Note through door requesting viewing - good or bad idea?

RosieWhittle

Hi all,


I have some friends who are looking to relocate from London to the North West and have booked in to view some places on Tuesday. There is one house that they would love to see, but the only option available to them is to attend an open house on Wednesday. By this point they need to be back down in London so really can't attend themselves. Whilst I am happy to go to the open house in their place (and take videos and pictures if the owner/agent was happy with this), obviously this isn't ideal as they won't really be able to get a feel for the place.


My question is - would it be really cheeky/unacceptable to post a note through the door of the house with contact details on explaining the situation and asking if it would be a possibility for them to view early? This way the current owners can just ignore the note if they don't want any early viewers, or they could contact my friends and arrange a suitable time if they don't mind.


What are peoples opinions on this? I've never bought a house before and my friends are first time buyers so we really don't know the etiquette here! Is this something that's allowed? Are there any issues surrounding this that I'm unaware of? Any help would be much appreciated!

Helen2k8

I think there is no harm in asking, but not necessarily expecting a positive response?

teddysmum

There is no harm in asking. Your friends would be unlikely to want to make an offer based on photos and video, if you an get permission to do them, as they an be very deceptive.

RosieWhittle

Thanks guys. Just wanted to get opinions on whether its a completely unacceptable thing to do or not. I assume it will be a no but you never know if you don't ask!!

glasgowdan

If i were selling and had an open day booked I'd have no problems with a one off early viewing for that reason above.

hazyjo

glasgowdan wrote: »

If i were selling and had an open day booked I'd have no problems with a one off early viewing for that reason above.

Same here. As a seller I'd probably want to wait until after the open day for any offers, but so long as the viewers are okay with that, I can't see a prob.

I would request it through the EA though, not by putting a note through their door.

Jx

Davesnave

The problem with going via the EA is that they may perceive this as an attempt to subvert the controlled situation they're carefully engineering and advise accordingly.

OTOH, it might be the vendors driving the restricted viewings for personal reasons.

You have no way of knowing which it is.

Most parts of the North West are hardly a hot bed of house purchase activity at the moment, so I think I might risk the direct approach, emphasising that I'd be happy to take a restricted time visit at the vendor's convenience and promise not confuse matters by keeping any subsequent offer until after the open house event.

If you don't ask, you'll never know, and the worst that can happen is you'll be ignored.

teddysmum

There are at least three possible reasons for an open day:


The vendors don't want constant intrusion of their privacy.
The vendors aren't local, but want to be present, so arrange a one-off.
They want to push sale by having viewers see that there is competition.
They want to see a number of offers all at once.


As they are having an open day anyway, only not being local should cause a problem.