House viewing tales

[Henrietta75]

Bought and sold 2 homes over 15 years:

Couple with a grown up daughter I’m showing round, the mother disappears. Mother reappears after 10 mins (assumed she was in first bedroom still as we’ve moved to second), moved to third bedroom and daughter disappears, come out of bedroom and see daughter emerging from bathroom with flushing noise. Not a word. They both used the loo without asking. How rude!

Viewer booked in for tues 1pm, Dh gets leave off work and waits - viewer doesn’t turn up. Complain to EA, EA sends screenshot of text to viewer confirming time and date, the viewer turns up weds 1pm with no one home and starts banging on the door (according to retired neighbour). Then sits in the car for 1 hour on the drive before giving up and leaving.

Couple having been shown around property then proceed to demand what is the “bottom price” and are not leaving until they get an answer.

Showing another pair around and the man starts to open kitchen cupboards....gets into the bedrooms and starts to open free standing wardrobes and chest of drawers....!

Asked another viewee to remove shoes AFTER he insisted on seeing garden first and traipsed all on the grass in the mud and he refused.

Different EA, different property, asked to lop £25k off our price so he could get the deal done quick. DH says ok, with one condition, find us a house in ‘x’ area where we wish to move to that’s priced similarly as ours and ask the owner to lop £25k off too.

And the best for last - sold the house and buyer wants wants to exchange and complete in 3 days. Due to circumstances I said not possible, the buyers then create HUGE sob story that they’re going to be chucked out of rented accommodation....blah..little kids...pets...etc. So gargantuan effort to do it in 5 days and move in with in-laws temporarily....they then move into empty property 2 weeks later.

[Whatelsecouldibecalled]

The people who bought our first house bought it for their daughter (lucky!) the father cornered me on the viewing whilst DH was showing another viewing round (they had ark greed to two viewings at same time) house was on the market at a 10k bracket. I think he thought ‘the wife’ would be a pushover so once he got me on my own he said ‘stop passing around and tell me what you want for it’ so I racked another 5k on top end of advertiser bracket with a perfectly straight face. He said ok deal and shook my hand! When I told DH after he said oh good job he asked you as I would have said 15k lower

They then came a week later and trooped 6 family members through the house to ‘look’ and the mother with her bleached tash sat at my dining table lit up a fag and declared she thought the house was dirty and could do with a good scrub!! It was spotless. Needless to say when we moved out we didn’t make much of an effort cleaning it if she thought it needed scrubbing anyway.

Selling next house everything going ok until the buyer tried to tell us we had some huge drains under the house and wanted 20k knocking off the price even though we had already negotiated a lower than askin price for a quick sale. When my solicitor questioned it and asked for maps and paperwork etc it turns out she had drawn them on herself. Barmy. Had to pull out. Sold a week later to a lovely couple who paid asking price.

Went to a house viewing once where there were piles of dirty knickers in each room including the living room and kitchen. Bizzare

Another house viewing which had a fish tank in the wall between kitchen and living room which was empty and dead fish in it.

Another one was so filthy I had to wipe my feet on the way out.

Another one EA had clearly been very creative on photos and it looked nothing like the pictures. They were desperately trying to sell me the ‘positives’ I asked to to cut the viewing short at 5 min there was no point.

Buying and selling houses is a very weird thing

[Whatelsecouldibecalled]

Oh god not sure how I could forget this but the previous house we bought to this one didn’t get the keys until 6pm in January because the sellers solicitors were being investigated for money laundering!! It was pissing it out and when we finally got in it was pitch black and the bastards had taken EVERY SINGLE LIGHTBULB in the house. Including those spotlight ones no one could get out. I sat on the kitchen floor and Cried. As we were moving ourselves my mum told us to lock up the house come to her park the van on the drive and we would deal with it all in the morning. By 7pm the following day we were in with 90% of boxes unpacked thanks to help of our wonderful family and a million lightbulbs!

[grisen]

Went to view a small-ish 2 bedroom flat, was prewarned tenants were in. No problem. Only the flat was so packed with stuff, not boxes or anything. I’m talking A spare bed pushed to the walls in the already small hallway, and 10 people cooking food and eating. Didn’t even see in the bedrooms as people were apparently sleeping. I spent about a minute in the flat. The estate agent called me an hour later to ask me if I was gonna take it as it was lovely. I still hope it was a call meant for someone else.

