The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

GDB2222

The people who looked round your house, have they found a buyer for theirs? Yet the agents were happy to show them round.

You are leaving it too late to look around, surely, if you wait until yours is under offer before even looking?

Suppose you get an offer this weekend, your buyer is not going to hang on for a couple of months until you find something you like. Even if he is patient, his buyer may not be, and so on down the chain.

I know that the first question I would ask before making an offer to buy your house is whether you have found somewhere to move to. If the answer is no, I quite probably wouldn't bother to offer. I'd certainly keep looking even if you accepted my offer, because I'd expect you to drop out of the sale if you could not find what you want.

I might well be wrong in your case, but that's what I'd think.

GDB2222

do agents really stop viewings after ten minutes?

silvercar

Nosy question to GDB, why would you exchange on a property with completion in a years time?

GDB2222

silvercar wrote: »

Nosy question to GDB, why would you exchange on a property with completion in a years time?

Good question. It's been bought by a developer who wants to knock it down and build flats. He's put in a planning application and expects to get that rejected, then have to go to appeal.

He has paid us slightly over the odds, and we are effectively financing the project for him through the appeal.

The interesting question is whether he will be successful.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

The people who looked round your house, have they found a buyer for theirs? Yet the agents were happy to show them round.

Theirs is SSTC

GDB2222 wrote: »

You are leaving it too late to look around, surely, if you wait until yours is under offer before even looking?

I can view every one on my shortlist before any buyer even arranged a survey/solicitor. And, I don't HAVE to get them back to back as I would be prepared to rent.

GDB2222 wrote: »

Suppose you get an offer this weekend, your buyer is not going to hang on for a couple of months until you find something you like. Even if he is patient, his buyer may not be, and so on down the chain.

They won't have to. Two transactions... I sell ... I buy. Not necessarily linked.

GDB2222 wrote: »

I know that the first question I would ask before making an offer to buy your house is whether you have found somewhere to move to. If the answer is no, I quite probably wouldn't bother to offer. I'd certainly keep looking even if you accepted my offer, because I'd expect you to drop out of the sale if you could not find what you want.

I might well be wrong in your case, but that's what I'd think.

I'd rather sell/rent short term than be forced to buy one of only the houses for sale at the time I'm looking.

I know stuff does come to market I could buy ... so I'd just have to have faith

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

do agents really stop viewings after ten minutes?

Last one I went to he said "Got to make this quick, I'm needed back at the office". I think, especially when it's a lone female buyer, they're not really "interested" too much as they prefer to sell to couples.

I've even had agents try to put me off even registering with them before, being very dismissive. One even almost sneered as he enquired "and HOW are you going to pay for this?" before telling me 3 minutes later "Of course lenders don't like lending to single females".

There is a lot of hidden sexism and judgement in the industry about who will buy a house and how they treat those people.

The agent told me mine is a "lovely family house, in a sought after catchment area". Not ONE family has viewed it.

GDB2222

I'm truly sorry you seem to be coming up against all this idiocy. I can't see how it's easier to sell to couples than to a single decision maker. That makes no sense whatsoever.

There may be a preference for people buying with a mortgage, even though that complicates things compared to cash, as the agents make money from financial services.

I'm not convinced I would want to rent, just to please my buyers, but I take your point that you may not want to buy what's currently on the market.

And if I had travelled to view a property I wouldn't take much notice of an agent wanting to get back to his office. If he has overbooked his diary, that's his problem.

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

Last one I went to he said "Got to make this quick, I'm needed back at the office". I think, especially when it's a lone female buyer, they're not really "interested" too much as they prefer to sell to couples.

I've even had agents try to put me off even registering with them before, being very dismissive. One even almost sneered as he enquired "and HOW are you going to pay for this?" before telling me 3 minutes later "Of course lenders don't like lending to single females".

.

Dear God! Is that still going on? :eek: In this day and age when a huge percentage of buyers are single? And female? :eek:

And surely it is easier for one person to make a decision than for two to agree? That couple who viewed Pastures' house recently..... hubby thought it was the bees knees, but wifey didn't like the location. If hubby had been on his own, he'd have bought it!

Stupid agent.

I agree with GDB....... I would spend as long as I liked looking over a property. It's the biggest expenditure anyone is likely to ever make in their life, so I won't be rushed. If an agent were like that, I'd drop a note to the vendor warning them what the agent was like.


I must admit, although I haven't bought many properties, only four, I can't say I have come across any sexism, and I've been buying them on my own each time. It wasn't hard getting a mortgage either, and my first one was in 1978, although to be fair, they had just relaxed the rules.

silvercar

Dear God! Is that still going on? In this day and age when a huge percentage of buyers are single? And female?

My female friend, a partner in a medium sized city law firm, was recently asked what her husband did.

LydiaJ

PasturesNew wrote: »

I think, especially when it's a lone female buyer, they're not really "interested" too much as they prefer to sell to couples.

I've even had agents try to put me off even registering with them before, being very dismissive. One even almost sneered as he enquired "and HOW are you going to pay for this?" before telling me 3 minutes later "Of course lenders don't like lending to single females".

There is a lot of hidden sexism and judgement in the industry about who will buy a house and how they treat those people.

Pyxis wrote: »

Dear God! Is that still going on? :eek: In this day and age when a huge percentage of buyers are single? And female? :eek:

I must admit, although I haven't bought many properties, only four, I can't say I have come across any sexism, and I've been buying them on my own each time. It wasn't hard getting a mortgage either, and my first one was in 1978, although to be fair, they had just relaxed the rules.

I've only bought one, although I had offers accepted on two others that fell through - one because of the survey and the other because of planning permission problems. I never experienced any of the sexism described here either. It's possible that when I said my husband had died and I was buying with his life insurance payout that that put me into the "couple" box in their minds, but they didn't seem to me to care whether they sold to a couple or a single person, with a mortgage or to me as a cash buyer, as long as they sold houses to someone.