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

This amazing country house comes with outbuildings and paddocks
All set in 1/2 am acre....

Or a picture of a massive green field which turns out to be «the view»

Ew that pup house 🏠 s a bit grim, apart from the kitchen, even that’s a bit soulless.
That grey end wall in the sitting room, shudder.

I saw one not long ago that said “This beautiful house has the added advantage of requiring a complete refurbishment” 🤔

Our estate agents have gone one better and made a cheesy you tube film for our town called "I heart (town name)" interviewing local shop owners and pub landlords etc about what s lovely community it is with lots of arty shots of hipsters drinking coffee and shopping for vinyl in our one trendy vinyl cafe. Clearly aimed at people who can't afford to buy in London but are scared of moving to the boonies (all of 40 mins from Kings Cross) We all pissed ourselves laughing as you can imagine.

When we moved here, the agents didn't actually show us a single house, but expected vendors to do so. Often photos and particulars were late and had to be chased up. Other than passing messages backwards and forwards on offer matters, and arranging viewings via an administrator, I can't see that they offered much of a service. They were really just a shop window.

I took the photos for the last house I sold, having seen others taken by the agents, and I knew the best photos to take, it didn't include a close up of the septic tank or the oil tank, or the recently filled potholes in the lane, or the gas cylinder for the fire which I am sure would have been artfully done with a faded/blurred background. I did concentrate on the front and back of the house, the pretty and large gardens and land, the drive and every room and outbuilding so that people could see what they would get rather than a single bloom in a frosted glass vase, placed carefully on a lace mat with the background of a brick wall tastefully framed with a Photoshop frame and overlaid with a filter of raindrops. I did sneak in a couple of the woods and garden seating but that was to show where you could sit away from the house.

My current gripe is trying to search for a detached house, selecting 'house' then selecting type of house - 'detached' and being shown semi detached, halls adjoining, link detached and all the other fancy names they give them, really annoying because if I want a semi I would search for a sodding semi. Sometimes they chuck in some terraced ones for good measure. After 3 of these non detached properties I stop looking.

Personal worst of estate agents. Advertising a house as 4 bedrooms....only to look at floorplan/ description and discover its a 2-bed house with sitting room/ dining room and study. Who do they think they are fooling? Worst offender was a house advertised as 5 bedrooms, but actually, a 2-bed bungalow with badly converted loft space, sitting rooms downstairs and a workshop side of the garage described as bedroom 5. Still for sale 6 months later.

Those awful stretched photos that are supposed to make the room look bigger. First thing I check is the proportions of any internal doors in estate agent photos as it stands out a mile if they've been tampered with, doors mostly being a standard size and all that. And also are there 2 pillows side by side on anything that appears to be a double bed, cos if not it's a stretched single and you're looking at a poky box room.

Also, 'good size' bedrooms. Which seems to mean 'of sufficient size to put a bed in, but no more'. And use of 'double bedroom' in cases where the double bed is touching 3 of the 4 walls and there's no room for a wardrobe when you go to view the house (true story). Or worse, 'bedrooms' shown up on the floor plan to be smaller than the length of a standard single bed can fuck off.

@TinyBarista

'Stunt Croissants' is my new band name! 😂😂😂

Why don't they ever put the lights on or light the fire??? Madness. Makes it look so cold and lifeless when in actual fact it's a really great house pub

There's an estate agent in my town who is lovely but utterly shit as his job. He takes the most awful pictures, i.e. close ups of the linen basket or the weed on the lawn, that kind of thing. Let me see if I can find a link.

Here you go.

www.findahomeonline.co.uk/properties/101292005031

Check out the alien pod covered in glittery shit by the door ...

They are rubbish pictures Unobtainable

Unobtainable - it’s like they’ve no idea that you can turn the camera round to take landscape photos.

I know. Every picture is the same. He just seems to stand in the middle of the room and take a snapshot, either focusing on a radiator or the bloody bog.

There's another estate agent who does fantastically outrageous write-ups along the lines of 'tally-ho old chap! It's off to the races we go!' or some line from an old musical. Batshit but brilliant.

www.jamesdupavey.co.uk/for-sale/price_from=200000/price_to=2000000/bdr_from=3?start=60

That link to the crappy estate agent doesn’t work for me.

The lock

Saw this house details and immediately thought of this thread.

Check out the pictures of the staircase, shower head and the wine/cookery book shot. Not too mention the aspirational living images. Enjoy!

Unobtainable - just looked at the estate agents link. Superb!

I don’t understand why they don’t include room dimensions. Instead the mash themselves into corners to give wildly inaccurate photo perspectives.

Our neighbours, who we like, came knocking at our door about a year after we moved in. They asked us why we were moving again so soon. Unbeknownst to us, a local estate agent, not even the one who sold us this house, had posted a photo of our house and a description of "beautiful 3 bedroom chocolate box cottage" in the newspaper, complete with a guide price on it. Apparently this is allowed and enables them to generate interest and then divert interested parties to other properties. Honestly can't think of a comparable trick in another trade.

We sold last year,when we saw the photos they taken our15 yr old DD got her camera out and took much better ones which we insisted they used.
Arty farty pictures of the beams in the house were curved and usually only seen at the angles shown by the inebriated.

I viewed a flat in a complex in London. Floor to ceiling windows and I said it felt like a goldfish bowl. The agent said (totally straight) ‘but it has a great view of...the flyover...’

Happily, something similar to this is done in recruitment, they advertise a job which doesn't exist just to lure in new workers.

Something similar happened to my sister. One of her neighbours was moving and in the local paper was a photo of her house. When she rang the agent to complain about it they told her it was because it was the best looking house on the road.

You have no idea how hard those Stunt Croissants are working. Positioning themselves on a plate and holding that pose for an hour before being shoved back in the freezer before the next viewing. They just know how to make it look easy.

IRL, I'd be a bit suspicious if I walked in to view a house and they had bread baking, I'd think they were trying to hide something smell of damp or similar

goose absolutely true - years (eons!) ago dh was unemployed & went to jobcentre - looking on their computer for work most jobs either were old & out of date & no loner there, or were fake ones from agents who asked you for interview fooling you into thinking the were proper jobs but were in fact scooping prospective future pool for future jobs - disgusting way of treating vulnerable people.

I’ve been house-hunting for a year or so, and I spend a fair chunk of time bemoaning the fuckwittery of real estate agents.

Including this comment, (admittedly on a super-expensive property which had been styled to within an inch of its life), where the agent expressed an ambition: “to move real estate styling into a place that borders art”. 🙄

Because I’m looking for a place to accommodate my horses, I’m looking at acreage, so there is inevitably a photo of cows milling about in a field. Occasionally other livestock feature - hence my current favourite WTF-in-real-estate moment.