How to eliminate property 'tyre-kickers'

evoke

After the buyer of my property pulled out of the purchase on what appears to be difficulty in obtaining a mortgage, how can I reduce the risk of this happening again?

The estate agent is happy to keep the 'tyre-kickers' viewing the property and it appears that he simply isn't interested in qualifying any potential buyers (i.e. checking is they are able to fund the purchase, have a mortgage agreement in principle, etc).

This costs me a great deal of time (tidying up my flat and arranging to be at home) and will potentially incur solicitor's costs as buyers find that they are unable to proceed with the purchase.

The estate agent is simply playing the numbers game. How can I ensure that my time and money isn't wasted?

USM

The problem on the other side of the fence, as a buyer is that I have absolutely no intention of showing the estate agent what my budget is because they're simply going to use that to extract every last penny from me.

AndersLimpar_2

Tell your EA to not let anyone offer without an AIP.

If the current EA wont agree to that then others certainly will.

mlz1413

never instruct a solicitor until the 'buyers' have had a survey done.

next time you get an offer tell your EA you want the property marketed until a survey is done.

I'm surprised your EA isn't checking they have a MIP as most EA want their mortgage advisor used if possible. But it they will not do this then not stopping viewings until the mortgage co's valuation is done is a good point at which you know the buyer is serious and can afford their offer.

Tidying up for viewings is part of the selling process.

evoke

mlz1413 wrote: »

never instruct a solicitor until the 'buyers' have had a survey done.

Excellent suggestion. I'll bear that in mind.

firstaspect

AndersLimpar wrote: »

Tell your EA to not let anyone offer without an AIP.

If the current EA wont agree to that then others certainly will.

That may scare off buyers who are actually interested though. I wouldn't want to show my financial position at all until I'd had an offer accepted. It's also a legal requirement for an EA to pass on all offers to the vendor (in writing) regardless.

But as said above, don't instruct a solicitor until a survey has been done or at least booked. I kept my property on the market until this point.

AndersLimpar_2

Well the OP is annoyed with having to sort the house out for buyers that cant actually buy the house. The ony way to stop this is to do what i suggested.

I agree it will limit his viewings and as such potential buyers. it will solve his issue though.

Mrs_Z

Yes, just have your solicitor on 'stand-by' to start the process once the survey has been done by the buyers.

I recently did this the other way round - I was buying a flat and instructed my solicitor not to do a thing until we had a mortgage offer (which seemed to take forever even though we had an agreement in principle!) in place as I didn't want to spend any money on solicitors fees not knowing if the mortgage company was going to lend us the money! All well in the end and completing on the 19/11!!!

evoke

Perhaps a good compromise would be to ask about the financial position when an offer is made and prior to me accepting it (i.e. have the EA check that the buyers have a mortgage secured and are in a position to purchase the property)? On the failed purchase the EA did email me to say that the buyers wanted to carry out a survey and this was days after I accepted the offer (and instructed my solicitor). However, nothing happened with regards to the survey so I guess they were unable to secure a mortgage. I guess that should have sent alarm bells ringing for me but I'm new to the selling game so didn't think anything of it at the time.

DVardysShadow

What do you want to do? Eliminate your tyre kicking viewers or avoid being caught by accepting an offer which cannot be carried through?

There have been threads on here about Agents using 'Mortgage Advisors' to pre qualify offers and generally from the buyers' perspective it is best that the Agent keeps his nose out of their finances - there is more than a little suspicion that the 'Mortgage Advisors' snoop on how much a potential buyer might be good for and transmit the information across the communication proof barriers in their open plan offices.

Understandably, buyers don't like this. So it might just be in your interests to let the agent do it his way and not upset your viewers by being too nosey into their affairs. Once it comes to an offer, again, your agent might not be qualifying the offers, but in truth, many buyers will baulk at giving away exactly how much they are good for.

I suggest you let it ride for viewers, but when it comes to offers, once you have accepted, make it plain that the buyer's solicitor must confirm availability of funds in writing to the agent before survey. It is not a traditional part of the process, it is not entirely fool proof and you might encounter some resistance. But it should reduce your chances of being caught.

Catatonia

I think you won't easily be able to eliminate tyre-kickers without also putting off genuine buyers. I wouldn't view houses with an EA who insisted on me showing them proof of mortgage and funds before even taking a look at a property.

It's annoying, but I guess it's just part of the process. Never see a sale as 'done and dusted' until completion, or at least exchange.