Strangest reason buyers didn't make an offer

Namechange1086 · 2024-07-11T05:19:38+00:00

Nowt so queer as folk. 2 buyers, 1 didn't offer because the garage was too small for their beer can collection. Who collects beer cans 😅. The other didn't like the wall colour or that the lounge was at the back of the house. The walls were a neutral off white and the lounge was clearly shown on the floor plan as being at the back. Was very relieved when we eventually sold.

NigelHarmansNewWife · 11/07/2024 07:45

Ime most viewers don't give honest feedback and will say something that they could clearly see from the listing that cannot be easily changed is the reason, if they actually give a reason at all. We once viewed a house where it was obvious to us the guy didn't want to sell, but his wife did. Every room had an unfinished job, he sat on the sofa whilst we were there and didn't engage. We fed back to the EA who thanked us for letting them know. The house was overpriced compared to everything else on the market in the area. They never did sell and are still there 15 years later!

Justyouwaitandseeagain · 02/08/2024 21:44

one couple didn't like the fact my first floor London flat didn't have a garden (which they would have easily seen from the details)

Hutnut · 02/08/2024 21:49

There was not enough sun....south facing garden. Maybe they should buy a house on the sun!

Blobblobblob · 02/08/2024 22:20

No parking directly outside

Fair enough... but it was pretty clear from all photos and description and on the map that it was down a pedestrian alley.

Why waste time viewing it?

IThinkAdversePossessionApplies · 02/08/2024 22:34

My first house was a tiny two up, two down. Photos, floor plan and description on rightmove all clearly showed this. One family with about 4 kids turned up to view, then fed back to the estate agent that they were disappointed there wasn't a second lounge so that the men and women could sit separately. Where they thought this mystery second lounge would have been (or where the kids were going to sleep) was beyond me

Scampuss · 02/08/2024 22:35

Because it wasn't a bungalow.

No, it was a house, as per the details you were holding.

anonhop · 02/08/2024 22:37

Understand these, but we viewed 3 flats each with something we didn't love (no garage, 1st floor with no lift, quite far from station). We knew these things from the listing but we also knew we couldn't have everything we wanted!! We decided on one of them & our feedback to the others was stuff we knew in advance, but was still the genuine reason we didn't go for it, if that makes sense? So it might not be that the buyers are totally wasting peoples time

Nottodaythankyou123 · 02/08/2024 22:38

Not quirky weird but just a bit odd - the clearly advertised 2 bedroom house, because it wasn’t a 3 bed and they only wanted a 3 bed. Why look then 🤷🏼‍♀️

MintTwirl · 02/08/2024 22:43

My parents house is apparently to far in the corner?? It’s a corner plot but not unusually far into a corner but it’s position means it has more privacy and a massive garden that stretches right around the house when compared to other houses on the road.

MorphandMindy · 02/08/2024 22:46

I think a lot of estate agents will (or certainly used to) drag viewers around every property in their budget that had the right number of bedrooms, without much regard for the buyers specific wants. They've done it to me as a buyer. I used to go and vet the viewings on my own because DH got so fed up with this nonsense that he saw as just wasting his time that he refused to see a place until I'd given the ok.

"Now, I know you said you were only looking for bungalows, but I have a fantastic property that's just come on the market and I think you really should see it, so to give you the opportunity we'll pop in on the way back from House 1 and take a quick look at House 2."

GreatScruff · 02/08/2024 22:51

We had some first time buyers who didn't buy our house because the wall where the TV would go in the living room wasn't big enough for two wall mounted televisions and they were gamers.

OnlyFrench · 02/08/2024 22:52

I was selling a three storey Victorian semi. The agent was clearly confused why a couple viewed it and dismissed it because they wanted a detached chalet bungalow.

Turned out their daughter was a school mum and had persuaded them to arrange a viewing because she wanted a nose around my house 😡

PermanentlyFullLaundryBasket · 02/08/2024 22:52

Sometimes you go to look at a house but then realise that something obvious from the particulars is a deal breaker for you. It is only when seeing it that it is clear that something you thought you could live with, you can't

bozzabollix · 02/08/2024 22:57

We had a woman look at our last house who was moving from a chateau in France and wanted to move to the South East of England. Our four bed detached cottage got rejected because it didn’t have three dining rooms for her three enormous French antique dining tables. Quite plain it wasn’t a castle on the details.

Wonder where she ended up.

mindutopia · 02/08/2024 22:57

We once didn’t make an offer on a property because it came with an 80 something year old who lived in the garden shed.

