Time wasting househunters

A lot of great advice here. At the moment, it is what is called a “hot market” (especially, but not just, in the south east).
We moved last year, just after lockdown and in 6 weeks from offer to moving in). Three in our chain and we were all serious about moving. Your appointed agent should be checking the status of buyers, eg if they have a house for sale, is it under offer and if so, who is the agent (so they can follow it up). There are so many buyers out there, many so-called cash, and way too many for the house stock available. So many agents are just not bothering right now with unsubstantiated buyers. Friends of ours sold their house last year and moved into rented. They have been slow off the mark trying to find the “perfect property” and missed out over and over again because they were not quick enough to put in their offer. They saw a house they liked yesterday morning. It went on Rightmove at 10am and went under offer ten minutes later….
That said, a lot of agents approximate that one in three sales falls through.
At the current time, there can be several thousand buyers in the agents’ books all going for 40 or 50 houses. That’s why agents aren’t bothering to call up suitable prospective buyers on their books - they are having no trouble selling at the moment AT ALL. The market is very very much in favour on sellers at the moment. A while ago, the suggestion above to agree to only a month’s initial sole contract would not have been accepted by most agents - now they are so desperate, they’d probably accept any conditions from a seller.
Insist on the agents doing all the viewings, and yes, an open day is a great way to sell a house (and I hate to say it, even start a bidding war!!). You should be in a very good position right now. Less so, if you’re trying to buy something else!!

Pippa22

I think a lot of the above comments are not how things are currently when selling a house particularly here in the south. Property is selling itself , nothing seems to take more than a few days to get a buyer and there can be up to 40 people waiting to view when a property comes on the market. Offers above is also very common which seems a horrible way to buy a home but demand is so high and many people seem to have plenty of money and be in a position to pay a premium to get the home they want. Covid has changed many people’s perspectives of how they want to live, and has helped them to saved a lot of money too.

If it’s offers above the published price, ask the agent how much they want, or best offer so far, you would not hesitate to make a lower offer. If you like the place make an offer and wait for them to come back.

I was an estate agent for over 25 years and registered every person who wanted to view a house so we knew if they were in a position to make an offer. We didn’t want to waste our vendors time or our own as we accompanied all our viewings, by registering potential buyers we could ask all the necessary questions and relay the information to our vendors. If anyone didn’t even have their house on the market we would ask the vendors if they want the viewing.

I enjoy watching "Escape to the Country" but sometimes wonder why so few people actually buy a house, they have usually looked at so many houses before the programme,and still cant make up their minds. I suppose they have a good week looking around and the programme providers make a good programme, so everybody is happy.

We had an open day and we went out while estate agent stayed in the house. The first person in was our newly moved in next door neighbour to have a good nose around. This was followed by a couple down the road who said they had friends who were thinking of moving into the area and they were just checking it out for them - duh! Just don't think it can be avoided.

We need to adopt the system that is used in the u.s.a. and Australia I believe. You offer and if it’s accepted sign a contract that means you are buying said property. If you haven’t sold your place or don’t have the money to buy the house you’ve signed for then that is just your hard luck. You will not be able to get out of what you have committed yourself to. And in America the process takes maybe 4 to 6 weeks start to finish. In England it’s a nightmare. Buyer can pull out at any time up to exchange and getting to exchange is usually 10 weeks and often more! So effectively three months after agreeing with a buyer that they are buying your home then can just walk away and not buy it!!

My brother and friend went to look round the house he used to live in just to be nosey!

Quite honestly, if the house looks and smells clean and is not cluttered with stuff all over the place, it will, sooner or later, attact a buyer.

If it looks obviously dirty or run-down, or as if you have no idea at all how to tidy up it won't sell.

So don't worry about tidying up - the very fact that doing so concerns you demonstrates that your home IS already tidy and well-cared for.

None of the tricks like a well-kept garden, or the smell of bread baking work. No-one expects to see a nice, tidy garden in November, and the first thing anyone does on moving is to re-decorate.

A buyer who can look at a house as a house, and not get hung up on the fact that you have a bookcase in every room, while they never have opened a book after leaving school, or that your kitchen was modern in 1990, will if he or more likely she, likes the house, buy it. Otherwise they won't.

I have moved several times and never had too much trouble with time wasters however I am reluctant to hand the viewings over to estate agents as one EA gave the keys to the buyer before purchase was complete and they went in and made structural changes to the house, therefore I'd rather hang on to my keys.
On another note if you only invite buyers who have sold their property does that put you under enormous pressure for you to find your next property. How long would you expect them to wait whilst you look?

I agree with the comments on buyer readiness. But would add that if you are selling you need to almost live at 'viewing' standard. Flowers/plants, candles, cafetiere out, bottle of wine in view, lovely folded towels, soaps etc. I say this as we did once sell to mere passers by who were checking whether our road was OK while I was tidying the front garden. They came in and loved our house... Strange things can happen and it pays to be prepared.

grandtante
We bought one of those that nobody would have touched with a barge pole.
It had been empty for 7 yrs with a leaking roof. The previous 10 yrs it had been offices. Then there was the squatters drug paraphernalia to dispose of.
But with a lot of hard work we sold at a handsome profit.

