Or are first time home buyers expecting too much?

[ifherbumwereabungalow]

I think this is my first AIBU so am girding my loins to get blasted...
Background story - we put our house on the market last year and after following the agent's advice we didn't do any decorating but made sure everything was spick and span and decluttered. After what felt like a million viewings and no real offers we decided to take a break and try again. We fixed a crack in some plaster and repainted the living room and kitchen. We'd replaced the kitchen and bathroom since being here so they are looking good.
We had our first viewing with the new agent yesterday. The feedback from the young couple was that they thought it needed modernising. We live in a bog standard, three bed mid-terrace built in the early eighties. The rooms are a good size and we have a garden front and back and off road driveway parking in a cul-de-sac.
My issue is that the current crop of homebuyers seem to have very unreasonable expectations of what a house like mine is going to be like. I'm assuming that they think every house on the market has been transformed by Kevin McCloud or George Clarke and that a futuristic utopia should exist behind every front door. I'm looking at houses to move in to and my main criteria are based on the size and number of rooms and whether I can live with the kitchen and bathroom, the decor is secondary to that because I figure we are going to go in and change it all anyway.
So, am I being unreasonable in thinking that people are going into viewings with highly inflated ideas about what they are going to see? And if so, why don't they look at the photos online before they book an appointment??

I blame the TV programmes for a lot of this nonsense, I loved one of our viewers who sneered at the kitchen, Oh I'd have to have a new kitchen. Her talons looked like she'd never cut a carrot, her husband actually said to her All you need is a microwave, her glare would caramelise anything. Another wanted to knock £15 off because she wanted a conservatory, she didn't understand that if it had one it would be on for £15k more. Another one told us that it was too tidy, that the bedroom looked like a luxury hotel room, and they couldn't see their children being as tidy as the living room.

Also sometimes my reasons were rude and I didn't want to say them, like it was really smelly and I couldn't concentrate because my eyes were watering at the smell of old cigarettes and wet dog...
So I would just make up something else that was vaguely relevant

As a recent potential first-time buyer, I think you're being a bit harsh. It is usually down to price, and sometimes things that look nice in pictures aren't great close up.

I viewed so many 'modernised' properties, with a price tag to match, that were god-awful, and clearly refurbed on the cheap and quick (probably following bad advice). New bathrooms and kitchens were clearly the cheapest on the market and would need replacing anyway.

I never expected anything to be pristine and exactly to my taste, but I viewed plenty that looked like they were close enough to see if I could afford to make the changes. When you're a first time buyer, the thought of finding even an extra £5k cash is pretty off-putting.

I think the psychology is different now. If people are told they can borrow 300K, then they will mostly spend 300K but want the best house for their money. They're not looking to spend 295K. All that reducing the price does is bring it within the orbit of other buyers, it doesn't make it more attractive to those who have seen it.

It doesn't matter whether they're expecting too much or not. What's the relevance of that question?

The bottom line is that they didn't think it was worth the price you want for it.

There may be buyers out there who disagree. You'll find out.

I agree to some extent OP. When DH & I bought our first house (12 years ago) we were pretty picky but only on the layout of the house (we wanted an open living / dining and two massively big bedrooms) and the kitchen (DH is a big fan of cooking)

But we didn't base our decisions on feature walls, colour of the carpet, style of the loo - sure it would be nice to have modern features etc but you need to be realistic and adapt. Our shower was shit so insisted to DH we were installing a high pressured show upon moving in, and about a year later we updated the carpet. I quite liked customising it!

We recently bought our first house, we saw a lot of houses that needed modernising for less than our budget, but we have a young baby and were put off by having to do the work. In the end we found the perfect house with decor even to our taste, we could literally move in and feel at home, so we put in an offer for asking price and got it.

I guess a lot of first time buyers are likely to be couples with young children that would rather avoid having to do much work?

I think the average first time buyer has saved for many years (is it on average 10yrs to save for a deposit now?) and as a result are usually stretching themselves because they're so desperate to buy. So not much money left to make changes.

And not only that, when you're about to spend ten years worth of savings at once, there is huge pressure to make the right decision. You can't see much of the important structural stuff until a survey, so you have to use what clues the décor etc give you. (ie if the house hasn't been decorated since the 60s, the electrics haven't been updated since then either!)

Because it takes so long to save, first time buyers are often older than they used to be and are wanting somewhere large enough to at least start a family in. Which stretches the budget further. The days of buying a small starter home in your early to mid twenties and then moving on a few years later has largely gone.

