Can we view houses before we're financially sorted?

Full_of_angst

view wrote: »

a great post! :T finally someone who gets it!

Maybe one day when you're trying to sell a house, you may 'get it' too

view

Full_of_angst wrote: »

Maybe one day when you're trying to sell a house, you may 'get it' too

I have done so, a few times and in different countries. Believe me, I get it. Any viewers who have mortages in place or not in place are welcome. You just never ever know where a viewing might lead to.

And no, I'm not going to physically assult someone if they turn up without a mortage and if I did, I would expect them to report me to the police pronto.

view

The_Magnificent_Spoon wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I think getting punched for viewing a house with no intention to buy is verging on the point of lottery win odds. And shouldn't ever be worried about.

I think you're 100% right there

Jessica29

NewbuyerNE wrote: »

Hi all,

My partner & I are currently living with his parents while we save our deposit. We will definitely have our deposit by end of march 2014 and want to be in a position where we can make an offer & move out as soon as we can instead of starting the viewing process then and possibly having to wait another 6 months.

We're going to get a mortgage in principle after Christmas but between now and then can we start viewing houses? I've been upfront with the agency and told them about the above but will they then take us seriously once we're ready to buy?

Some of the houses we like the look of are still listed (we started looking online in December when we decided we were going to buy instead of rent) but even if they go at least we'd have more of an idea on what we want.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi Newbuyer.

My partner and I had an offer accepted on a house before we had the whole deposit saved up. We wanted to get the ball rolling, and we knew that by the time we got our mortgage offer sorted, exchanged contracts and needed to hand the deposit over that we would have it. March is still a long way away but I don't see an issue with you seriously looking at the end of this year/early next year.

ValHaller

view wrote: »

I have done so, a few times and in different countries. Believe me, I get it. Any viewers who have mortages in place or not in place are welcome. You just never ever know where a viewing might lead to.

And no, I'm not going to physically assult someone if they turn up without a mortage and if I did, I would expect them to report me to the police pronto.

This is not about viewers without a mortgage in place. This is about someone who cannot buy for 9 months in a situation where the seller has not been fully informed.

NewbuyerNE

Jessica29 wrote: »

Hi Newbuyer.

My partner and I had an offer accepted on a house before we had the whole deposit saved up. We wanted to get the ball rolling, and we knew that by the time we got our mortgage offer sorted, exchanged contracts and needed to hand the deposit over that we would have it. March is still a long way away but I don't see an issue with you seriously looking at the end of this year/early next year.

That's fab, thank you Jessica.

We're going to start viewing after Christmas & get our MIP once we've seen somewhere we like since its only valid for so long & affects your credit score. If we see somewhere we like mid/end feb we might look into that - I saw a post on another thread about the buying process & handing over a deposit was way down the list after a lot of other things that would probably take a while so was considering this.

Although we are lucky enough to be living with the parents-in-law but I'm keen to get my independence back

BobQ

Full_of_angst wrote: »

How can viewing a house when you're in no position to buy it be 'working with' or 'helpful' to the vendor?

Well if the agent is doing their job or you are interested enough to ask you can get useful feedback. I have not sold for a few years but when I did it was not uncommon to have a potential buyer say "its not quite what we are looking for" which gave an opportunity to gauge whether there were things you could address as a seller.

There are too many people who expect a potential buyer to have a definitive understanding of a property based on floor plans, a few imaginatively staged photos and what the EA says. When these same people are prospective buyers I'll bet they are just as picky.

NewbuyerNE

ValHaller wrote: »

This is not about viewers without a mortgage in place. This is about someone who cannot buy for 9 months in a situation where the seller has not been fully informed.

No, this is about someone asking if you were allowed to view before you had your deposit. I haven't even started looking yet & there's no sellers involved yet.

view

ValHaller wrote: »

This is not about viewers without a mortgage in place. This is about someone who cannot buy for 9 months in a situation where the seller has not been fully informed.

but as most have said above, EAs don't seem to enlighten the seller if a viewer has a mortgage in place or not anyway - despite the OP being very open and honest and letting the EA into the full situation.

For the sake of repeating myself, I still say in this climate any viewing is a good viewing. You never know where this could lead.

It would seem OP that some say you should go ahead and some say you shouldn't. Up to yourself really.

moneyistooshorttomention

I would say most people say "Don't view until you're ready".

The thing is though that any viewer (of any description) has no way of knowing whether that particular vendor is in the "Do NOT come and view my house unless you are ready to buy" camp. Most vendors do seem to be in that camp and the only way to find out if they are is for the prospective viewer to specially ask them (ie EA asking right in front of the viewer) if they mind having a viewing by someone not in a position to buy yet.

Unless you get told directly "Vendor doesn't mind that..." then it has to be assumed that they only want genuine viewers.