Tell me your stories about totally deluded house vendors

[Ludicrousoverpricing]

So, been looking at houses for maybe 6ish months now and I just cant get over how completely and utterly deluded some people are about what they think their houses are worth??

So share with me your stories about deluded house vendors or otherwise horror stories regarding moving house? Need something to entertain myself with during this lockdown...

My own experience recently

House 1: nice house and location but horrible on the inside. Needed completely gutting and renovating as hadn't had so much as a lick of paint in 20+ years. Vendor seemed to think that it only needed 'minor modernisation' eg re tiling a bathroom or changing kitchen cupboard doors was required and that said minor modernisation would mean the property would be worth several £10,000s more after the work was done. In reality even with a total new kitchen, bathrooms, flooring etc it wouldn't be worth anywhere near that. It probably would only JUST be worth their actual asking price AFTER it has had extensive work done on it.
You can buy a new build house of the same size in a similar area for the same price they are asking for their old dilapidated house. Why the hell would I pay the same for your house that needs extensive renovating when I can get the same house newly built without all the hassle of having to organise renovating it myself!

House 2: Same as house 1, nice area and house, very dated and old bathrooms/carpet etc. House next door sold recently, was a bigger house and impeccable throughout and they seem to believe their house is worth the same if not more... for a smaller house that needs at very minimum the bathrooms and flooring redoing!

House 3: Ditto of house 2 basically. Exact same situation. Believes their tired and in desperate need of some TLC house is worth the same as the bigger house that sold next door that was immaculate inside.

House 4: Just blatantly on the market for £70k more than the semi detached house is worth. Dont even know what the vendor is trying at because they will never get an offer close to what they're marketing it at. You can buy a nice 5 bedroom detached house or 4 bedroom newbuild for the price they are marketing theirs at.

Not sure if it's a coincidence or not that all these vendors are older individuals downsizing...

@nonsenceagain
Our vendors wanted us to pay extra for a pretty worn fitted carpet in the sitting room. We said no thanks and they went to the trouble of removing it. Wonder if they ever used it?

Years ago someone we knew was selling & they had v good quality but hideous design (bright red patterned pub-type) carpets throughout. Buyer didn’t want them at all, let alone to pay for them, so vendor took them out - horrible dirty heavy job! - & offered them around people they knew. Can’t remember if any money changed hands but they were determined not to leave them

A house is only worth what someone is willing to pay.

It used to be much more common to take carpets with you. The first house I remember living in had unfitted carpets - there was a foot or so of stained floor boards around the edge of the room and an oblong of carpet in the middle - sometimes it looked like a rug, sometimes just a big patch of carpet (with bound edges). These went with us when we moved house. I think we had a couple of rooms with fitted carpets by the time we left - the sitting room carpet ended up in my bedroom (refitted).

Yes, wall to wall carpets used to be a selling feature.

I went to see one with my dd who is looking to buy her first home. It seemed nice enough, in need of total redecoration and a rewire but it was on for £85k which was a good £30k less than other houses in the area. It was a nice, sunny day but the EA couldn't find the back door keys so we didn't look out back. Dd decided on a second viewing and took her dad this time. It was raining. The floor seemed bouncy and it turned out that there was water coming up through the floor. Exh found the back door key and there was a crack up the back of the building. I reckon the house will be on for a while.

We were looking to rent a house. The advert said the house had a garden. It didn't. It had a terrace, that was max. 12 square meters and as we had two children that would be an issue. There were carpets in the bathroom. Including up the sides of the bath tub and the carpet was mouldy of course, as carpets are not made to be in a bath room. The boiler was not working well "but would be replaced before we moved in". As if. The water heater was tiny and to top it off: Ta daaaa! The owner still had his office in the house and you could not block his access to the rest of the house. There was only an ordinary inner door between his office and the rest of the house. The EA appeared surprised that this was a deal breaker for us.

Not to mention that we had told the EA that we needed at least 3 bedrooms and every single EA showed us a couple of houses where the 3rd bedroom was either tiny or they just suggested we could use the dining room as a bedroom. "But then where would we eat? There is no room for a table in the kitchen". "You can just eat in the lounge, on the sofa in front of the telly" (more or less with a roll of the eyes and clearly hinted "like normal people would").

