Our house is on the market - hhh

We put our house on the market a year or so ago and then withdrew it after having second thoughts. As a consequence we have the estate agents who originally marketed it ringing us from time to time, we are still toying with the idea of selling. Just before complete lockdown, possibly the week before when it was becoming quite apparent that life as we know it may be restricted, estate agent rings and speaks to my husband "are you still thinking of putting the house on the market?" reply "well not at the moment" E.A. "why is that?" husband "Coronavirus" didn't think there was any need to expand. Estate Agent "are you seeing that as a problem?" husband "well yes, because we're being told over 70s shouldn't stay at home" him not me" so can't visit potential properties we would consider buying, also don't want people traipsing in and out of our house at such a time" E.A ….."errr yes I see, it could be a problem" As Bill Clinton uttered Denial isn't just a river in Africa

shouldn't should

I wonder if any people might even make an offer from just viewing a property online. I guess if someone desperately wants a particular road or school catchment area for example? Our DD and sil had their house valued 3 weeks before lockdown and were due to go on the market tomorrow. Sadly they hadn't quite instructed the agent to take the photos because they wanted to do some redecorating. I'm wondering whether they could take their own and email them to him.

People with existing mortgage offers have an extension on those offers. There are now NEW mortgage offers for anyone without a huge deposit. People may wanna buy before their offer expires.

Will anyone be able to get a surveyor? How will the paperwork be signed at the solicitors? You have to take your Passport in when you buy/sell a house, how will that be done? As we have been advised to halt all completions and house moves I assume that it isn’t classed as essential work.
Our solicitor is working from home, but definitely won’t be making house visits any time soon and we can’t visit them.

My last purchase the mortgage company didnt send a surveyor they used google earth (I paid for my own) and the purchase before that our lender just did a drive by valuation (again we chose to hire our own). But it is possible to buy, even with a mortgage, without an internal survey

Our previous buyer didnt "upgrade" they just had the lender's basic survey.

Our passports etc were already on our solicitors files so when one sale fell through I dont think we had to bring all that back in.

There will still be some purchases. Less, but some. And I doubt anyone will pay full market value at the moment

We once bought a house without viewing it. It was 1970s. We had no time to house hunt and after one visit to the new area 500 miles away, we couldn't find anything just right for us so we had the property pages sent to us, scanned the pages until we saw, but no photos in those days, a house in the right area. We asked our lawyer what he thought. He was based in the house's area. He approved. We made a bid which was accepted. It was nerve wracking when we first saw it. It turned out to be a very nice house where we lived happily for 5 years.
I don't think we would have bid if we had seen it because it was quite ugly but the location was perfect.

We barely viewed one of our purchases. We were already sold on location and it had some of our "must have" features. We bought having only viewed once.

We offered on our next place on the first viewing. Pretty much as soon as we were in the door.

In both instances the clock was ticking and we needed to move ASAP

You wont get any tire-kickers at the moment at least

Yes, Grammaretto, that sort of story is possible. In our DD's case they live in a desirable (London) area where the houses in the road are all very similar semis. They are right on a tube line too. Ok some houses have extensions or loft coversions but anyone wanting to buy one could probably visualise the floor space and the local agent probably has previous measurements on file.
As far as solicitors are concerned I assume they could set to work immediately and take things as far as exchange.
Not so easy if you want to buy an individual character property or in an area with a variety of styles.

Thats true our house mirrors many on our road (except the ones that have been internally gutted)
Even all of the extensions match because of planning

BBC News 27/3/2020
The government has urged people not to move house to try to limit the spread of coronavirus across the UK
Buyers and renters should delay moving while emergency stay-at-home measures are in place, it said

Thats fine if youre already in suitable accomodation

Not so much if youre squeezed into inadequate temporary accomodation paying £££s in storage fees

A friend of mine and her family "temporarily" moved into her parents before all this as part of a move.

Luckily neither she or her husband are keyworkers, as her parents are vulnerable to covid.

If they were then they would be looking to finish their move ASAP

I also know of a family who were staying in a caravan park temporaripy as part of a move. The caravan park has now shut. They had to move into rental and need to complete their move before they totally run out of money

We sold settled on our house last week. We had not been able to find a house we wanted to buy so are now living in a rental. While it is comfortable and we have a 12 month lease, we had hoped to have bought and moved into our real house within 6-8 months. That now looks unlikely given the situation. However we will keep looking online and if something comes up we will then decide what we do.

I had a leaflet through the door today from an estate agent, looking for houses to sell!