Thirdly, sellers rarely see what is crap about their house and buyers are allowed to be as picky as they like! There's nothing wrong with wanting to move straight in and I know plenty of people who did, but went to see larger houses that needed more work to see if they felt that was a compromise worth making.

OIEO really puts me off, but having said that, I think house selling is just a numbers game. The more people you get through the more likely you are to get a sale. What price do you want for the house? Decide what that is and market it around that price.

I recently sold a three storey property which was marketed as such, the outside photos showed three storey and the details had a floor plan for each floor. A family viewed and said they were disappointed it was three storey.

The current market is a buyers market unlike 10 years ago.

As well as looking at what is your competition is via right move, take a look at the actual selling prices for similar properties in your area. This should help indicate if your selling price is right.

Then just be patient, we’ve accepted an offer (third time lucky as two others fell through, buyer mortgage fell through etc) took 6 months and a lot of viewings.

I actually think to an extent OP is right. I'm amazed at how popular some new build developments are - despite often being fairly poor quality workmanship. I think a lot of this is that you get to walk in to a sparkling new house with superficially nice bathrooms, kitchens etc. In the long term thought some of the developments don't actually last and you'll find yourself putting in a lot of money to keep it up.

My friend in property says the best way to sell is having things looking new. Most buyers won't know where to look for really good quality kitchens, bathrooms. She tends to just put in something cheap and new which looks good while people walk around. Really good quality isn't worth it in terms of just selling.

A lot of people want a Rolls Royce for the price of a Mini.

She tends to just put in something cheap and new which looks good while people walk around. Really good quality isn't worth it in terms of just selling.

I'm sure this is the case.

How much time to viewers actually have to investigate? To what extent does the average viewer even know what they're looking for to gauge quality. First impressions are hugely influential.

I reckon most first time buyers probably think why is the house so expensive? Dont forget that it is very easy to see what has been paid for the house previously and they probably dont see why you are asking double what you paid. Prices are falling and no one wants to buy at the top.
Having said that my dd has been looking in se London for the past year and alot of the 325k properties that were on last April are now asking around the 280k mark before going under offer... 300k is also a stamp duty threshold for ftbs so maybe they dont want to go above that

FredFlinstone I think you're right - DD and SiL moved into a brand new townhouse with DGS and loved it because they didn't have to do anything to it (and the kitchen had an island). They had huge problems with the developer though because of poor quality build and had to move out for 18 months while it was rebuilt!

@LaurieMarlow

Exactly. To be fair I'm massively guilty of that. We saw our current house and thought "oo good new bathroom one less thing to do" we've been here a year and it's falling apart. We'd have been better off with a good quality bathroom that was a few years old - would look less impressive at first but probably would have lasted longer.

This is one viewers opinion.. Don't take any notice

I think because new builds are so popular now (instagram ready and all mrs hinch) and often the only way FTBs can get on the ladder, the idea of a house that isn't brand new seems hard to overcome. We live in shared ownership but hoping to buy properly this year and all of our friends live in new builds so ours probably won't look as flashy (doesn't bother me but will some people).

YABU, it's now a buyer's market, so they can afford to be choosy, and why wouldn't they.

I am not a first time buyer, but I factor the cost of replacing kitchen/bathrooms, redecorating, getting rid of carpets and so on when I view a house.

I would take anything that is said with a pinch of salt - when we were looking the agents asked for feedback but I always struggled to say anything helpful. So I always made some inane comment - too dated, smaller/bigger than expected, blah blah.

The house buying public really ought to be locked up and certified they are to put it bluntly, bloody hard work.

Develop a thick skin and DO NOT take any comments adversley. Remember that you just need the one gen buyer.

Mate of mine was selling a while ago he was told rather blantly by three viewers that they just liked looking at other poples houses for fun on a Saturday afternoon, they had no intention at all of buying!.

A lot of FTB who have at minimum 30-45k deposit plus all the money to move will be both working full time. Not many want to spend their precious summer weekends stripping wallpaper and bathroom shopping.

I think a big part of the issue is that a lot of first time buyers now already have young children and just want to be able to move into something which requires zero work because they are sleep deprived and have no spare time. That was us and is why we bought a new build.

We sold our 1930s semi last year, the amount of viewers who clearly thought it should look like a new build inside was astonishing.