Viewing a house and having the vendor show us round

Surrey_EA

yoshiyella wrote: »

More truthful than an estate agent

Depends on the EA, depends on the vendor!

LunaaLouuby

pimento wrote: »

It depends on your poker face. If I don't like something, my face tends to give me away so I'm a bit uncomfortable being shown around by the owner but it's easier to read between the lines if you speak directly to them.

We were shown around by the EA and wish we had the owners show us around for this very reason.

wantonnoodle

We had a mix of owner and agent led viewings when we were buying. To be honest, there's pros and cons to each of them. I hate the dreaded open days, however they were useful in some ways as we tended to spend a little longer in the room where the agent was, eavesdropping some of the conversation points. Saved asking many a question. On the other hand, you couldn't always get a valid impression of the house with so many people in the way.

Owner led, my approach was to be as polite and friendly as possible, and try and frame questions more casually than I would with an agent. Some would be phrased more as if I was staying at a friends who'd just moved into a new house and trying to find things. I would also try, toward the end of the viewing, to engage them in some general conversation about their plans, and reasons for moving. It generally served us well, and we got some very honest answers about why people were moving (some of which I wish I hadn't asked!!).

I found generally agents had to follow up and get back to us - and in a number of cases, they never got back to us, despite chasing. Generally helped weed out some houses where we were undecided.

ashe

As vendor our EA was consistently late leaving us 'entertaining' visitors for 5-10 minutes. I found queries were passed on to us that we knew the answer to. Ultimately we started doing them ourselves and sold to the second person we did it. The questions they asked during the visit there was no chance the EA would have known.

Our purchase we were shown round by EA and he answered our questions but didnt know the answers, we offered and were accepted and then did a follow up visit with vendor and wished we had just done that in the first place.

pinklady21

As an owner who is currently selling and doing the viewings, I much prefer it when people viewing are honest. They will know within a few minutes whether they want to buy it or not. If not, then I appreciate them being honest and either not wasting too much of my time.... or saying actually your house is lovely but it is just not for me.
You can usually tell fairly quickly if they are interested or not!
So far - the viewers seem to feedback to our agents that we are lovely, our house is great, they just don't want to buy it.... or have not sold theirs yet etc etc

Davesnave

pinklady21 wrote: »

I much prefer it when people viewing are honest. They will know within a few minutes whether they want to buy it or not.

Will they?

Sorry, but we'd need a much longer time frame than that to genuinely know if we wanted to buy.

However, we might need only a few seconds after stepping out of the car to know there's no chance.

We walked away from the property we're in now. In that sense, it was no different from several others, but the others didn't call us back again. Even then, we had two more viewings. At no point were we 'dishonest' or time wasting; just cautious.

Houses are expensive items. We've stayed long term in our three by getting the purchases right. You might think us ditherers, but ditherers all live somewhere and their money is as good as anyone else's.

warby68

Perfectly normal

For the most part, vendor led are more informative.

Agreed it can be a squirmy process, wandering round inspecting someone's occupied home but that's the nature of the beast and I firmly believe its better to actually meet your buyers and then both sides can form that vital 'bit of trust/confidence' (or otherwise)

If you have 'lots' of questions before even seeing it then try and split them into vital ones and ones that can wait until you know you might be seriously interested. A hundred question interrogation would probably be offputting and make you seem like 'hard work'. If you're a FTB ask someone experienced to help, perhaps even take them with you. They can chat to the vendor a bit while you look so its not so intense.

As vendors we always offered an initial guided tour and then excused ourselves to one room and invited them to look round unaccompanied and come and find us with any questions. I know some people won't like to do that as they won't want people opening cupboards or assume house viewers are thieves but we were a little pragmatic. If they 'seemed' decent that's what we did so they could talk between themselves etc. We even said if you want a private chat outside and then pop back in, that's fine.

We've only ever had a couple of agent viewings as buyers - they were useless and literally there just to lock up.

MRPEEVED

Mickygg wrote: »

I was shown round by owners. Not truthful so beware.

Any questions and answers take with a pinch of salt.

You ask 'what are the neighbours like?' They aren't going to say terrible even if they are.

I hate owners showing round. I don't show people round, what the hell am I paying the EA for if I did?

I sold a house recently, did not get on with the neighbours due to loud noise (official complaint made). I personally showed three potential buyers around the house myself and was completley honest with them. Better, I guessed, than having them find out later down the line through the solicitors. Pleased to say, we sold. As said by other posters, what bothers one person may not bother another.

1886

The vendor showed me round my current house and it was great. I was able to ask him questions that the EA would have never known the answer to i.e what are the local bus routes, where do they go to, how often do they run etc as my wife does'nt drive

He told me about the neighbours in the street, work that had been done on the house and also about the owner before him, what he had done work wise

My previous experience of EA's has'nt been great. I found them not overly interested

OUNN

We've been viewing a number of properties over the last few weeks. Some have been with the vendors, some have been with estate agents.

One vendor just left us to investigate the house while they stayed out of the way - they made it clear they didn't want to interfere, but were there to ask questions.

A different vendor put us totally off the property. They were very hard to pin down for details, very evasive and non committal to answers.

Overall, I prefer estate agents doing the viewings. They know how to be professional about it, and generally they know the local area quite well.
But does a vendor doing the viewing put me off the property? Not before I've seen it no!