I’m not kidding. I think he may in another time have been the ‘houseboy’ - as in staff they imported from somewhere on their travels. 😬 The husband had died and the wife wanted to downsize and move into town. The man had lived in the shed for like 30 years and it was a stipulation of accepting an offer that he stayed with the property to live out the rest of his days. Oh, and you had to do his shopping and drive him to town for appointments.

Sadly, we never met him and the estate agent seemed (not surprisingly) really uncomfortable with our questions about the set up. But we did see his zimmer frame parked by the shed at our viewing. The property did sell and I still often think about him and wonder if he’s still in the shed. Maybe I should have rung adult social services? At the time though, it seemed like a potential human trafficking situation that I didn’t really want to involve myself in. 😬 I hope he’s okay still though.

Delphiniumandlupins · 02/08/2024 23:08

PermanentlyFullLaundryBasket · 02/08/2024 22:52

Sometimes you go to look at a house but then realise that something obvious from the particulars is a deal breaker for you. It is only when seeing it that it is clear that something you thought you could live with, you can't

True. I have definitely fed back once that a house was too far up the hill for us, which we obviously knew in advance. If it had great views being up a hill would have been an advantage but it didn't and we couldn't really check that without going inside.

CreamCool · 02/08/2024 23:10

OnlyFrench · 02/08/2024 22:52

I was selling a three storey Victorian semi. The agent was clearly confused why a couple viewed it and dismissed it because they wanted a detached chalet bungalow.

Turned out their daughter was a school mum and had persuaded them to arrange a viewing because she wanted a nose around my house 😡

A woman from a neighbouring road, came to view my house. I’d had to take a day off work to accomodate the viewing.

It turns out, I knew her as the younger sister of an older girl, I had played with at school, I knew her name and where she’d lived as a child, where she lived now, as I passed her house every day to get to mine. A different village than the one we had grown up in.

She admitted that she’d only viewed our house to see how large the kitchen was !! She had no intention of moving.
She was quite surprised to meet me again.

Strangely, we had viewed their house, or one next to it, as a brand new empty build, and they were bigger than ours, but all sold by that time.

Who could be bothered to waste someone’s time, for something so petty, especially as there were full plans and photographs available on the website

TheTwirlyPoos · 02/08/2024 23:12

When we sold our old house we had three viewings all in a row that came back with 'love the house but it's on a main road'.

Perfectly fair reason to dismiss a house but it was obvious from the map and getting a house viewing ready with two small children was a total nightmare.

IBegYourBiggestPardon · 03/08/2024 00:08

Because it was a flat and they were looking for a house. It very clearly said 2 bedroom ground floor flat for sale in the description 🙄

Justyouwaitandseeagain · 03/08/2024 01:26

I also had 'because it only has 1 bedroom not 2'

Another house 'it's significantly overpriced. No one will pay that much for it"... thankfully 8 couples all disagreed and all put in offers on the first day of viewings. Several put in offers over the asking price and we have a really tough decision deciding who to sell to 😅

MelainesLaugh · 03/08/2024 01:48

Selling a ground floor flat. Buyer turned it down because it was ground floor

Quinque · 03/08/2024 06:37

Our farmhouse, 2 miles from the nearest village, was rejected because there weren't any street lights!

Happyinarcon · 03/08/2024 06:45

MorphandMindy · 02/08/2024 22:46

I think a lot of estate agents will (or certainly used to) drag viewers around every property in their budget that had the right number of bedrooms, without much regard for the buyers specific wants. They've done it to me as a buyer. I used to go and vet the viewings on my own because DH got so fed up with this nonsense that he saw as just wasting his time that he refused to see a place until I'd given the ok.

"Now, I know you said you were only looking for bungalows, but I have a fantastic property that's just come on the market and I think you really should see it, so to give you the opportunity we'll pop in on the way back from House 1 and take a quick look at House 2."

Have to be honest, this would work for me. I always start out knowing roughly what I want but can change my mind completely if something captures my imagination.

ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo · 03/08/2024 06:53

I was once told the lady viewing didn’t like the view out of the bedroom window of the power station. There was no power station nearby and the view from the front bedroom window was the houses on the opposite side of the street and the back view was a field.

One person didn’t like my TV cabinet. This one though tried to come back and put in a higher offer when I was sold and close to completion. I told them no.

SheilaFentiman · 03/08/2024 06:54

I can’t conjure a vision of a house from its particulars. So I might be able to live with three beds not 4 if all the beds were of a good size and the rest of the house felt spacious.

And there are main roads and main roads- some B roads will be busy traffic pinch points and some A roads pretty quiet. Our house is nominally on a main road, but the angle of the plot and the trees in between actually mean little noise reaches the garden