14 viewings booked on day one, and only 1 further a week later

skm1981

My house went onto Rightmove last Friday morning.  Within 6 hours, we had 14 viewings lined up.  My estate agent likes to do block bookings because he said people seeing others leave as they go in can drive competition, and booked the viewings for this coming Saturday, so over a week after it was listed.  I was a bit wary about this because some of these potential buyers could have found somewhere else in that time.  

Anyway, tomorrow will be a week since my house was listed online and we've had 4 cancellations.  The first cancellation, we got an immediate replacement come through, but we haven't had any additional people book in to view our house.  We still have 11 people coming to view so I'm not really concerned, but is it odd that all bar one of them arranged the viewing on the day it went online and only one in the days since then, or is that pretty normal?

AdrianC

skm1981 said:

My house went onto Rightmove last Friday morning.  Within 6 hours, we had 14 viewings lined up.  My estate agent likes to do block bookings because he said people seeing others leave as they go in can drive competition, and booked the viewings for this coming Saturday, so over a week after it was listed.  I was a bit wary about this because some of these potential buyers could have found somewhere else in that time.  

Anyway, tomorrow will be a week since my house was listed online and we've had 4 cancellations.  The first cancellation, we got an immediate replacement come through, but we haven't had any additional people book in to view our house.  We still have 11 people coming to view so I'm not really concerned, but is it odd that all bar one of them arranged the viewing on the day it went online and only one in the days since then, or is that pretty normal?

RM sends mails out of new properties that meet people's search criteria.

Crashy_Time

I`m seriously doubting that anybody notices or cares if a group of people view a house nowadays TBH, in fact it would probably be a surprise in many areas that anybody viewed but probably doesn`t create the demand that the EA wants you to think it does.

kasqueak

When it goes live on rightmove it’s going to be at the top of the listings. As the days go on and more and more properties are added it drops down the list. Naturally less people see it and less people want to come and view it. Also like someone else pointed out if someone has registered for notifications they would have got it when the property went live on rightmove so any interested parties would have acted that first week. 

I always search by newest listed on rightmove and I think most people do which is why the longer it’s up for sale the lower you are down the list!

Crashy_Time

Many people use PropertyLog and search for oldest listed to see price reductions for the area, it can throw up properties they may be interested in or give some ammunition to negotiate with deluded sellers.

happy_2008

When a new property comes on the market, people want to book viewings in case they lose out. You snooze you lose

skm1981

Yeah I'm not completely on board with this strategy.  It seems a bit odd.  So one couple view my house and then see another come in after them, I don't think that would make any difference to me. If I like a house, I like a house. I would have been much happier if the house had been listed on Wednesday or Thursday and the viewings been booked for that weekend, and any additional people who want to view after that viewing, then they can book in.  But I've just put my trust in him because he's the estate agent and he has come highly recommended by a lot of people.  

I'll see what comes of Saturday, but he's just not followed through on a lot of what he said, unless I wasn't listening properly.  He said that we would get a premium listing on Rightmove, we didn't.  Said they like to list houses on Wednesday evening as this seems a good time, this didn't happen.  Told me he was going to list it on the Thursday, by 10.30pm it still wasn't on any of the property websites.  Messaged him, he told me he had uploaded it to the portals, but must be a delay their end.  Not buying that.  Maybe one of them, a delay, but he listed on 3 different sites and it didn't go on any of them until Friday morning. 

Told me our house would be advertised on all of his social media pages, it hasn't been.  Said we'd get a 360 video of our house and an actual walk-through video, but we just got the 360.  So unless I got all of that wrong, he definitely hasn't followed through on his end of the deal, but then he doesn't get a penny until we sell.  So I'm not sure I'll be singing his praises like a lot of people.  

NameUnavailable

If you have 11 booked don't be surprised if only 5 or 6 actually show. Most will probably drive by the house before the viewing and might rule it out for whatever reason based on an outside viewing.

I find the open house things a bit of a put off personally as you are time limited on the viewing as you know others are waiting to get in. I prefer a viewing where I can take my time if I want to.

Angela_D_3

We had no no shows whatsoever selling ours, came as a suprise to me 

Crashy_Time

NameUnavailable said:

If you have 11 booked don't be surprised if only 5 or 6 actually show. Most will probably drive by the house before the viewing and might rule it out for whatever reason based on an outside viewing.

I find the open house things a bit of a put off personally as you are time limited on the viewing as you know others are waiting to get in. I prefer a viewing where I can take my time if I want to.

It is a gimmick from the days when people were drunk on cheap credit (the public went along with it of course thinking they were part of some great bidding war or something) but just seems hopelessly out of place now IMO, better to give prospective buyers the courtesy of time to view and look around on their own.

Thrugelmir

Agents will normally have a list of proceedable buyers on their books. After this interest will tail off. Until there's say a price reduction which draws in another group of potential buyers. Like buses there's none then several come along at the same time.