A moan about waste of time viewings

[VintageFashion]

Just that really. House has been on the market 2 months. It’s well maintained, tastefully decorated (I know this is subjective) in a reasonably desirable area, priced more or less in line with similar properties in the area. I thought it would be an easy sell.
At the start we had a glut of viewings, then it’s tailed off to an average of 1-2 a week. We’ve had maybe 15 so far. None of these have resulted in an offer.
We’re busy working parents with a pet, so the house doesn’t stay show ready for long.
Each viewing (or set of viewings if they get several people in at once) requires hours of cleaning, tidying, mowing the lawn and weeding etc.
There are also all the logistics - make sure pet and child are out, commute to the office or rearrange Teams calls to accommodate the viewings. I keep missing my evening classes because there are viewings the next day and we need to clean.
I don’t mind doing all of this to accommodate people who are serious buyers, but it’s all starting to feel like a waste of time.

So far we’ve had the following:

No shows - cancelling (not rescheduling) an hour or 2 before the viewing, by which time we’ve already done the aforementioned cleaning/jugging of logistics. Or not even bothering to cancel, just not turning up and ignoring all calls and messages.

They like the house but are not even remotely proceedable - house not on the market and won’t be any time soon as still doing renovations etc

Don’t want the house because of things that are obvious from the listing or if they’d done some basic research eg doesn’t like the location (why view then), doesn’t like that there’s XYZ nearby (quick look at Google maps shows everything in the area), doesn’t like the hedge etc

Unrealistic expectations for budget - bedrooms too small (both are doubles with plenty of space for standing furniture), not enough parking, not enough space for large vehicles (there’s space for 2 cars, it’s a 2 bed terrace).

People who say they love the house, they’ll “discuss figures” with their other half, then disappear.

People who aren’t even the prospective buyer but are viewing it on behalf of their sibling/parent/son/daughter etc. Then never hear from them again.

This week has tipped me over the edge. Work is extremely busy and we’ve done the whole cleaning/rescheduling routine to accommodate a viewer who doesn’t like the house because it’s too similar to their current house and they want to upsize. Why are you viewing a 2 bed terrace then!!

I need a lie down and a drink I think.

i hear you Op. when we were selling a couple turned up to look at the house because they had put an offer in on a house round the corner and wanted to see our extension/ kitchen - asked them to leave !

You have my sympathy, we went through the exact same thing when we sold our flat last year, it’s a PITA when you need to clean up, put the kids’ stuff out of sight, make sure the kids are out etc etc and then the viewers turn out to be complete jokers. We had people repeatedly cancel (several times because it was raining and they couldn’t be arsed coming out in the rain apparently), people complaining about the stairs (when it was made obvious in the listing there were a lot of stairs), people who said they loved it but weren’t looking in our suburb (why the hell turn up then, not like I can move it to a different location if you like it), the list was endless. At one point I did tell the agent to screen the viewers more thoroughly, eg explain upfront that there are a lot of stairs and no lift before allowing any viewings, after a severely mobility impaired person turned up and couldn’t even make it into the flat, but the agents don’t seem to care if they’re wasting everyone’s time.

I sympathise.

I'd add though that I viewed three houses which had 'black marks' against them (as far as I was concerned) for reasons clear from the listing.

I wanted to see if the pros outweighed the serious con. I ended up buying one of those houses. Maybe the other two thought I'd wasted their time, because I turned them down for reasons I could have anticipated.

Having said that, I wasn't at all put off by the couple of houses where they hadn't tidied or cleaned, because I was looking at potential. I realise that's not how most people see it though!

Sounds a right pain.
Are you using an estate agent? If so you can specify that they only show the house to people who are first time buyers, cash buyers or have an offer on their place. You can also say they must only show round the actual buyer not some random relative.
If you're selling privately you can do all this yourself and also grill potential viewers about what they are looking for, and tell them if your house is wrong for them in some significant way. Your 2 bed cottage will not suddenly have 3 bedrooms just because that's what they need.
And/or, you could lower your standards, shove any clutter into cupboards or even into the car, and do a quick hoover rather than a good clean.