Am I the only one who finds it disconcerting that most EAs appear to be in their early twenties? We have bought a house now and bought it directly from the owners. I would not find it appealing that the most expensive thing I ever bought would be through a not very well educated, not well-informed person, who has clearly no idea as to what a house needs to work as a family home. The number of EAs who have gotten that deer-in-the-headligths look when we asked where there would be room for a dishwasher or a washing machine or where there would be room to hang up coats for at least four people. Like it never occurred to them that people might need that. Or when we commented (to several EAs regarding several houses) that it didn't seem fair that one child's bedroom was twice as big as the other.

Fimo Oh my God....that's terrible! About the landlord's office I mean. I once viewed a house where the landlady had stipulated nobody was to take any pictures down from the walls or move any furniture.

It was not 'furnished' but she had for some reason, left at least one piece of furniture in each room. A table and chairs...one sofa...a dressing table...they all HAD to stay.

I actually laughed in the agent's face when he told me! He didn't think it was a problem!

Our vendor seemed to think it was ok that she kept her key for three days after completion so she could collect her curtains.

She strolled in as we were moving in & literally stood in the doorway, while the removal men were trying to bring things in

Walked into one of the bedrooms to find it in almost pitch darkness - when our eyes became accustomed to the gloom we could make out several teens sprawled on the beds. The only light was from fairy lights round the window (blacked out) and fireplace.
Teens room was painted red and black, walls and paintwork and no lights except the above. Fortunately house had other redeeming features.

When we had just moved into our previous house, coincidentally my rich brother and his DG had just bought a flat which had belonged to a High Commissioner for somewhere or other.
As mentioned above, they wanted to change everything and offered us theIr sitting room carpet.
Not only was it huge, we used it to carpet our main bedroom and the dining room, but it was very good quality, it was still going strong when we sold and moved on after 14 years.
The best bit was that they kindly paid for the cost of removing it from his place to ours, 100 miles away.

A few years ago we went to view an old white-washed thatched cottage in a lovely village. It was in need of a lot of updating but downstairs was quite nice. When we went upstairs though we could see that the ceilings were bulging quite substantially. The vendor was very insistent that all old cottages were like that, and that there was no water damage nor any reason why the ceilings might be an issue. We disagreed. The vendor also wouldn't allow us to enter the master bedroom as he said his elderly mother was sleeping. We asked when we could come back to view that room. He said we couldn't as she lived in it so we would have to wait until we had bought the house and they had left.

We didn't put an offer in.

Tricky ah! I lived in a flat in Hackney with a lovely actor. When his Grandmother died, he inherited all her amazing Axminster carpets. Some were long runners that had obviously been in a MASSIVE house. We put them down all over the flat and the rolled up ends were just propped at the wall!

Not quite the same as they're not actually selling, but every time my dad talks about how much he thinks their house is worth, I cringe.

He believes much of the 'value' comes from the way it is decorated. They have carpets that have been there nearly 30 years and newer ones that are 'only' 20 years old. Nothing has been painted in a couple of decades and everything is threadbare.

Neither of my parents believes there is such a thing as fashion in home dec - they have it how they like it and they firmly believe they are Right. This is obviously fine so long as you're living there, but whenever dad talks about selling, he is quite certain that any buyer would immediately look around, notice the unique features they personally enjoy, and be totally convinced of the inherent superiority of an early 90s colour palate.

It was not 'furnished' but she had for some reason, left at least one piece of furniture in each room. A table and chairs...one sofa...a dressing table...they all HAD to stay.

Oh, that is nothing.

I rented a house (we were desperate!) which looked lovely, if cluttered, when we looked around. We put down a holding deposit and at this point the agent commented 'oh, and by the way, you do know all the furnishings are staying?'

We said yes, we knew it was to let furnished, fine.

Turned out they meant everything down to the books on the shelves, the sheets in the cupboard and the vase of feathers on the mantelpiece! The owners had moved to the US but hadn't wanted to clear out properly. We eventually got them to agree we could box everything up and put it in the loft.

Weirdly, I vaguely know who the owner is as he's someone very senior in my own line of work. Every time I hear someone saying how good he is at his job, I remember what a tight git he must be.

We viewed an absolute monstrosity last year. Lovely area, large 30's semi marketed as a 4 bed. The vendor asked us to remove shoes, which was upsetting as the floor was absolutely disgusting, in fact we all binned our socks after as they were so bad.

Strange 30's lean to kitchen, but we'd seen the photos and were prepared to deal with it, although it was pricey for the work which would need doing.

