Potential Buyers don't even have house up for sale yet

pinkshoes

I'd let them view, and if they made an acceptable offer I would accept it but not take the house of the market until they were able to proceed (e.g. had accepted an offer on theirs).

Drawingaline

We did this. We knew we wanted to sell, I had a list of saved properties on Rightmove, was prepared to sell at a lower price if it meant we got an offer. One of the EA who valued was chatting about what we were looking for, and out came the line, we have one hitting the market this evening, sounds perfect blah blah. He sent through the details, later that afternoonand for once they were right. They got us in to view within an hour, we offered full asking price, but understood that we were not really ready right then. The sellers have us two weeks to sell, we got ours in the market within 5 days, priced 10k under valuation, had two offers 5k below that and accepted one the day before the two weeks were up.

It was stupidly stressful, and three months in we are hopefully coming up to exchange within the next month. But lots of other properties have come on, and while any number of them would work, nothing else has come on that ticks as many box's for us.

Not sure I would have been as nice as our vendors though!

steampowered

I'd let them view. Only takes a few minutes to let them look around.

I wouldn't worry too much about cleaning the house for the viewing though.

youth_leader

It's difficult isn't it, it is such an effort to be constantly 'viewing ready'.  Sometimes I didn't even cook lunch in case the house smelled of food!  I was always annoyed when I discovered some viewers were 'just looking'.  

theoretica

This is why open viewings make such sense - or back to back in these times.  You only have to prepare once so might as well welcome as many viewers as can make the day.

rik111

The problem is, if they offer on your house and put theirs up with your agent, very little effort will go into marketing your house. They won’t want to lose your buyers house if you sell to someone else. No harm letting them look but tell the agent to reject every offer until they are proceedable.

TheProfessional

We offered on a couple of houses whilst 'not proceedable' and the vendors went with those with their own house on sale. 

It was an attempt to not be put into the stressful position of having sold ours and having to hunt for a new one quick in an area which houses were selling for over asking price and quickly.

In the end we lost a couple of houses as we were not proceedable' so put ours on

Suseka97

It's true that some buyers will wait for that right house to come along, before putting theirs on the market - others won't even look until they have an offer.  As the seller it's up to you to decide if you're happy to let potential buyers view, even if they are not yet on the market, and if you do whether you'd accept an offer and withdraw the house from the market.  

We accepted an offer from a buyer who hadn't put theirs on at the time, they did so swiftly and it took around 2 weeks before they themselves had an offer.  We took ours off the market on accepting the offer and agreed with the EA that we would give the buyers a month to sell and if there was no movement, we would go back to the market.  We did this because the buyers were genuinely interested and were clearly taken with our house and we liked them.  Of course we, like most, would love to benefit from the stamp duty 'holiday' but it isn't a game-changer for us - so it's rather dependant on your own circumstances.  

I certainly don't agree with the bartering / outbidding shenanigans that go on in house buying and selling - but accept its a business transaction and it each to their own.  So you could let them view, accept an offer, keep it on the market and if someone can progress more quickly or offer more - the ball is in your court.  But also consider that nothing is guaranteed up to the point of exchange!

Bowley

We did the same. Wanted to stay local, had Rightmove alerts set up for the postcode. We knew what we wanted and didn’t want to sell for the sake of it until the right house came up. Didn’t fancy leaving a buyer waiting around for weeks/months until it did. 

babyblade41

My agent knows not to send anyone round until they can proceed and have an offer on theirs.

Too many time wasters especially at the min and if they haven't thought about selling until now then it can get problematic 

They may be absolute cash buyers which is fine