Cant view without having sold my house

fromtheshires

We have had mixed bags from estate agents. Our house is on the market at the moment. Some agents have refused to let us view houses until we have sold. Its not an issue waiting to view houses until sold if moving in the same town, however we are moving halfway across the country so its not that easy to get time off. 

We were not just tyre kicking and hit a very stringent shortlist of 5 in a few days. We were honest with all agents and had our dip to show we could afford the houses we were looking at if asked and have told one that when we sell ours we will offer on a house. If it sells in the meantime we will be disappointed but the agents know what we want and they have been quite proactive at sending us properties that hit our strict requirements. 

Bigphil1474

I don't think it's that common for viewings to be barred unless you've sold your house, but clearly offers might not be accepted if yours isn't even on the market. I'm looking at the moment and have only seen one house that says no offers unless funds are in place.

I'm selling my dads probate house, and we had 2 offers - one from a couple who had a difficult to sell house (according to our EA),  and FTB's. The FTB's offered £1k less but we accepted it.

We are due to sell my OH's dad's probate house as well (been a bad 12 months), and hopefully our house, and I would prefer viewings and offers to be limited to people already on the market, but nothing more.

timehastoldme

Saves heartbreak as well, we're on the market, saw a house that we loved and fit everything we need, discussed an offer the vendors were happy with once we sold. They said they wanted us to buy as we would be a good fit. Had a block of viewings booked for our house, which amounted to nothing, and nothing since. This was two weeks ago, and vendor has accepted another offer which obviously is well within their rights and I'd been mentally preparing for that when the viewings dried up. Still gutting though.

We're now not viewing anything until we have an offer. Brain too fragile at the best of times.

JuzaMum

I bought a property a couple of years ago. I didn't get asked for any evidence I was really able to buy it until my offer was accepted. 

AlexMac

Grezz24 said:

Wondering ...but would it not be very bad form for us to get a 'sale' with no intention of actually selling unless we found the perfect house we were after... Thanks

Why not get two or three Agents (including the starchy one you spoke to) in to value your house and maybe advise its sale prospects? You've nothing to lose, and Agents are always keen to nose around.

Last time we did that, the Agent with the highest valuation hinted they had someone up their sleeve; we agreed a view that week and sold to their prospect tne enxt weekend before the Agent had even drafted the particulars or put it on the web!

Even if you accept an offer you don't have to sell til you've exchanged... OK, maybe a bit "bad form" but there are no rules; I've been gazumped and gazundered so all is fair in love and property! 

peterhjohnson

Grezz24 said:

Wondering if this is normal, or just an owner that is stressed out by the process.
....

I rang to speak to the agent and was told that we wouldnt be able to view unless we had our house sold under contract already. 

Probably a stressed out owner or maybe delusional. In the current climate (in most areas/cases) it's stupid to put obstacles in the path of a potential buyer.

In most market conditions, expecting you to be at least in the market and having viewings of your property is a reasonable precondition to allow you to view.

In very hot markets, strict qualifications for viewers/offerers may make things more manageable.

allconnected

Are you  sure they didn’t say sold subject to contract i.e. they’ve accepted an offer from a buyer, but the process may be no further along than that? That is reasonable, a chain would take forever to form if it was started with just a group of people who fancied buying each others houses!

I didn’t look until I’d accepted an offer from a buyer as I wanted any offer I made to be taken seriously.

Herzlos

allconnected said:

I didn’t look until I’d accepted an offer from a buyer as I wanted any offer I made to be taken seriously.

How did you phrase the deal with the buyer, given you'd have no idea when you'd be able to exchange?

It's different if you're willing to rent for a while or confident you'll find a house quickly, but it could take months.

I just figure it's easier to sell a house quickly (by having a competitive price) than buying quickly because no matter how much you offer you can't force houses onto the market.

CSI_Yorkshire

Given that most people rely on the equity in their old house to pay the deposit on the new one, and a relatively large proportion of those determine the price of the onward purchase based on how much they are selling for, the chain can only build one direction.

allconnected

Herzlos said:

allconnected said:

I didn’t look until I’d accepted an offer from a buyer as I wanted any offer I made to be taken seriously.

How did you phrase the deal with the buyer, given you'd have no idea when you'd be able to exchange?

It's different if you're willing to rent for a while or confident you'll find a house quickly, but it could take months.

I just figure it's easier to sell a house quickly (by having a competitive price) than buying quickly because no matter how much you offer you can't force houses onto the market.

We were upfront that we’d give ourselves a short window (up to a month) to buy, and if this failed we’d go into rented. Possible because we’d done so much research on the previous 12-18 months we could almost visualise every available property in the search area! But I accept, also only possible because we don’t need to rely on a mortgage to buy (not lucky, just old!)

What did shock us when viewing was the number of sellers who had no actual clue whatsoever  what they would do if someone actually offered to buy their house - visions of months dragging by while sellers worked out where they wanted to live never mind actually finding a house! A big factor in our final choice was that it was an empty property.