We weren't prepared for the fully fitted, high gloss kitchen cabinets covering the entire wall of the main staircase, covered in grease, handprints and hair. Just filthy and so peculiar!

Or the 4th bedroom, a terribly done loft conversion with 6 double mattresses squeezed in on the floor. There were obviously about 16 people living there, 1 awful, cramped little bathroom, and more dirt than I've ever seen. EA was obviously mortified but kept ringing me for about a fortnight to see if we'd changed our minds!

Two stick in my mind for different reasons

1. We were moving from a 3-bed semi to a 4-bed detached, so a big jump for us, specially down here where prices are exhorbitent. Anyway, vendors house was on for top of our budget but we really liked it. They were delighted to have “profited” from the housing boom, as were we. However, although they wanted to upsize significantly, they thought they’d “cracked the system” and wouldn’t have to pay more than 50k of their sale price for a house with 2 extra bedrooms, same area, nicer road . Cue lots of estate agent speak to us about the vendors really trying hard to make the numbers add up.
2. same time period - estate agent showed us around a house where the dad and two DC we’re moving after the mum had died . Garden was full of dog shit. Estate agent said “we’ve priced high but you’ll need to look past the mess”. Whole thing was just really awful.

FortunesFave, waste not want not.

Dh once viewed a flat which was all very ordinary and bland - u TIL you got to the bathroom. It has purple carpet on the floor, up the sides of the bath, up the walls AND ACROSS THE CEILING!

He declined to make an offer!

The house I moved into before Christmas. On the market at £1.2 m. Had been on for 2 years. In that period I made 3 offers the highest one being £1.1m. Finally got it for £968,000 😂😂. Paid to play a waiting game for me.
If I'm honest i would have paid the £1.2 but £1.1 was the top of my budget. I've no idea why they couldn't achieve their asking price as surveys showed they were in right ball park. 4 months I'm in love with my forever home

When selling a house you’ve got to be realistic, of course you want as much as you can possibly get but you mustn’t over price it and then get offended when people make stupid offers

We sold just over two years ago, house went on the market end of Feb 2017 and we had almost 80 viewings over 9 months. We almost took it off the market just before Christmas but estate agent talked us out of it, luckily we listened

Started off at £550,000 dropped it to £535,000 then £525,000 and eventually took £515,000 in December 2017

DP was nightly pissed off at the offer of £515,000 but saw sense in the end as I said it could be another 80 viewings over any other 9 months and we dropping to below £500,000 .... eventually agreed and we sold and moved in March 2018

I promise you trying to keep a home tidy for as many viewings as we had was virtually impossible and I’ve no idea on how we did it

My boss has recently put his house on the market and his is up for almost £900,000 but looking at it in Right Move it needs new kitchen, bathroom is very dated (late 80’s) and there’s no way he will get that for it but he’s so stubborn I know he won’t shift

I love watching all the moving shows, Phil & Kirsty and my heroes

If/when my house sells I will absolutely be taking the carpets with me and the kitchen units and internal doors.

Nice 4 bed detached house in a nice area, big garden, double garage.
Every single wall artex. No flooring at all in the original (at least 30 year old) kitchen. Stank of smoke everywhere. Generally horrible inside.
Wanted £20k more than the house we ended up buying which was the same but with en suite to master bed and didn’t need any decorating or anything. Obviously we have made changes since but it was totally livable and the house only 13 years old compared to the other one.
Again an older couple looking to down size.

My favourite was the vendor who thought he could sell with tenants in situ

I had that "pleasure", but the landlord wanted vacant possession to sell, and hadn't bothered to tell the tenants yet. You can imagine how THAT viewing went. About 2 months later, he called me to say they'd got rid of the tenants and was I still interested ?

We were looking to buy a house in salubrious Thornton Heath and I trudged all the way from work to view it - it sounded promising, 3 bedroom cottage, in a quiet location, and competitively priced. BUT...the owner wouldn't allow anyone to view it. I was the 4th or 5th "viewer" and she steadfastly refused to let anyone in to see the property! The EA asked if "we wanted to put an offer in anyway, it's really nice as you can see from the photos". Er, no. I did wonder how they even got the latter if she was as fussy as that.

I walked up the stairs, should have been more cautious as the house so far was trashed.

As I put my foot down (not hard) on the stair tread it splintered in two and the two rotten pieces of wood fell into the stair well, nearly followed by me.

"Oh dear" said the agent. "I'm sure they wouldn't hold that against you if made an offer......". 😂😂😂