@bingocardOMG Is have been raging too. This is why we let the estate agent do the viewings, puts some distance between us and the fuckery.

@42wallabywaysydneyIm glad it’s not just us, was starting to think it was something about our house that was attracting the time wasting crowd.

@HowDoYouSolveAProblemLikeMyRearThat’s fair enough I suppose. Just annoying when it’s you at the receiving end of it.

@NewblackdressYes, using an estate agent. Have been toying with the idea of having those filters but at the moment we aren’t getting lots of viewings as it is, and I don’t want to lose out on a potential buyer (when we first viewed the house we felt it was too small also, but then decided we’d go for a right-for-now house instead of the big forever house and ended up offering)

@42wallabywaysydneyThough obviously sorry you had to go through the same nonsense. How long did it take you to sell in the end?

Sending hugs. It’s awful. We’re currently in a long chain hoping to move before September. We had someone ghost as well and it is just so immature! The estate agent was left waiting and never heard from them again. I would say it’s a very good sign that you get so much interest. I’m assuming you’ve reduced the price since listing as that’s a good way to recreate a buzz before the summer lull kicks in.

We had the exact same issue. Had about 20 viewings but no offers, not even anything under asking price. It very much felt like people were just browsing rather than seriously interested. The feedback we got from one of the viewers was that they liked the house, but wanted a detached rather than a semi 🤔. I was ready to tell the estate agent to restrict viewings to proceedable buyers only, but thankfully we did get an offer about after 6 weeks.

I think this is so the EA builds up a list of who they have 'introduced' to your property, so if you ever change EA, the original one will have the rights to the sale and commission.....somebody with a sufficient legal background needs to draw up a standardised contract so if your EA is crap you have the right to bin them off and they lose all rights to anybody they have shown around your house. This will stop the EA showing people that have mobility issues (for example) properties with stairs leading up to the entrance of a three storey house.

@VintageFashion Just be firm with your EA and ask them to vet clients, starting with those who have been checked as legitimately proceedable, if this is important to you.

I feel your pain. Took us over a year to get an offer on ours and the amount of time I spent cleaning and tidying (I have a young child and work full time) was so annoying, only to get the most ridiculous “feedback” after some viewings, eg “we can’t park our (massive) campervan on the drive so it’s a no from us” (it’s a town centre house and there are no houses below £2m in the centre of our town which would allow for this). Or “we’d expect an en suite” (you can see from the floor plan that there is no en suite so why view it if you “need” one?).

The whole process is very tiresome. And then you have to deal with the conveyancing process and all the delays.

Why not tell your agent that you will only agree to viewings from motivated buyers whose houses are on the market?

This honestly makes no sense. Why would an estate agent bother showing someone round an entirely unsuitable house in case that person, for some reason, buys the entirely unsuitable house from another agent at a later date?

OP, I feel your pain, selling a house is the most frustrating time and you don’t want to turn viewers away when you don’t have people banging the door down but people can be so selfish and don’t take into account the work that goes into preparing for viewings! No advice unfortunately, just sympathy! Hang in there and you’ll get your buyer.

It took about 7 months in the end, and then another 6 months to complete as there were several issues up the chain. Not what you want to hear I’m sure!

A lot of this is down to your estate agent. My agent made it clear if anyone was a no show they would not allow them to view any other property on their books.
He also didn’t book anyone in who wasn’t proceedable. If they had sold he took the address, if they were FTB they needed to submit their decision in principle and proof of funds before the viewing was confirmed.
I get this is harder in a less hot market, but even then if someone doesn’t even have their property listed it’s highly unlikely you will end up selling yours to them.

It's very annoying but seems to be common place at the moments as it's a buyer's market in many areas.
Just ask your agent to only allow proceedable buyers and make sure they check this properly.

Also, OP, be kinder to yourself. I’d guess some of what you’re doing isn’t necessary. We had our flat on the market for six months or so, with children, and ended up just sticking mess in the car boot before viewers came. The first flat I bought had laundry hanging out all through it when I viewed as it was last minute and the owner out at work. I totally get that you want to show your house off at its best but you’re looking at it with more critical eyes than most viewers will.

