to want to tell the estate agent what i REALLY thought!

[countydurhamlass]

arranged to go and view a property on Saturday. The pictures in the estate agents website were very nice (although the decor was not to my taste) and it was priced at the top end of the price bracket for similar houses in the area so on that basis i thought it would be in good condition.

turned up to the house to be greeted by the lady of the household. she took us round the house as quick as possible saying this plug is here, that plug is there, this needs doing but i havent had chance (to at least one thing in each room). the house was riddled with damp - it was in every room even though she had tried badly to hide it, the gardens were overgrown and had been for about 6 months with loads of rubbish in the back garden.

i was in, round and out in five minutes! four minutes longer than i wanted to be.

the estate agents will be ringing me in the morning and i really want to say how disappointed i was and how ON EARTH could they value the property at what they did, it wasnt even worth half the amount because of all the work. i feel like wasted my time going to look at it.

be honest about the price and the work that needs to be done. dealing with damp can take a few thousand - so really isn't a problem.

YANBU at all.

Tell them the truth and remind them again what you are looking for in your price range.

In my (very limited) experience of house buying they will try and show you anything and everything they can whether it suits your requirements or not until you put your foot down in no uncertain terms.

When we were house hunting ( and it was a good 70-80 miles from our previous house) we had a few requirements. Namely: a four bedroom minimum; a garage; a garden and not on a main road (due to children and pets). You would not believe what we were sent !
Lots of details on 2 and 3 bed homes, plenty with no garage and I lost count of the ones on major A roads.
It was not just one Estate Agent either - they were all the same and it irritated me no end.

In the end I was very firm and eventually the message got through.

The worst one we viewed though did have all our requirements - it was just a shame that the three teenagers of the house were still in bed when we viewed it and the owners hadn't emptied their cat's litter tray - oh it was awful !!

sometimes folk buy a house like that though 80s babe. When we went to view our first house it was so full of animals - GSD, cats, rabbits, rats, lizards, tarantulas, grasshopper (to feed the other pets!) you could hardly move, her bil was asleep in the sitting room so we couldn't look at it properly, it was damp and had no wallpaper or paint on the kitchen walls.
However we liked it (and she rushed out as we left and offered another £1500 off the price!!, and that was in 1988) and lived there very happily for 7 years.

We once viewed a house where we couldn't look in one of the bedrooms because the teenage daughter was still asleep (at 1.30pm), the house was filthy, pots and pans stacked up all around the kitchen, and they hadn't flushed the toilet in the bathroom and the lid was raised . We rang the EA as we were leaving to tell them what we thought of the house, it was truly disgusting.

OTOH, when we were selling our house, we got back comments that the dining room was smaller than on the photos. We removed DS' toys and storage stuff the next time we had a viewing, so it just had table and chairs in there, and hey presto, they put an offer in.

Honest comments can be really useful.

Tell them, don't bother being diplomatic, it is in everyones interests that you tell the truth.

Tell them.
I viewed a house with 3 resident Spaniels, and a muddy 'tide mark' around every wall, and the smell! To top this I was shown around the garden shed, that previously housed the husband's pedigree mouse collection. By the smell, it had never been cleaned either. I was informed that the shed would be included with the house sale! I've never left a property so fast. When the estate agent rang me in desperation 15 minutes later, I told him exactly how disgusting it was.

This is the only reason we tolerate use estate agents: to act as go-betweens. You don't need to be diplomatic. Tell them what you thought and let them decide how to break that to the seller.

The EA works for the vendor - there's no reason not to be frank with them. But don't be rude because you want to be on their 'hot buyer' list that gets the first phone calls for a new property to market.

Be honest and tell them, I have a genuine dislike of estate agents anyway though so maybe I am being biased!
They probably won't take any notice at all but you can always try!
Hopefully anyone that sees the property will be as disgusted as you are so it will just sit and rot even longer!

I agree you should definitely be honest with the agent - that is what he is there for. But unless you have specifically told him you want something as low-maintenance as possible, and not a doer-upper then there is no need to get angry at being misled - unless the details have actually misled you.

Did they say the house was immaculate and in top condition? Because if not, you have to always assume there will be an element of work to be done. Strangely enough, I have found that condition and quality of decor often make only a little difference to the value. The location, size, and plot are everything, as are things like parking, exposure to traffic noise, views, etc, and if you find somewhere that happens to be immaculate and lovely into the bargain then you are onto a winner. But you can often have two houses that are both pretty much identical, but one is a bit tatty yet is worth barely any less than the low-maintenance updated one.

Would definitely be truthful about how disgusting and bad the place was. EA won't take it personally as they'll know how grim it is too, they'll just want some good soundbites to give back to the vendor. Might be why they are happy to let her dp viewings - might make their skin crawl to and they might hate going in there too!

I'd also tell them what price you think it is worth, sounds like you know the area well. And if it is a house you would be interested in if it was realistically priced then work out what was wrong with it, what you would have to pay to put it right (using good quality builders rather than cheapest cowboy quote around), even things like having to take out bad built in wardrobes, skip hire, redecorating after damp removal etc etc to make the list of jobs as big as possible and also the cost. Then add another 10% as building things always cost more, another 10% contingency (how do you reckon the electrics, heating, roof etc are?), another 10% for the inconvenience factor amd more if you would have to live out and pay rent whilst doing the work to make it habitable and 10% wiggle room for the price on the basis that you
would never start with your best offer. And then tell the estate agent what you would be prepared to pay...

Separately do you think you ought to increase the price on your place?

Fellatio, are you an EA with inside knowledge? Every house selling programme I've ever seen on the TV has said the exact opposite to your last paragraph. Also there is a big difference to being a bit tatty and some of the houses that people have described on this thread.

I'd love to believe what you said is true but can't see how it could be in a buyers market.

You should tell them. I was honest when asked, but I don't think the estate agent really appreciated it. I was disgusted at the state of one house I went to, it was unbelievably mis represented in the advertisements and it was a complete waste of my valuable time to go round and view it. The guy there obviously didn't want to sell (he was having to because of divorce to split the proceeds, he said) so I felt he deliberately made the house as unpleasant as possible. I was VERY nearly sick, and it took a VERY long time to get the smell out of my nose and the bac of my mouth. It's still up for sale at the same price two years later.

Definitely tell the estate agent what you think of the place they need the feedback, also if you need this agent to show you more properties then they should know what you are prepared to buy. You can still be polite about it, just tell him you need a place that doesn't need doing up.

When we looked at buying a house in 2005 we found the same thing as what fellatio said. House prices were based on the area, detached or semi etc, and the number of rooms basically; rather than whether it needed work done inside. They'd call it "potential" :D
The only way you would increase the value of your property would be to add an extension or loft conversion.

ie a neat 3 bed or a run down 3 bed would come at the same price. (as long there were the same number of rooms, garage, semi detached etc)

No not an EA just someone who has looked at a lot of houses in my time. I think condition and finish matters a lot if you are refurbishing to sell on, but I don't think it make as much difference as most of us think it should, the rest of the time.

The trouble is, obviously if somewhere is a total wreck it's obviously worth more, but decorative 'condition' is very subjective.

sorry I mean obviously worth less!