[Travelledtheworld]

We went to view an almost new house in a very nice development. Houses in a Cul de Sac and facing each other.
I was puzzled there were no blinds or curtains in the master bedroom. Just some flimsy nets. I asked the wife of of the seller about this and she said "Oh John likes to be woken up by the sunshine in the mornings...."

We bought the house. A few weeks later the neighbours told me John was a pervert who liked to walk naked round the bedroom and stand in front of the window. He had already been investigated by the police for a sexual assault accusation. Ugh.

[secretrugbyfan]

So these are stories about EAs (dodgy feckers some of them are)……

When I bought my first house, the EA said that nobody had viewed in for about 2 weeks (back in 1995, unheard of now!), so looked round the place without giving too much away, subsequently made an offer later that day. Somehow a mysterious second buyer appeared, which was used by the EA to increase my original offer made until I told them to shove the house purchase. At which point the second buyer 'disappeared' leaving me to buy the house.

I viewed a house, which I liked, but DW didn't, so I rang the EA to tell her this about two hours after the viewing, which was our first and only viewing. She went nuts over the phone, why didn't we like it, do we know what we have done to her, we had messed the owners about etc etc....she really lost her shit over the phone....I was just stood there open mouthed not quite believing the tirade of abuse I was getting down the phone......

Another EA kept sending people round to the house I'm currently in two weeks after I had moved in (from buying the fecker!) to view on the basis it was still for sale. When the EA was challenged by both the viewer and myself in the EA's office as to why they were wasting everyone's time, the EA said that they could not remove the house from their system until the previous owner gave their permission!

Finally with my Mom's place when that was sold, it was viewed and a sale price agreed, based on the EA ringing me to say that the buyer wanted to pay X and I said that I accept the offer and to instruct the buyer accordingly. A couple of days later the EA rang me to say they had been working 'really hard' on the deal (which had already been done and agreed on) and had got an extra £2.5k out of the buyer. So I said no to the EA, and told them to contact the buyer and state that they could have the house for the originally agreed price. The EA Manager rang me and said this couldn't be done and in all his years he had never known anybody turn down more money for a property (the EA commission fees were already fixed and agreed, and were not affected by the selling price). I asked for the name and address of the buyer, which the EA refused to give me on account of Data Protection rules. So I said, fine, I'll just wait for the Solicitors to get involved and get the details from them, so I could advise about what the EA had done. Miraculously, the buyer pulled out some two hours later, citing that (according to the EA) he realised that he knew my Mom (this was despite him viewing the house which had loads of photos of her easily visible) and felt uncomfortable buying her house.

I'm sure there are some very good EAs out there, but most of the ones I've dealt with are shady feckers!!

[Spasiba]

Chocolatefixeseverything
Modest Terrance, be sounds more like a rather boring Tinder date

[SpudsGuns]

At a house that I once viewed, the elderly mum of the owner was also there. She gave a running commentary all the way through on every room.
It started off in the hallway with her saying ' staircase needs decorating, it's not been done in years, no one could be bothered to do it '
Kitchen. Needs a new kitchen, it's seen better days and half the doors are nailed shut. She says.
Bathroom. It does the job but it's ancient and the boiler needs replacing because it barely warms the water, I don't know how it hadn't exploded yet and taken the house with it.
And so on. The strange thing is, is that not only was the son nodding and agreeing, but he was also adding his own opinion.
We didn't buy 😂
Another house that we viewed had a bedroom in which the walls were literally covered in pictures of naked women in various poses, some having sex etc.
Oh this is my 17 year old son's room, says the woman, as though the pictures were of cars or something. 😮

[Fcukthisshit]

I went to look at a room in a shared house. The owner of the house lived there and rented a couple of rooms out (or so he told me). He then takes me into his “office” which was actually a bedroom with a desk in and informed me that he didn’t usually let rooms to women and if I wanted to take the room, the police would need to speak to me as he’d done something bad once. He smirked at me said he was very mentally unwell at the time.

I couldn’t get out of there quick enough and decided that a house share wasn’t for me and found myself a really lovely little flat to rent instead.

[TreeTopTim]

Either people are just completely blind to
how their houses are or they don't actually want to sell them.

[LaughingDonkey]

Looked at a 3 bed terraced house to rent about 4-5 years ago.

I'm that person that will open every single door, window and run/flush water to see if everything is in working order. So naturally opened boiler closet to have a look at boiler. There was a carcass of a bird! Mostly bones with some feathers...

[sueelleker]

One viewer said she quite liked it but wouldn't be offering as the necessary cost of replacing all the windows with uPVC double glazing would be 'ridiculous'.
I hope you pointed out that as it was listed she'd need to get permission anyway.