Arrange an open day?

Remember, if people are pressed for a reason, they will often make something up rather than say “I just didn’t like it much” - hence saying something that is obvious from the listing sometimes.

Yes, feedback shouldn’t be taken too literally: if an agent is pressing for an answer people will just say anything.

You only have to watch, say, any episode of Location x 3 to see people taken to view houses that should be perfect for them that they just don’t like - sometimes because they decide their previous criteria weren’t right and sometimes they just don’t feel the house. It’s rarely a head over heart decision. But it’s really tough when it’s your home being judged.

Also, just as you want to use your time well, so do buyers - if they have eg booked a day off work for viewings, they will likely see everything they can in that day from the “looks great” to the “ probably too small/too close to a main road/whatever, but let’s take a look”

We’ve only been on the market for three weeks, I’m already fed up of time wasters and we’ve only had two viewings (and no more booked in as of yet). Our agent isn’t booking in anyone who isn’t proceedable and turned down some first time buyers last week who wanted to view but whose maximum budget was well below our asking price.

Of the two viewings we’ve had, the first was a family who want to move into the region but it sounded like they were just sticking a pin in a map to decide where to view houses each weekend. I ended up doing the viewing as they were running very late, because they decided to have a drive around the area beforehand, and the estate agent had further appointments to get to. They told me that over previous weekends they’d viewed houses in other towns and cities as far as 50 miles away.

The second viewing was someone moving into the area, had sold their house and had a number of houses to view around here. Feedback was that our house was a strong contender and that they were weighing up their options, which they’ve now done and have decided to pull out of the sale of their house and stay put.

vendors have very different views on life to buyers when it comes to moving home

as vendor about the only thing you have any control over is instructing the agent on filtering out those who are not "proceedable". If you want a stress free sale then drop the price to the point the first person through the door buys it, but of course you won't do that, so what you describe is what everyone goes through: the great house selling "game"..

as a buyer I never looked at houses that were outside my budget as that was just a waste of my time and money travelling there, but I did look at houses that didn't appeal from the listing just in case the reality on the ground was different.
I also got royally shafted by a vendor whose circumstances where not what she said and who messed me around for nearly 4 months after accepting my offer until she then took it off the market saying she was staying put. Thankfully I had not paid for legals or surveys, so my loss was limited to travel costs (several 300mile round trips). Didn't stop me from a few choice words about her though (lesson: never buy from a divorcee???)

When I was looking last year at bungalows for my 85 year old father in law - I viewed 3 that had ‘no nos’ that were not shown on a floor plan or pictures - one had internal steps between several rooms and another was just much shabbier than it looked on pictures- think needed a redecorate throughout, scratched up floors, boiler needed replacing , and he wanted somewhere that needed very little work at all and any bits he did would just be preference. Photos made it look mint - it can sometimes be hard to go just off photos . The last one he liked but did a bit of research as I saw a few protest ‘signs up’ and turns out huge new development planned on the open fields behind - now actually the development wouldn’t have bothered him - but the Jess and noise for several years when you are 85 certainly did

Sounds as though your estate agent isn't doing much of a job. It's possible that people who aren't under offer might want to look at your place, though this is probably a waste of time unless your agent knows that they have serious interest in their own properties. They should be able to weed out the real time wasters, the ones who view other people's properties as a hobby. Also anybody for whom it is a real no-go, such as disabled people who need particular access. Maybe you can get them to programme viewings all on one day to save you time getting everything ready? To call it an Open Day is a bit over the top, that's really best when something is new to the market and there's a decent amount of interest
I used to get annoyed by people who had never seen my house before showing viewers round, They couldn't answer easy questions such as whether there is a downstairs loo. Eventually I asked if everybody who does viewings could come round for a few minutes so that I could take them quickly round the house to show them everything, which helped.

My house have been on the market for three weeks, first week i had 2 viewings and both offed but not what I need to buy the one I want, nothing since.

👀

oh gosh I would be annoyed too.

my advice: is it really the good price? And also, change agency…they aren’t doing anything for you and just put people through your door for the sake of it.