Baffled by property decision

[Arobase]

Escape to the Country has become my lockdown vice/escape route. This fairly recent programme frustrates me, mostly because I just can't understand the prospective buyer's decisions - www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000r0hb/escape-to-the-country-series-21-14-pembrokeshire

Summary: Prospective buyer (PB) wants to move to Pembrokeshire from Walton on Thames, budget £7-900K, priorities include a lot of land, remoteness, views. Also wants land to be self-sufficient, and outbuildings with development potential. Absolutely loves house no. 2 (so do I!) which is a 5 bedroom house in the National Park with gorgeous views, and 5 acres of land including woodland and a stream; also has a separate annexe she could make an income from, or use for things like therapies that she wants to look into. Guesses price for some reason at £480K, when told it is just under £800K dismisses it out of hand as too expensive. Suggests that she underestimated the price because she thought it was small!

PB is then shown house on a cliff. It's a fairly modern build, middle of nowhere, 62 acres which is predominantly clifftop views over the sea which are lovely. No prospect of the land being self-sufficient, no outbuildings. She doesn't like the house outside or inside, but decides to snap it up at £900K purely because of the views.

I mean, whut? I get it with the views, but paying £400K extra for them only to live in a house you don't even particularly like? And no money left over to improve it or start up your therapy or whatever business?

Ultimately she didn't get the clifftop property and is apparently still looking. Doesn't seem to contemplate going back to the other house.

I'm not criticising her, she's an experienced property developer who clearly knows what she's doing, but I just feel frustrated that she wasn't asked about and didn't explain her completely unrealistic valuation of house no. 2 and why she wouldn't even consider an offer on it - yet would pay so much more for something she didn't even like.

In an ideal world she'd be on MN and come and tell me; but, failing that, any ideas?

To continue the house hunting show bingo theme, I guarantee nearly every episode of A Place in the Sun and it's variants has the presenter ask, "So where do we go from here?" To which we always reply, "Is it down to the lake I fear?"

The mystery house is supposed to be different to what they asked for to make them think
I.e they want a semi they get shown a semi detached and how much further money can go.
Its supposed to make them think outside their boxes as such

HeronLanyon

Friend of mine is selling a house right on the beach in Kent

Could you drop a hint as to where that is, @HeronLanyon or post the RightMove link if it wouldn't be too outing?

I remember one where the man of the couple had this romantic vision of a big house where he and Wife No.2 and his grown up children of his first marriage and their partners could all spend weekends and holidays together. As the programme went on it became apparent that the wife didn't share his vision of big family get togethers with the stepchildren and the children didn't want to spend their weekends in the country anyway. The couple ended up with a two bed cottage right on the street on a busy road through a village. I wouldn't have put money on them still being married a year later.

@Ellmau

Not on Rightnove AFAICS but here it is:

www.onthemarket.com/details/9270388/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=local

Offers over 950.

That makes it a lot easier to understand exactly what was on offer. But I must say I struggle to understand what a single woman with no experience of farming was going to do with 30 acres of arable land, apart from let most of it go wild or let it out.

"We want to put our own stamp on it" is particularly weird. Unless you're going to buy all the vendor's furniture, it'll look different as soon as you move your own stuff in anyway.

I've found that, watching these programmes over lockdown, I've developed my own list of aversions:

Low, black beams
"Half timbered" interior walls
That style where it looks like you ran out of plaster part way through decorating leaving random chunks of exposed bricks, possibly around fireplaces and windows.
Apartments in former stately homes. I'd worry about service charges, and I don't want to have to walk a mile down the drive before I'm even on the road to the nearest shops.
Houses flush with the road. I'd worry about some nutter losing control and smashing into the front room.
Houses with loads of shingle/concrete/paving outside and very little grass.
Houses with steep sloping or terraced gardens.
Houses with loads of steps going up to the door.

But it's mostly academic as any escape to the country for us is on the fantasy list unless we win the lottery.

usereleventy it’s in herne bay.