We put our house on the market and had two sets of timewasters; one woman confessed she had been dying to have a look inside and went off giggling - I had murder in my heart having taken a half day's leave to allow her to view in the afternoon. Another couple spent ages wandering around and finally announced they couldn't afford anything like the price we were asking. I don't now if they expected us to say that was fine; just give us what you can afford and you can have it. At the same time we tried to view a house where the vendors kept cancelling, were incredibly evasive, and eventually said they didn't want to sell at all. I will NEVER move again!

know - terrible typist.

Get a decent estate agent. They should sift out the timewasters for you.

Get a really good agent. We put our house on the market with an agent who came highly recommended. She suggested a few things to help with sale (get gutters/soffits cleaned/ replace a blown double glazed unit, dress the bedrooms on viewing day, remove pet paraphernalia etc). She knew her buyers and what they were looking for and arranged six viewings over two days, we went out. One day after the viewings we had four offers way over and above the asking price and after discussing with her what stage they were at chose our buyer. It took a while as covid lock down happened two days after offer accepted but we moved 6 months later. Worth every penny of her fee.

It is SO frustrating. We had endless time wasters when we had our house (briefly) on the market. One couple openly admitted they’d just come to see “how a bungalow can have a cellar” (it does)! For them to come and have a nosy I had to arrange for my husband to take our dogs off the premises for an hour having cleaned the place from top to bottom, done the garden etc. Why are people so selfish and inconsiderate?

Selling a house is a nightmare whatever you do. I wore myself ragged for about a month, constantly tidying and cleaning and cleaning again. And it didn't work anyway. We gave up and are still here!

Whenever I sell my house, I always stipulate - only buyers whose house is on the market already - to the agent. They don't like it, try to talk you out of it and generally make a fuss, but stick to your guns and you will have people who are motivated to put in a good offer to secure a place quickly.

Well, here's a thing, my sibling used to be a "professional"-ahem- house viewer!! She'd book appointments to view properties way way out other league just so she could have a nose! She roped our mum into her despicable cheap behaviour too, I was disgusted with the pair of them, they saw it as their entertainment, sometimes the agents would let her view unaccompanied and I would wish that she be secretly filmed and get caught out! .....never happened. Back to subject , I've had the most revolting people view my properties over the years who literally pull it to pieces, in the end I snapped and yelled at one stinking example that they wouldn't know à clean house if one fell on them and they smelled like they live in a midden !! Nonplussed look told me they knew not what that was.......

It is one of the pitfalls of selling. A lot of people used to do this on a Sunday, their way of having a day out. Lots of really nosey people out there! You could have Open Days so that viewing is on that day only.

Fernhillnana

It is SO frustrating. We had endless time wasters when we had our house (briefly) on the market. One couple openly admitted they’d just come to see “how a bungalow can have a cellar” (it does)! For them to come and have a nosy I had to arrange for my husband to take our dogs off the premises for an hour having cleaned the place from top to bottom, done the garden etc. Why are people so selfish and inconsiderate?

I blame the greedy agents. I suppose one can insist on viewers who have firm evidence of their ability to purchase at the level wanted before they set foot inside! Nowadays viewing can be done virtually anyway, so only those taking it to the next stage and really serious should be offered a viewing anyway I would hope? I'd require full disclosure of anyone entering my home nowadays anyway,if the agents messed up they'd be all over social media with a damning report from us!

NotTooOld

Selling a house is a nightmare whatever you do. I wore myself ragged for about a month, constantly tidying and cleaning and cleaning again. And it didn't work anyway. We gave up and are still here!

Here's the thing, I viewed a house that stank of dog, was occupied by two academics(speaks volumes) and was virtually impossible to walk around freely due to the 'papers'/ files / general academic type junk stuffed in there, but I fell in love instantly, put my offer and was in there within 8weeks! Another 8weeks and it was actually clean too!!

We find that we have a 'viewing' level home as you put it anyway! I cannot understand how people can live in abject chaos all the time and not tale the trouble to clean properly, I find that I cast my German trained eye around people's homes unconsciously and 9/10 times shudder! It's very telling how people have said that they didn't realise how much they had to clean everything including their own hands(!) Until the pandemic! Yuk!

This post has made me think of the stress of my 60+ viewers. The most memorable, an elderly mother and daughter from Barnes, my old haunt, rushed around with phone aloft photographing everything which unsettled me. Next thing elderly mother feels faint in the kitchen and has to stay seated in there with a drink of water - so I show the daughter the garden. Suddenly we hear elderly mother calling and she's teetering around at the top of the 18 steps at the front of the house. Nightmare. Feedback was 'if' she offered it would be 'cheeky' - I would have expected nothing less from her.

Gabrielle56

Well, here's a thing, my sibling used to be a "professional"-ahem- house viewer!! She'd book appointments to view properties way way out other league just so she could have a nose! She roped our mum into her despicable cheap behaviour too, I was disgusted with the pair of them, they saw it as their entertainment, sometimes the agents would let her view unaccompanied and I would wish that she be secretly filmed and get caught out! .....never happened. Back to subject , I've had the most revolting people view my properties over the years who literally pull it to pieces, in the end I snapped and yelled at one stinking example that they wouldn't know à clean house if one fell on them and they smelled like they live in a midden !! Nonplussed look told me they knew not what that was.......

Hmm, my friend and I would sometimes go to view new show homes to get ideas for decorating our owns homes! This was over 20 years ago so the ease of wandering around new estates might have changed but we certainly enjoyed our days out! If asked, I was very good at lying about why I was looking for a new house and what my financial situation was!

But at least they were show houses and we were not upsetting home owners.