Sellers, what’s normal notice for viewings?

[PancakeCloud]

I live in a flat with 2 small children. It’s a constant battle to keep it presentable. We’ve been trying to sell for a while. Asked agent if we could have a viewing weekend or a fixed day each week for viewings - they said no, not the market for it.

The agent constantly arranges viewings for the same or next day, and we just find out when we’re copied in the email confirmation to the prospective buyer. Cue a mad dash to tidy up / make sure we have a reason to all be out the house etc etc

Is this normal or is my estate agent just really crap?

Normal ish.

In the past when we have had our home on the market we declutterrd to within an inch of it’s life then told the estate agent we’d do open house at the weekend and got everything set up.

yes, short notice for viewings is fairly normal - most agents want people to see it asap after the phone call.

you can say weekends only if you want though

Depends how keen you are to sell, especially in this market. If you turn down viewings, they’ll go elsewhere. Short term pain for long term gain.

Thanks both. Would love to do an open house but agent just said in this market that wasn’t feasible (which I think is the case given how hard it is to sell flats currently). Suspect we just need to do some extreme decluttering so we can accommodate viewings more easily. Welp.

You could reasonably say that you need 48 hours notice for a viewing even if they won't agree to fixed days each week. Hope you find a buyer soon.

It's normal I'm afraid, you just have to keep the house immaculate all the time until it sells.

I’d say it’s normal. I’ve bought a few houses and would expect a viewing the next day if I asked for one. People often have a few houses lined up. It’s tough though I know!

It’s been 8 months on and off (had some buyers that fell away for various reasons). But point taken, hopefully next time we get a buyer they get their mortgage and stick around.

Good luck, it's a frustrating market at the moment.

If it’s any comfort, we sold a house after a viewing on a cold winter’s afternoon when my children had invited friends for tea. One wouldn’t come out of the downstairs toilet and there was Lego all over the floor, not to mention the detritus of the food. They bought the house.
Some buyers like the family lived in feel. Good luck.

I requested to know the day before, think it’s fairly normal. Weekend or a certain day per week would be a bit restrictive for buyers I think.

We had some booked 3-4 days before, one booked almost a week ahead and 1 booked for the same day.

I asked to schedule mine for Sundays where possible, in a couple of cases it wasn't possible, so I agreed to Mondays as the house was still relatively clean. The EA always called me with viewing requests first, they never just booked them and sent me a confirmation message, that sounds pretty crap.

I suppose it also depends on how many viewings you're getting asked for, if it's one a week or less, you probably need to be more accommodating than if you're getting asked for several.

We are in a flat with a pre schooler.
To help with decluttering we hired a storage unit and put quite a lot of things we didn’t need in the immediate future in there- suitcases, Christmas decorations, clothes I was holding for when my daughter was older, books I wasn’t reading but wanted to keep, hobby stuff of my partners etc.
That made a huge difference as it meant we had more space in the bottom of wardrobes/under beds etc to shove things!
We also made a list of jobs to do before a viewing meaning we weren’t panicking trying to decide what to do.

We sold earlier this year, and always had at least 24 hours notice - our agent always rang us first though before sending the confirmation email so I wouldn't be impressed if that's the first you heard of it. I also packed away as much as I could (I was fortunate enough to have a garage to stuff things into) so as many toys as possible packed away and anything out of season or that I rarely used packed away so that I had as little as possible to tidy & then just give it all a clean. It's so stressful, hope you get a buyer soon - good luck!

Your agent is not behaving appropriately - they should call to check a viewing is possible BEFORE confirming by email.

Does the agent do unaccompanied viewings or are you always present?

If it has been eight months, you could consider if a new agent might help, you could talk to someone else and see how they'd approach it.

Not what you asked but after 8 months I'd be changing agents.

Was normal for us when we were selling last year. Same day was rare but did happen, and one day’s notice was normal. We did push back on one short notice viewing but were heavily discouraged from doing so by the estate agent as the market just wasn’t that hot and the viewer might not come at all.

We kept everything tidy by ruthlessly decluttering, putting absolutely everything possible in cupboards (and I bought new storage furniture to help) and putting excess furniture into actual storage.