It is out of the reach of most people, the budget on these shows always amazes me, you get a couple barely 30 who have a budget of £800k. Where are the real buyers with real budgets, I expect that wouldn’t make good telly.
Their wish list is unrealistic as well
I live semi rurally on the edge of the Peak District and we have had a lot of relocating families live here now. Prices are silly here

May the self sufficiency plans they had required more than 5 acres?

@BikeRunSki

May the self sufficiency plans they had required more than 5 acres?

No, because she loved the other property and would have snapped it up had it been on the market at her low estimate.

I agree re: the large budgets. As a contrast I was watching Phil and Kirsties thing were they have two couples looking for houses - one had a 700k budget but the other a more middling 350K (IIRC). Very seldome on ETTC are there people of the sort I'd have expected, namely families with children whose budget will never let them get a big enough house in the city they live in, so they're hoping to find a bigger house in the country. Makes me wonder what property magnate is behind the show, it's all very propaganda-ish.

I'd also like to discuss the difference between a view and a pretty aspect. For a view you'd surely want to be looking towards the horizon or pretty near. A pretty aspect is the window facing the garden and the bit of field you can see through the gap in the hedge.

I also wonder how many who go gooey over the house being beside a field with livestock start bitching when they start smelling manure.

Btw what is going on in NL - riots and stuff? Didn't know the Dutch were the type, what.

@banivani

Btw what is going on in NL - riots and stuff? Didn't know the Dutch were the type, what.

There are some other threads discussing that.

NC fail? Better report it.

@banivani

NC fail? Better report it.

What NC fail?

Sorry, I thought you had accidentally revealed a different username, wanted to flag if you don't want them connected.

I agree I'd like to see more of a range of budgets and more young people starting out on the property ladder who aren't loaded too. The occasional multi millionaire for the property porn would be fine too. Just needs more of a range.

Jesus wept. I am so sorry @Arobase. I was sneakily mumsnetting during a very boring presentation and posted on the wrong thread. That thread has a different OP and I got all mixed up. Mortified! Will not report it to be removed as a lesson to myself to not be an eejit. Let it stand in it's ludicrousness. Feck all anyway. Oh god.

It's interesting how the presenters are coping with social distancing. Nicky PopIdol is clearly struggling because she normally likes to get just a bit too close to the punters and stick her face earnestly in theirs to ask what they're thinking. I think it's an improvement that the buyers are now left to go around on their own at least some of the time.

I really miss the ye olde property programs when houses were basically affordable to the general masses, and the presenters weren't quite so much up their own bums as 'aspiring architects'. I can recall a local property many, many moons ago when it was 'Location, Location' minus the 3rd? They showed the couple a lovely ex council house, 95% bought area, very local to 3 good schools, great amenities, lovely big floor plan, massive garden, and 5min from a nice city. They basically swished round it for 4secs declared it 'dated and basically crap' based on seemingly the wallpaper, and sickenly stated 'well, it's clearly very well loved by the owners!'... Uh huh! Fuck off Phil and Kirsty! It was an absolute bargain! And stripping wallpaper is hardly an issue when Kirsty is soo keen to knock down walls?! Fully gave me the rage! No, it was not my house 😂

Oooh, also just recalled Dom 'to buy or not to buy'? Can anyone remember that? Completely insane show where the prospective 'buyers' got to test drive the house for like 24hrs? I always did watch with morbid fascination and think exactly how desperate must you be to sell your home as to apparently fuck off to a hotel/friends/family overnight and let a couple of randomers loose in your home to play house, and potentially hunker down in your bed? And if there was the added bonus of a hot tub then they'd just be happily floating their scrotum in it 😳

wandavision that title rings a bell but don’t think I ever watched. Sounds truly awful. A bit like something called something like ‘rich house poor house’ where families swap houses and ‘lives’ and budgets for a week or something. Really dislike that prog - have watched more episodes than I’m proud of.

I used to like Anne Maurice and Alistair Appleton in House Doctor about 20 years ago. "So much clutterrr!" I thought Anne and Alastair worked really well as presenters together as they had a good chemistry.

I liked how they redecorated the houses too to make them more sellable

Does anyone remember HomeFront from the 90s?