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.

This.

I can also remember one time we went to look at a house and were early, we stopped to let the the kids play at a play ground and two things happened which led to us calling the estate agent and not even going ahead with the viewing; one was that two kids were really nasty to my learning disabled son and the other was that the smell of the local turkey farm was really strong.

We didn’t tell them that, so the owners were probably saying the same things about us as you’re saying now

@CarpetKneesI get that, and I’m happy to accommodate people to spend as much time as they want inside the house, and to come for repeat viewings. I don’t expect that everyone who comes to view will want to buy it.
But when every single viewing is someone who’s not proceedable, or has clearly not researched the area even a little bit, or wants something that doesn’t exist for their budget (I’ve been researching the market for a long time), or just doesn’t turn up, it does get tiresome.

I remember donkeys years ago my parents were selling our house and the first woman through the door spent ages looking around and sticking her beak in every cupboard, then casually told the agent on the way out "oh i won't be making an offer because I'm not selling, I'm a professional house viewer."

She was straight up just a bored housewife who viewed all the houses that popped up in her village/surrounding area out of sheer nosiness!

I love filling my weekends with house viewings, especially those of neighbours. I might not always show up... well that depends on how the doogie feels! Unfortunately, I don't have the means to buy at this point but I like to project myself in the future!

@SummerFrog25Just life with young kids/pets. The viewings are few and far between at the moment so if we’ve had a busy week at work and are tired we neglect the house work and then have to do it all at once. Hoovering, mopping, cleaning the bathroom, tidying the kitchen, putting away laundry, putting toys and half-done crafts projects away, weeding and mowing the lawn (gets untidy so quickly at this time of year), washing the windows (lots of sticky pollen where we are, so need washed every couple of weeks to look clean). It all adds up.

There’s enough storage, just not enough time. Will try to do little and often though, so the chores don’t build up.

The bedrooms are definitely doubles, there are double beds in them currently, so people can see that.

True that it’s a numbers game though, and I keep reminding myself that we liked the house enough to buy it, so did the people before us, and so someone else is bound to now.

Your estate agent could filter out people save wasting your time.

@EnjoythemoneyJane OMG, how annoying. I don’t get it at all. With all the entertainment available today, you’d think people would have more interesting things to do than nose around random houses. I couldn’t think of anything more boring.

It certainly seems to be the market around here.
I’ve counted up today that there are nine houses for sale on our estate, out of around 300. It’s a sought after area and houses usually sell within days. Out of the nine for sale, one has been for sale since January and six have reduced the asking price (the January seller has reduced twice).

One of the agents who valued our house (not the one we eventually went with) said the market was moving quickly and that we’d be seeing sold signs going up everywhere but that’s not been the case.

Funnily enough, it was Savill's who sold our house! They were brilliant, got the whole team around so everyone in the office was familiar with the place and the house had a central file where every bit of correspondence was logged so if I called for a status report, anyone could give it to me straight away. It also meant if anyone called with questions about the place, they could be answered there and then, no waiting for someone to call back. They gave us a lot of advice about staging the house and insisted that i take the dogs for a walk during viewings so viewers felt more comfortable and were not distracted. You can't make someone buy a house they don't want but if someone is wavering, a good sales person should be able to give them confidence to make a decision. We did have experience of a lot of idiots in Bath when we were buying, though! You definitely get what you pay for. And a house would have to tick every box before I went to see one on with Purple Bricks, there are a lot of nutty vendors out there!

We sold in Bath and I didn't let the agent advertise the house because I knew this would happen. Most people who are seriously looking there are registered with all the agents anyway. They just showed to people on their books who they knew were proceedable (or close to) and had sufficient finance in place - we only had three people round before we sold.

That is awful! It is so stressful to sell, I think I would have swung for them! The people who bought our house in Bath drove me crazy. He was an architect and wanted to make all these changes that were never going to be allowed on a Grade II listed house. he kept coming back and back with builders and engineers until I lost my rag after the sixth or seventh visit (where his wife blanked me in MY OWN DAMN HOUSE), demanded a meeting in Savill's offices and said if he didn't sign that week, the house was going back on the market. "But I just need a guarantee about what I am buying." "It's a 300 year old house!" I snarled. "What do you want me to do, dig up the original builder and ask for a warranty?! If you want guarantees, buy a new build!" Perish the thought, they really wanted a Georgian house! God, they were nobs!

The second lot who viewed our house had said they wanted a townhouse and then after the viewing they said it had "too many stairs".

I think there are more people viewing who have no intention of buying at present. In part, it reflects the state of the market. If sales are 'unusually slow' or the market is 'dead', etc, then prices are falling in that area and lots of people just haven't realised. In a buoyant or slowly rising market, this doesn't happen. There are always lots of people who want to buy but prices are simply too high currently for buyers to afford them in general. Confidence also seems to be falling now. It's very reasonable to ask the agents to filter the buyers better if you are finding all the viewings from people who can't proceed stressful, understandably so. I think you are sensible to consider reducing the price if you are not getting offers after a couple of months.

OMG, someone said that to us as well! As well as, ‘Bath isn’t very car friendly, ids it?’ Err, well, no, it’s a Georgian city! Sone people seem to do no research, at all.

Feedback is generally a waste of time no? Some people just say the first thing that pops into their head, others so something neutral because they feel too awkward to tell the truth.

And some people are thick and lazy, even over such an important purchase.

People who have not proved they are ready to proceed and can raise the funds should not be allowed to view. An estate agent you pay should be checking this.

Nosey people and time wasters should be banned.

Presumably you mean that some people don't bother to do their due diligence? I think many people are guilty of that and not just in relation to buying houses.
Although, some sellers also expect buyers to make their minds up on their most expensive of a life time after a 15 minute viewing with no survey available, as it is in many other countries.

Well then you need to be very firm with your EA about only letting people who are proceedable come then, if that's who you want. You can't complain that people aren't ready to buy, but then be wishy washy about asking the EA to stop these people viewing as you're not sure whether it's the done thing.

As I said previously, our eventual buyer was a British architect who didn’t understand what Grade II listing meant. He wasted weeks trying to get the council to nominally agree to stuff, like removing the roof. I wouldn’t have hired him to put a conservatory in!

That is indeed thick! Even more so given that he was an architect (allegedly)!
I don't think that is the case for @VintageFashion though.

True, I didn’t get proof that he was actually an architect. The jaw droppingly stupid stuff he came out with, I really hope no one paid him to work on their house!

But… looking at houses IS researching an area. When we first looked, we were figuring out our trade offs of size, garden, walk to station etc. If you don’t live in an area, only going around properties (ideals a few in a day, on foot) will find you that cut through which turns a 20 min walk into a 15, opening up another couple of sub postcodes, say.

Yes & someone else will want to but it!

could you afford to pay someone to mow the lawn & do basic weeding & a window cleaner, house cleaner? Just until you sell?

id give up eating before I gave up my window cleaner? I don't have a cleaner but would consider it in your position.

Proceedable buyers only!!