked a few times looking onto the drive, and chatted to owners who invited us in.