Weekend cover

The viewing request that arrives after you've locked up

Saturday afternoon is when buyers decide. Saturday afternoon is also, for most agencies, when the phones stop being answered.

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You shut at four on Saturday. At 4:40pm a request comes in to view a house — this weekend, if possible, because they're free tomorrow and they're not free again for a fortnight.

It sits there. So does Sunday's, and Sunday evening's, which is the busiest browsing slot of the entire week.

What happens now

Monday at nine you've got a small pile of weekend requests. You start ringing.

The 4:40pm one saw two houses on Sunday with another agent, because that agent's diary was bookable when yours wasn't. They're not hostile. They just did what anyone does with a free Sunday and a mortgage in principle.

The maddening part: the house was empty. The vendor would have been delighted. Your Sunday was free. Every single thing needed for that viewing existed — except a way for the buyer to say yes at 4:40 on a Saturday.

What that's worth

Weekends are roughly a third of the week's viewing demand crammed into the window where you're least available. You don't need a statistic for this one. Look at when your own enquiries actually arrive — the timestamps are already in your inbox, and they'll tell you more than we can.

The weekend gap
Office shuts Saturday4:00pm
Enquiries keep arriving untilSunday, ~11pm
You replyMonday, 9:00am
Buyer's decision window, missed by~41 hours
Not a claim about your agency — go and check the timestamps on last weekend's enquiries. That's the real number.

What we'd do instead

The assistant takes the request at 4:40pm and books it — properly, into a slot your diary says is free, against rules you set. Not "we'll try", not a message in a queue. A confirmed time.

Sunday morning the buyer turns up. You knew on Saturday evening, because your phone told you.

And the ones it can't book — the vendor who needs 24 hours' notice, the tenanted flat, the one where access is complicated — it says so honestly and gets you the request with the buyer's details attached, so Monday's call is warm rather than cold.

Where this stops

It books what you tell it it can book. Your diary, your rules, your access notes. If a property needs a vendor call first, it won't offer a slot — it'll flag it. Software that cheerfully books viewings nobody can host is worse than no software, because now you're apologising to a buyer and a vendor.

See it on your own stock

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