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jamie1s

Duration of showing?

Jamie
13 years ago

My house is a straightforward 1973 4 bedroom 2600 sq ft colonial. You can easily get to the utilities and the rooms and closets are empty enough to see into all the corners and crannies at a glance.

Is it typical for a showing to last 45 minutes or more? (This is indoors only -- there are no "grounds" to walk and it's cold/snowy/wet -- people aren't walking around the yard.)

When I'm shopping for a house, that's a verrry long visit. It only happens when I'm trying real hard to love a place, or on the second showing when I already know I love it and I'm trying to figure out whether I can afford to make it home.

What's your take?

Comments (11)

  • rafor
    13 years ago

    It seems to me that the more interested the buyers are in your property, the longer they spend looking at it! Isn't that a good thing?

  • aaaaaaaa
    13 years ago

    Hi,
    When I was shopping it typically would take me 7 to 10 mins to look around the homes. Now that my home 1940sq 3 BR is on sale, I see that buyers spend more than 20 to 30 mins in my home!!! I had my first buyer offered reasonable offer and later backed out for financial issues from his side. He and his family spent totally 3 to 4 hours in two visits on same day--first showing day and first buyers.

    I am frustrated with cleaning and keeping home fresh only to listen list of things I do not have like "Not finished basement, no stainless steel appliances, third bedroom is small--they even call this den some times". One thing is every one say that home is very clean and well maintained and that keeps me going:)

    Sorry I needed to vent out.

    Anna

  • calliope
    13 years ago

    The last home I sold, the realtor sat down with a potential buyer in the kitchen for at least an hour discussing financing with them. I know, because I also owned the house next door and I was there during the showings, more so I could catch the realtor afterward and talk over what transpired. Did it bother me? No it did not. Of course she could have had that discussion with them somewhere else, but I trusted her to use her discretion, and if she decided to seize the moment because her gut told her it was necessary, then that's what I was paying her for.

    I don't think too many people can decide in half an hour if a home they see is "IT!", but they can decide in a much shorter time if a home they preview is definitely "NOT IT!"

    If I look at a home I feel meets the criteria I have set up beforehand, and I am seriously interested, a first viewing may take a good hour. If I don't see a bunch of red flags, I set up a second viewing and actually it has been briefer. It's one of those how does my gut feel visits. If I still get positive vibes then that is when I am inclined to make an offer.

    I have a sister who could spend a day buying a dress. I made the mistake of shopping with her once. We hit every store in town and she eventually came back to the first one and picked out the first dress she looked at. Imagine what a house buying process with her would be like. LOL I am totally the opposite. I know immediately when I look at a dress if I like it or not. If I do, it takes ten minutes to try it on. If it fits, it's a wrap. Houses are no different. There are just different types of shoppers.

  • badgergrrl
    13 years ago

    Don't forget that time includes some cushion for travel, as most schedule multiple showings in one day, so sometimes the schedule gets backed up.

  • Carol_from_ny
    13 years ago

    It's not about how long a showing takes it's the results you get from the showings that are important.
    Everyone has a different style of looking and figuring. Some are very quick,some take a long time.
    We've bought and sold enough houses over the years I know exactly what I want. It takes DH three times as long to look and come to the same conclusions I do. Once I realized that I stopped having him look at houses till I got down to the final few.
    The last one we bought and are living in. I knew when I walked in this was the house we were going to buy. It took DH 2 hours to check the place out and come to the same conclusion.

  • LoveInTheHouse
    13 years ago

    I think it's a good sign when they take a long time. I don't mind showing them around because I'm ussually proud of what I've done. One time I became friends with someone who was interested in my house but didn't buy it, that's how much we yakked.

  • theroselvr
    13 years ago

    The amount of time spent in a house can mean nothing. As was mentioned; they could be sitting down talking- it may not be about the house they are in but about all of the houses that were looked at that day. If one has a laptop or netbook they can be checking more houses out online before they move on. They could be talking about something totally different then real estate. They could also be killing time waiting for their next showing appointment.

    I can't count the number of times an agent had to take a phone call when we were looking at houses; so I had to wait for them to finish.

    You just never know until they come back for a 2nd showing or write up an offer.

  • bleigh
    13 years ago

    I'd much rather people spend a longer time looking at my home than just 5-10 minutes. I know when I'm looking at houses, I spend quite a bit of time in the ones I like. The ones that I don't like I'm out of pretty quickly. My dad and I spent up to an hour looking over my favorite house on the second showing. The sellers and agent and my agent have stayed in contact with each other. They've even offered to let us rent before buying which we will probably do if it's still available when we sell our house. Anyway, when your talking about spending that much money on something it seems perfectly reasonable to spend plenty of time looking it over.

  • dreamgarden
    13 years ago

    "Anyway, when your talking about spending that much money on something it seems perfectly reasonable to spend plenty of time looking it over."

    This is exactly how I feel. I finally bought a house after looking for eons.

    I found the house on Trulia and attended an open house. I got the agents card and arranged to be shown the place when there weren't other buyers around. That visit lasted about 30 minutes.

    The seller started having open houses every Sunday. I came to two more of these. In addition to seeing how I felt about it the second and third time, I also wanted to see what other buyer's were saying about it.

    I drove by at different times of the day to see what the neighborhood/traffic was like. I pulled into the driveway when the owner was there on two different occasions and asked if he would mind if I walked around the yard. I didn't want to impose by asking to see the inside again, but he offered to let me in anyway.

    I really appreciated his patience in allowing me to come to my decision without pressure and was grateful that he understood how important it was for me to be sure I was comfortable with the place before chunking out this kind of money.

    It was also helpful that the house was empty so I could see what defects there were without having to move furniture, rugs, etc.

  • chrisk327
    13 years ago

    as noted before it can mean a lot of things. I've spent more time in some houses I didn't buy than the ones I did. That happened for a number of reasons some:

    I really liked a certian aspect or two about the house and was trying to get over certian shortcomings b/c I really liked that other aspect.

    I really liked the house and really wanted the house and am trying to justify to myself whether I could afford it, whether it was worth the price etc.

    we were still trying to figure out wht we wanted and this house sort of fit the bill, but ultiamtely fell short on a number of things and I'm trying to give something that is mediocre at best a fair shake and maybe I should lower my standards.