"Buyers" who don't even have their house on the market

Niv

I was in a position where I was only going to move fro the right house. I didn't 'need' to move but 'wanted' to if the right place cane along. I viewed a house before putting mine on the market and ended up buying it shortly afterwards.


I really wouldn't get worked up about 'timewasters'. You will always get a few proper timewasters - i had a neighbour from four doors down view 'for a friend' yea right, but i didn't stop them !

Bossypants

I have to say, I've never been tempted to go to the trouble of looking at Rightmove, let alone making an EA appointment, if some part of me wasn't thinking about moving. In my present case, I was vaguely thinking about it for next year and scheduled a couple of viewings just to get a sense of what I might be able to get for my money, but wasn't really planning on making a move until spring at the earliest. Unexpectedly fell in love with the property that looked the least interesting based on Rightmove, which I had only really booked because I needed to fill a couple of hours between viewings, and am now on the market and keen to move.

NicNicP

We had no intention of moving as we wanted a certain area. Saw a house down the road go on the market and decided to view it. We made arrangements to put ours on the market and went for a second viewing just before ours went up for sale. We sold our house within 24 hours and went onto buy a the house. On paper we would’ve been classed as ‘time wasters’ yet my view is that putting our house on the market just to buy our now home shows how serious we were.

gettingtheresometime

When we viewed the house that we're currently living in, we had intended to move the following year but as the house was such a bargain we a) met the asking price & b) out our house on the market straight away.

It suited us & the vendors as they were moving into a new build so having someone who was happy to wait 6 months suited them.

Crashy_Time

The property market is so messed up just now that most people will be staying put for the foreseeable, if not the rest of their life. The only thing that will get transactions moving now is a good ol` property price correction, and a big one at that

gettingtheresometime

Crashy_Time wrote: »

The property market is so messed up just now that most people will be staying put for the foreseeable, if not the rest of their life. The only thing that will get transactions moving now is a good ol` property price correction, and a big one at that

In fairness Crashy, I have decent neighbours in a relative decent area near to a place that I work.

Why should I move ?

Flugelhorn

Horizon81 wrote: »

The agent have sent round a few different types of viewer, but the most common type is those whose house isn't even on the market (and they're not cash buyers either).

How do you know they aren't cash buyers? I am looking for a property but now get vague when asked about "position we are in" - mentioned to one Agent that I was a cash buyer and got streams of phone calls about properties all over the place (well meant I think .. )

AnotherJoe

Flugelhorn wrote: »

How do you know they aren't cash buyers? I am looking for a property but now get vague when asked about "position we are in" - mentioned to one Agent that I was a cash buyer and got streams of phone calls about properties all over the place (well meant I think .. )

Why do you get vague? That's not doing you any favours with prospective sellers. Be firmer with the EA though it coudl equally be argued you are potentially missing out some gems for the sake of a few phone calls.
Irrespective the small chance that someone who hasn't sold their house will both fall in love with mine so much they immediately put theirs up for sale and manage to sell it rapidly, when I sell this place I'll be instructing the EA to filter out people who really aren't bothered enough about moving to have made steps to market theirs, And if they really are cash buyers I'd expect them to be very clear about it, some people misuse the term cash buyer to mean they won't need a mortgage once they've sold their house.

Fosterdog

We only bought our first house two year ago so haven't yet been in a position where we would even consider selling, this is most likely going to be our forever home, we love the house, love the location, get on great with the neighbours, and have family close by. We have no reason at all to want to leave.

However there are a few rather nice houses in our village that if they ever went on the market we would seriously consider selling ours and moving, we know the maximum we could afford and would even sell our current house at a loss (for a quick sale) to be able to get one of them if one went on the market in the right price range. Of course we wouldn't just market our home on the off chance one came up for sale so we would instead be the ones who would want a viewing to make sure we do really want the house before marketing ours.

AnotherJoe

Fosterdog wrote: »

However there are a few rather nice houses in our village that if they ever went on the market we would seriously consider selling ours and moving, we know the maximum we could afford and would even sell our current house at a loss (for a quick sale) to be able to get one of them if one went on the market in the right price range. Of course we wouldn't just market our home on the off chance one came up for sale so we would instead be the ones who would want a viewing to make sure we do really want the house before marketing ours.

If I was in one of those rather nice houses, I'd be quite happy to lose you as a potential buyer on the grounds that someone better prepared would snap it up quicker than you can even put in a request to view. "You snooze you lose".

Of course if it turned out that nice as I thought it was, i had no pool of ready buyers because it wasn't that nice, then you likely wouldnt be willing to move quickly to buy it either so I'd be missing nothing. Yes there's a very small chance that i might miss out on your bid, but it is small and in the meantime I have to put up with a bunch of nosybodies who always wanted to see what "that" house was like and people for whom house seeing is a weekend hobby. Fair trade in my book.

In your place, I'd first write a polite letter to those houses stating that if the owners ever consider selling, please contact you first.

And if they didnt act on that some years down the line and you saw it one for sale, I'd check the pictures and floor plan out and if it looked as good inside as out, I'd go to the agent its for sale with, place mine for sale and arrange a viewing at the same time. And if that is too slow to get it, well that proves my point, the seller didn't need your offer so they lost nothing.