Why don’t people read

[justmakemeacuppa]

I’m selling my house (2bed) in a nice area biggest room is just over 4mx3m. It says this on the brochure full plan and pictures.
Two people have viewed saying they want something bigger. Why do they not look at the plan before so they would know it’s not big enough plus nobody reads about the planning permission factor! And looked shocked when I tell them. Do people just want to nosey at my house as when I was looking I actually read the brochure and decided if it was what I wanted before i viewed. One even kept commenting about how big my fridge freezer was???? Why? I’m not leaving it!

I have reduced mine 2week in just because I don’t want a massive mortgage on second house plus I don’t want two houses and the hassle of renting. I just want someone to buy it. What happened to the shortage of affordable starter homes???

Got a viewing on Saturday so I’m looking forward to being told how small my house is again lol

At least my house is being kept spotless which with two kids is a rare occurrence lol

Agree that viewers are being polite, I recently viewed a house where the photos made it looked nice but in reality the paint job was awful and it smelled bad. I told the agent that it was too small as Inwas embarrassed to say that the owners were skanky.

Oh no I hope my house doesn’t smell lol I’ve used so much shake and vac and them smelly stick things in case as we have a dog even though I’ve asked friends if they can smell my dog. plus I have painted the hallway as the gloss was yellowing and my other half has gone mad at me saying I’ve mad a mess of it. I didn’t think it was bad till he interfered and made it bumpy. I’ve never bought a house that hasn’t needed gutting so never looked for things like this.

I'm crap at visualising size TBH.

Lol I know so annoying. Or people will go hmm not sure it's the right area. Well you did know where it was when you arranged the viewing.

The tiny living room of my last house looked enormous in the EA's pictures due to the angle of the lens. I expect there were a few disappointed people. I can only picture the size of a room by comparing it to a room of which I know the dimensions - 2 ft longer than my kitchen, and so on.

The thing is, I think people view houses hoping that when they get there the positives will out weigh the negatives. Most people have to compromise somewhere, so they view it to see if they can cope with the compromise. Then they get there and realise they can’t.

Do you have any awkward features?
We viewed a house that we felt was too small, despite looking at the sizes and comparing. The livingroom had one wall with a patio door, one wall with a 1m sticky out fireplace feature wall, the other wall had a cupboard,a huge radiator and the door opened into it. The last wall was free but the side wall was sticking out,enclosing the space and making it smaller. It did not look like that in the picture. It did have a lot of floor space but I don't like furniture in the middle of the room and it wouldn't have fitted otherwise. I also wasn't willing to buy new furniture to fit the house . So I just said it was too small.

Annieanonamoose
Quoting my old boss re crisp packet wage. He was erm, a charmer. We got a lot of people new to the area expecting a 'naice' rural town to be cheap. I'm not sure why, maybe the myth of a bargain in the sticks. It annoyed the crap out of him.

Another one here who would struggle to visualise a room based on a floorplan and measurements alone - and the wide angled estate agent photos don't help.

We looked at a few houses where the room dimensions were OK on paper but by the time you looked at the placement of doors, alcoves and so on the space simply wouldn't work.

I totally agree with PPs that the space can be hard to visualise, simply misleading in photos, and depend on the other features. And I also agree that “too small” is an easy way to say “just didn’t feel right”.

I agree SoyDora people view knowing that the measurements are smaller than what they hoped for but the rooms don't look small in the pictures so they go in hope.

OP,, I'd be very wary of what an over scented house was hiding. Bad smells are really hard to get rid of and airfresheners are nasty. If it really doesn't smell of dog stop with the air fresheners

I usually hate the smell of fake scents I’m happy to just clean lol only bought them since putting house on market.

Clean and ventilate. All that is needed.

If you can stomach it, post a link to the advert for your property and ask mumsnetters to feed back on it. I had over 200 responses. It was pretty rough reading but a massive eye opener. I implemented maybe half of the suggested changes and sold on the next viewing. Depends how desperate you are to sell I suppose. It's pretty heartbreaking having your home torn to shreds by strangers but like previously said, viewers are polite. Mumsnetters are erm...more direct

After an absolute crap week I’ve took it off market. Our sale fell through and I suddenly realised our house is in better condition than anything on the market. People just want things given to them for next to nothing and tbh I would rather spend my time enjoying my kids than doing up a property. I may not have a 4 bed detached house but I have a lovely family home & by staying I can afford life’s luxury’s and mainly time with my family and take them on holiday. Shame I had to spend a fortune to realise this!

Oh good on you OP. We said the same, if our purchase fell through we were coming off the market as we are letting our beautiful home go at a stupid price. But the dream house came through for us. But I completely understand your decision, and I reckon it's a good one!

We live in a small house with lots of big windows, south facing, so the light and views make it seem bigger. When we look at houses the same size or even larger than ours they almost always feel smaller. Pictures and even room sizes (which we always take note of) simply aren’t enough: you have to see a place with your own eyes.

It doesn't help that every trick in the book is used, from wide angle shots and creative photoshoppery, to children-sized furniture, never mind silly and unrealistic staging. You'd almost think sellers were trying to put one over on buyers...

The thing is, I think people view houses hoping that when they get there the positives will out weigh the negatives. Most people have to compromise somewhere, so they view it to see if they can cope with the compromise. Then they get there and realise they can’t.

This.

People just want things given to them for next to nothing

People want loads of cash for houses that aren’t worth it.

I think it's really hard to know what you do and don't want in a house until you've seen a few and realised what the market looks like. You start off thinking you can cope with a certain floorplan and then you see that in practice and realise how much of your stuff you'd have to get rid of to fit in that house and change your mind. Or you start off thinking you'd want to be X minutes away from your office, then you see how much more you could get for your money 15 minutes further out and realise maybe it isn't that important at all.

I think sometimes you might view a house that isn't ideal on paper (e.g. terraced when you want semi-detached or has no off street parking when ideally that's something you want) just in case the house blows you away and the size/lack of garage etc stops being an issue.

I remember almost making an offer on one house then suddenly realising that actually it wouldn't work practically (for lots of obvious reasons that hadn't occurred to us before we started house hunting seriously). After that we were much more selective about the houses we looked at.

Having said that apparently some people do make a hobby of looking round houses they don't want/can't afford just because they're nosey. Some people even visit completely different parts of the country for this purpose.

Having said the above, we bought the first house we looked at and paid asking price .