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 think to expect people to rent sequential airbnbs or find buyers with a lot of patience - both possibly at a cost of thousands - purely to reduce the inconvenience of vendors offering viewings to buyers not yet in the optimal position is unrealistic. Of course you can limit your viewings to proceedable buyers, but that limits your buyer pool a fair bit, IMO

Carpet treaders. They just like to have a nose in to see what's about without any interest in buying. I used to work on building sites and you always saw the same people snooping when a house was ready.

I feel you. I went through all this last year and needless to say I will never ever sell or buy another house for as long as I live. It's a nightmare!

God I remember this. I had someone not like my house because it didn’t have a driveway. There was no driveway in the pictures, no mention of a driveway in the listing. The first photo in the listing was of the front of the house so I have no idea why they thought there was a driveway when it was clear there was no driveway.

I think sometimes, with feedback like this, I would assume that they were hoping that the rest of the house would be so suited to them, that they hoped they could get past the 'no driveway' {or insert similar things from the other posts}.

We aren't ready to put our house on the market yet, but I am having a good look through Rightmove and Zoopla each week and sending lists of properties I'd look at now if we were ready, to dh, so he can get his head around the sorts of properties we could get for our money.
This list has covered many, many properties, but I don't think any one of them has been "the perfect house". Overwhelmingly, people have to compromise when they are buying a house, and, being willing to overcome feeling you need a '.....' (be that driveway, or south facing garden, or separate dining room, or it being detached, or whatever) means you are more likely to find a house.

Sometimes, it means you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince(ss), so yes, there is reason to go and view houses that sometimes end up being the one you buy and sometimes clarify that, however nice the rest of the house is, that is actually something that can't be made up for for you.

When we bought our current house, that we have been very happy in for 26 years now, we weren't even going to view it, but the EA who was showing us two other houses that morning asked us to view it. (Bit like the mystery house on Escape to the Country). All sorts of things about it meant we'd have never have looked, but we both loved it instantly and have been very happy here. The other two (which ticked more boxes on paper) just didn't do it for us. There was no specific reason we could give, other than we both 'just knew'.

As someone in the middle of selling and buying, I feel your pain, OP!

I do agree with others that your EA need to be doing far more. There are a couple of things about my house which I thought would make difficult to sell / reduce the number of interested buyers. I went with a very established EA in the area and was crystal clear that I wanted a realistic pricing and for all potential viewers to be aware of the issues before viewing. They made a special information pack and made sure it was sent to the viewers (with a phone call to check they’d read it) before they agreed to viewings. They also quizzed them about whether they were proceedable. I had 3 offers. The first one I accepted turned out to not have the funds they said they did yet. The second one dragged their heels so much that they hadn’t even instructed a solicitor or proved their funds 6 weeks after offer. Current buyer is great. Even with the EA trying to weed them out, time wasting is still frustrating.

I didn’t start seriously booking viewings for my next property until I knew I had a solid buyer (Buyer no. 3 had proved funds and booked mortgage survey) as I didn’t want to waste anyone else’s time. Good job too as when I tried to book viewings, the other EAs gave me a thorough grilling about my position and even checked in with my EA. I wouldn’t have been allowed to view without a buyer secured (unless a particularly slow-moving property I assume).

wishing you luck, OP. Go back to your EA and talk to them about their strategy of grill them on proceedability when they book the next viewing in.

Whether you want to move out before you have completed on your new home depends on whether it puts you in a better position to get the house you want, and at a better price. In many cases it does just this.

I don’t disagree with you that a buyer may limit the sellers interested in them if they don’t do this. I’m making the counter case, that a seller will limit their buyers if they require this type of costly and disruptive approach.

Totally feel you. Last Saturday's viewers thought mine was too far away from the town. Now the house has always been where it is, it hasn't moved. WTF look at it if it's too far?!!! Others not even giving feedback it pisses me off when I waste hours getting the place ready!

Because you don’t know an area that well? Because it’s hard to tell from a 2D map how far out something feels? Because if the house was otherwise perfect they might compromise on location?

When we eventually get an offer we plan to look at houses in an area an hour away due to having very little family now where we live and more where we want to move to.

We only know a small part of the area so two weeks ago we made a list of houses that, if we’d had an offer, we’d want to view (from looking at Rightmove listings) and to give ourselves an idea of the areas which we don’t know.

We had nine houses on our list, and having seen them and their locations we wouldn’t waste our time, or that of the homeowners, viewing any of them. It wasn’t even a case of one of us liking a house while the other had reservations. None of them appealed to either of us when we saw them in real life. Either location, poor layout of estates or practicalities like parking or rather lack of.

It was really helpful because we now know which parts of the area to concentrate our search on.

@SheilaFentimanThey were locals so know the area well. I am sure they could see by the many photos online what it looked like prior to wasting my time over the location which is one thing I cannot change.

Personally, I cannot envisage a 3D house from 2D photos, and estate agents can exacerbate this by picking odd angles for the pictures etc.

It is a big decision and a competitive process - of course people will look at “maybes” as well as “almost definites”

I think what a pp said about mess and clutter is very true. I picked my current house despite awful clutter and decor, truly terrible. I'm very exact in what works for me in terms of position of a house (not location) where on a road it is, does any traffic noise carry, do any neighbouring houses overlook at all. I did a massive amount of research, checked Google earth, drove up and down the road. But I still needed to double check whether it could be overlooked from any angle. Walked in, double checked and bosh. It was the only house I viewed in person but I researched very extensively.

