The latest annoying estate agent trend

[KerfuffleShuffle]

Currently in the market to move again and I can't help but be bemused by the latest estate agents tomfoolery when it comes to photographs.

An artsy angled shot of an ornament on a side board. Focused object and blurry background - check

A picture of a colourful pot plant in an otherwise begraggled and weedy garden - check

And my favourite one, a picture showing a kitchen tap turned on, cascading down like a serene waterfall not out of place in a spa promotional. I didn't know a working water supply was a top worry for house hunters.

Also do they know showing - 10 out of 15 photos of one room, 1 of the outside, 1 of the garden and 1 of the far fetched-squint and-you'll-just-see-it-view isn't fooling anyone. It just tells us the rest of the house is a bit shit.

So what are your most favourite or even annoying quirks estate agents and house sellers insist on doing nowadays? Plus, here's a link to a wonderfully quirky but fits list of the above house we nearly viewed.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-67408549.html

Thank you outnumbered much appreciated.

That garden looks very claustrophobic!

I present this verbiose pish from near me:

"Voluminously roomy and bursting with gorgeousity this spaciously spectacular, swishly stylish flat with an eyebrow raising 4 meter ceiling height is in a quietly set classically derived building by C J W Simpson. Built in 1922 as a main telephone exchange, granite based and with a grand attitude this generous, corner set, 4th floor 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom flat is"... etc etc

FUCK OFF YOU TIT

Bijou. Bijou garden (a plant trough). Bijou basement flat (Converted cellar you can't stand up in. Bijou kitchen (Turn round and knock yourself out on the one wall cupboard.) Needs a little TLC - a heap you won't get a mortgage for and that has structural cracks you could fill with newspaper.

When we sold our previous house we had a man come round to do photos. A huge selling point was the fact we had a massive garden which is rare as it was in the middle of a medieval village so most houses all piled on top of each other. Ten photos were posted on Rightmove. Three of them were close ups of our chickens that he’d photographed, not even one of the actual garden itself. Then they’d put the description as ‘Why did the chickens cross the road? To get to this beautifully situated family home of course!’ Fucking idiots.

Gorgeousity?!

Permanent - that’s fab. You’d have no idea what was next door from the photos.

We are selling our house and had our 15 yr old do many of the photo's as they were better than those the estate agents and honest.

Thanks for posting that link, OP! That was good for a laugh.

You forgot to mention the perspective of the stairs. This is the view you can expect as you try to claw your way up to bed after a few too many.

Sort of related to the running tap , I always laugh when they list 'mixer taps' as a feature. As if my desire to buy or not buy a property would be decided by that

Why don't people ensure they have the right to edit the property details before they go on websites? We always do, if nothing else, to fix typos, but generally we have to take out irrelevant bollocks and put in rooms missed in the description.

I also wonder about how other people buy houses. We usually know where we want to be and our price bracket. That means we don't pay much attention to the rubbish written. I look at the price, location, general condition in photos and layout. Anything else you really need to go to see. When we do go to see a house we don't look at little details like how many sockets there are - there aren't identical houses with a few more sockets on the market, so there just isn't any point. I do wonder whether this is all a reflection of us living in a village rather than a city. It took us 2 years to find our house and we weren't being that picky.

"5 bedroom house"
Looks at floor plan
Oh...so it's actually a 4 bed with a bed in the dining room.
I'm not the most clued-up house hunter but even I was t falling for that one.

I saw a floor plan the other day that said "relax" "dine" "rejuvenate" "rest" on instead of Living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom ...I am pretty tempted not to view based on that alone!!!

I’m not sure about artistic, but many of the ones I’ve looked at recently would be greatly improved if they had tidied the room before taking the picture; washing up in the sink, dirty laundry on the floor and kid’s toys strewn around are just a few examples.

I really like that house...

Kitchen looks lovely...

5 beds, 300k!

《Misses point of thread》

Extreme close ups of the sofa and the mirror in the hall. Totally pointless, can we see some of the house you're trying to sell pls?.!

If you think UK estate agent photos are bad, wait till you feast your eyes on this epic photoshop fail I came across whilst searching in Dubai

Literally looks like it was done using Microsoft Paint ‘98

(Obviously I’ve made an equally epic fail by failing to attach said photo)

I have been taken in by strategically taken photo. Building looks great but actually right next to huge wall or something else. Not had a power station yet.
Today Estate Agents have delved to a new low. I have received photos of a house. Various photos. In the foreground of a kitchen photo is a pink packet of SanPro. Heaven only knows what it is doing in the kitchen and why the photographer took that photo

Have to tell you a funny story that in once read in the letters section in a magazine
Anyway thiswomen was by her own admission nosy neighbour and a curtain twitcher and the house next door was up for sale. The estateagent came around and took pics and few days later she was walking pasther local EA and saw the picture of her neighbours house and she was unitentionally captured on the picture with her face peering out of the window.

When a property has been on the market for too long & they change the order of the pictures to trick you into looking at the ad again.

Does anybody remember Trading Up - the property show presented by Colin and Justin a decade or so ago(?) at the time when BBC1 daytime was wall-to-wall property shows? Every other house seemed to be described as 'Gorgeous and aspirational' (not sure how a building is actually able to aspire to anything]?

Always sounded very desirable with their soft Scottish burrs - "Gorrrrrgeous and aspirrrrrational!" but it did get annoying after a while.

Oh, and on Homes Under the Hammer, the way the estate agents who are brought in after the houses have been done up and asked what rents they believe the houses could now make - it completely irrationally gives me the rage when they say 'per CALENDAR month' every single time.

"Similar properties in this neighbourhood tend to go for an average of £650 per calendar month. Before it was renovated, I would only have expected this property to fetch £500 per calendar month, but now that Terry has done such a great job of improving and modernising it for maximum appeal, I'd be marketing it for between £750 per calendar month and £800 per calendar month."

Repeating 'per month' so often, rather than just saying it once and then giving the various prices, is truly annoying enough; but their feeling the necessity to clarify constantly that they aren't referring to a lunar month, a nodal month or a synodic month, has me shouting at the telly every time.

And why can't they just say 'house' or 'flat' instead of 'property'? Do they also announce to their spouses that they're "Utilising the automobile to travel to the expansive neighbourhood retail outlet in order to purchase a quantity of comestibles" where everybody else just calls out "I'm nipping out in the car to Tesco for some bread and crisps" ?!

@Awwlookatmybabyspider

I remember reading that and chuckling for a long time too!! I can't remember which magazine it was in, but I always remember the anecdote.

I seem to recall it mentioning her being dreadfully offended and denying it furiously when her husband kept telling her that she was a persistent nosey parker - and then the estate agent's advert was published and proved it beyond any doubt!

@Awwlookatmybabyspider

Actually, I think you were right in the first place that she readily admitted her nosey-parkerage - I must have been mixing my anecdotes!

When a property has been on the market for too long & they change the order of the pictures to trick you into looking at the ad again.

"Unexpectedly back on the market"

"Another great opportunity if you weren't quick off the mark and missed out before"

"Every agreed sale keeps falling through the instant that the surveyor finds evidence of dry rot and cockroach infestation"