House viewers who are not on the market yet

[Timeoftheday]

We have been on the market for over 2 months. We have had fairly decent number of viewings, around 20. This includes week days and weekends but no offer. Half of them were people whose properties were not listed and weren’t on the market yet. I am confused as why so many people are booking house viewing even though they are not yet listed. Could someone please explain why is this allowed and could we speak with the estate agent about this. We are in north east London. Thank you

I would let them view. My DM sold her bungalow to one person who had sold. 4 months later, and still no exchange, she pulled out. A lady who hadn’t sold, but viewed on the open day, came back with a better offer and she now had the money in the bank as she had now sold. Property sales are rarely quick but don’t burn any bridges. Let them come and ask EA why they think there are no offers. Usually price?

Simple answer. Many people don’t put their house on the market until they know there is a house they want to buy.

I once viewed a house, loved it and so put my house on the market. Within 2 weeks I had accepted an offer on my house and got an offer accepted on the house I wanted.

Speak to the estate agent if you want, but trying to restrict who can view your house like this will reduce your chances of selling.

@Doris86 There’s a huge weakness in that argument though: lots of sellers will not take you seriously! They probably won’t accept an offer as our friends discovered recently! It’s putting you at a serious disadvantage if you really want “that” house. The best well priced properties do sell and vendors can find people who are well placed to buy. Our friends priced to sell and did so very quickly. The property they wanted was still available due to adverse survey reports. They are able to go ahead but a property that’s well priced and perfect for several (or even one) purchasers in a strong position to buy won’t be hanging around for ditherers.

We have done this, we knew we wanted to move, but not much suitable property was coming on the market, so we got our house ready to sell, and then when we saw something we actually wanted to buy we were able to put our house on the market straight away, priced to sell. Conversely, in the past we’ve done it the other way around, and put a house on the market before we’d found somewhere to buy. It took months to find something suitable to buy, and we very nearly lost our buyers. In a market with not much coming up I’d concentrate on making my house as appealing as possible, but wouldn’t actually market it until I was confident I would actually be able to buy something else!

I always say to the agent not to show it to buyers who are not proceedable.

My flat is going up for sale next week all going well, but I'm viewing a house later today! I don't expect to have any difficulties in finding a buyer, but I'm not going to put in any offers until I have one myself, that would be foolish.

I’m sitting in a house we offered on when ours was not on the market.

We had already had one chain fall through because we couldn’t find anything to buy. We took our house off the market but I kept an eye on rightmove and spotted a couple of interesting houses. One we couldn’t get an appointment to view (they didn’t say it was because we hadn’t sold but I expect that was it - the estate agent just never followed up for a viewing) and one we offered on immediately. We got our house back on the market and it sold in a few days.

I saw a removal van outside the house we wanted to view many months after we moved in here, so they lost out by not letting us view.

Then why view?

Two houses were up for sale in the street we were interested to move to in Aug 25. We hadn’t put our house on market but we had had our photos taken and had signed a contract with an EA. House A ‘s owners refused our request for a viewing but we visited House B. We now own and live in House B and House A is still up for sale.

You can state you only want viewers that are proceed-able. It’s that simple- they work for you. It may cut out some potential people though, but it can be very frustrating when it seems people are just having a nose basically.

I also put an offer in without being on the market. Sellers gave us 4 weeks to sell and we got it done. Sold for less than we might have eventually gotten but exactly what we needed to get it all done so wins all around. The house we bought had been empty for a year though so they were very up for being flexible.

A lot of vendors will not accept an offer from people who haven’t sold. Definitely not from people who are not marketing. This is 2026. Few people are getting a quick sale unless they discount heavily. Last summer our friends next door neighbour sold for £465,000. Our friends have just sold for £410,000. It’s over a 10% price adjustment. Quick sales are a thing of the past unless you heavily discount and most people won’t.

We weren’t really looking to move when our current house came on the market, at least not immediately. But it came up on Rightmove and we had to see it. We put in an offer but didn’t even put our house on the market until our offer had been accepted (which took a while). The whole process was painful, as these things always are, and we did view one or two other houses while it was going on, but this was always the only house for us and we stuck to it through a lot of chaos. Been in nearly a year now and still love it. If the buyers are the right ones for the house it will work out.