. I would expect your agent to know the position of the buyer in detail.

I’ve sold lots of properties (we renovated and moved every 3 yrs) and you need to be clear with your agent. Very clear!

They work for YOU and you interview them and research them , just as you would an employee.

Set a time limit they can market your property so you can speedily move agents if they’re crap. Check out their marketing, photos and descriptions. I will often write out a description myself eg…good schools, local shops transport

And do the viewings yourself, you are personable. You have all the gen…. Council tax/ electric/ gas/ broadband/ locality.

Do yourself a pros and cons list of your property and play to the pros. Nobody knows your home better than you.
If you have 2 good double bedrooms - sell that.
If you have a nice neighbourhood / community -sell that.
Make the front of the house look attractive as it’s often first impressions that sell.
. New mat, hanging baskets or planters. Newly painted front door.
No manky cars on the drive etc.
Make sure there’s a parking space when they pull up.
Make them love and imagine themselves in your house, emotions rule!

If the agent is doing the viewings make sure they have a pack of info to hand.

Or have an open day and one of you be there.

Have you lowered your price yet op?

don’t take viewer feedback as gospel. They don’t want it and have no skin in the game so they just say the first thought that pops in to their head and all they’re really thinking about it their next viewing

So this is what your agent is being paid to do to screen viewings. Unfortunately, many of the industry during Covid where they literally just had to turn up in order to sell the house. Now they have to sell the house
So if you say to your agent that you do not want anybody who is not proceedable to view the property that should save you an awful lot of time.

I cried today for a similar reason. I have two dogs, a 3 year old and WFH. The amount of hassle it takes to make the house into a “show-home” just for someone to be in here five seconds and say they aren’t interested because there’s no parking/too small is doing my head in. There’s a floor plan and photos online ffs. I’m this close to just stopping the whole thing as I can’t bear much more of it, there’s only one house I’d want anyway and she reduced today so it’ll probably go before we get anyone serious through our door.

I feel your pain, although haven’t had to do this for a while. On one viewing, I could see someone waiting outside shortly after appointment was meant to start. I opened the door and she said her friend was at the station (which is a six minute walk away), so I asked her if she wanted to wait inside. We made some small talk and conversation turned to God. After about 20 minutes I asked if she wanted to check on her friend in case she’d gone wrong way. Straight to voicemail. Back to talking about God. Ten minutes later I suggested she looked for friend in case she’d got lost. She called friend and said she’s ten minutes away. I said I thought she was at the station - she had been, just not the one near my house. She must have been starting her journey back then. I felt like telling her to leave, my brain had shouted ‘fuck off’ to her a zillion times, but I also didn’t want the frantic cleaning up effort to go to waste! 25 minutes later, I’m still being preached at and said I needed to go out very soon. Friend then turned up. They had a quick look round and the FIRST friend said it’s a bit far away from where they live now, but to have a think about what she’d told me (about God).

I'm with you op! There are hardly any buyers in a lot of areas at the moment. There are some utter bargains on near me that aren't shifting, there's just no buyers at any price.

Our listing notes:

• in a quiet cul de sac
• drive fits 4 cars
• 4 beds
• 3 pics of garden that show size. The address is also listed so the plot can be found on maps etc.

We get viewers feeding back "we wanted more parking", "we wanted more bedrooms", "the area is too expensive for us".

I think a lot of times estate agents drag people round who've rung up about a differently property and aren't at all interested in ours.

I do wonder whether it’s worth not having it in show home condition and having very much A takers as we are attitude

It does sound like such a strain. I don’t think there is any real answer beyond asking the agent to screen much more, and easing up a bit on what you do to prepare. Maybe also ask the agent if doing an open house would be worthwhile to get a few potential buyers round in one go.

We're looking at the moment and I'm sure some of our feedback has been a bit like this, but like a pp. said it's often about the balance of things. We rejected one on the basis of distance to one of DC's schools but are actually about to offer on one further away which is on a nicer street and 200k cheaper. We didn't like house no. 1 enough at that price so you just sort of say the first thing that pops into your head.

Likewise people said about ours 'oh the side return isn't done' which is obviously clear from the photos and plan but they mean they don't like everything else enough.

Some EAs are really pushy at trying to take you to other houses though. I always say no but you might think 'why not?'. Also when you start looking you often need to get a feel for different types of houses and how they flow etc, what the rooms feel like at that size etc.

Especially if we are going back for a second look I always to EAs to tell people to not worry too much about cleaning etc, I can see past that, but I doubt they pass that on. I agree it's a total pain.

Well said @Dinnerplease

Exactly @Dinnerplease

I think a lot of times estate agents drag people round who've rung up about a differently property and aren't at all interested in ours.

@IwasDueANameChange - I hope they do when we are selling.
They certainly did when we viewed our current house. We wanted to look at two, and they suggested we look at a 3rd. The 3rd one wasn't on our radar for a combination of reasons, but, as soon as we left we both turned to each other and said 'this is the one'. We've been very happy here for nearly 25 years. That is very much their job - to get people in to see the house.

Is it frustrating trying to keep it looking lovely (especially when you have young dc) ? Yes, of course it is, but the EAs getting people to view is exactly what they should be doing, because you never know when just one of those viewers is going to love it despite it not necessarily fitting the criteria they give.