[sueelleker]

@FlamedToACrisp
They'd actually set up a business at a place they didn't even own?

[Lifeisconfusing]

@Bluntness100 ha ha I always say to dh it’s me or the house. When he comes home on a Thursday night the house is immaculate but I will have no make up and lounge wear on. I say next week I will look nice but the house won’t. Makes me chuckle 🤭

[Lifeisconfusing]

🤣

[Lifeisconfusing]

My parents had the house up for sale offers over 170,000 one day an Indian bloke knocked and said I will give you 50 grand cash to buy the house with all the furniture left in. 😂🤣😂🤣 my parents said NO !!

[CaptainButtock]

Viewing a house. Every now and again, the chap who owned it would subtly allude to changes he wanted to make to the place eventually.
Thought maybe I was imagining it but when dh and I got back to the car, he said "Eerm, was it just me or.....??" Nope!
Also all the internal doors had been removed. Saw them piled in the corner of the garden with holes through them. Punching height 🤔

Yep, it was another divorce one. He had no intention of leaving. Sad really.

[DiscoMoo]

Went to view a house at a prearranged time as standard. Walked past the house once thinking it couldn’t be that one as people were moving IN to it. The EA rang to ask where we were, said we couldn’t find the house, she said she could see us on the phone - it was that house! Apparently the owner’s daughter was moving in as a stopgap ‘just until the sale goes through’. We had to step over removal boxes and general assorted piles of crap to view the rooms and then the removal van knocked down the driveway wall as he tried to reverse out...

Couldn’t wait to leave and let the moving in continue, didn’t offer and went past the house the other day and the wall is still down, over 3 years later!

[mathgenius]

I once viewed a flat with a male tenant, I was shown around by a female EA, the tenant was in and extremely polite even offered a cup of tea. The bathroom was beside the front door so looked at it on the way in and had to pass by it on the way out. It was a large flat (3 bedrooms) and it took about 20 minutes to view as we left thought thanking the tenant would be the polite thing to do, we heard water running in the bathroom but the door was wide open and beside the exit so (naturally?) assumed some innocent explanation. Popped our heads around the door to say "thanks and bye" to be confronted by the tenant showering, he hadn't pulled the shower curtain across was facing the door and was washing his hair, smiling he said goodbye and asked us to close the door on the way out. He had every right to be confident.

[ShaniaPayne]

In the year-long process of buying our current house, DH & I encountered, in different properties:

The surly student DS who refused to get out of his bed for the 3pm viewing his mother had arranged and just lay there, smoking grumpily at us as she tried to show us the Juliet balcony.

The divorcing couple who passively aggressively corrected each other about the house's history all round the viewing, followed by their heartbreakingly anxious child

The longterm tenants who had no idea their landlord had put the property on the market until that morning when the estate called to arrange the viewing (he'd assured the agent 'they wouldn't mind') - that was an uncomfortable one.

The vendor who'd just vacated the loo after a particularly smelly poo, just as the agent showed us into the 'stylish new wet room'. (We all backed out, swiftly.)

The sister who turned up to the second viewing fuming that the brother had put their parents' house on the market without being consulted, and did her best to put us off it. Successfully.

The horribly ominous farmhouse with mice running around in the back kitchen, and a foot of standing water in the cellar. It 'got a bit damp', apparently. In June.

The farmhouse with the gigantic 'feature' stone cider press in the
kitchen. You had to edge round it to get anywhere.

[FeelinFagin]

@Iamthewombat and @Lifeisconfusing whilst I didn't put ethnicity in my previous post about the gentleman who offered £15K cash for the £44K (valued at £49K) house was also Indian. Perhaps the massive lowballing and haggling is the norm in certain cultures when buying houses.

[Lifeisconfusing]

@FeelinFagin absolutely

[Toucantweet]

Was neither selling nor buying a house but arrived home with my two children to a car parked on the drive. Opened the door, very perplexed and a woman marched into the house behind me. I was carrying my baby and holding my toddler’s hand so didn’t spot her coming.
Shen then began to march up the stairs all the time berating me that she and her husband had been waiting 29 minutes and it wasn’t on.
Turned round to her husband on the doorstep who was muttering about the property Price being on the ‘High side’.
Finally recovered to ask what the hell they thought they were doing - to be told that they were here to view the house and did not appreciate Being kept waiting. By this time, woman is in the bedrooms.
Shouted at her to come down immediately. She harrumphed down the stairs and I calmly told her that the house was not for sale and asked the address of the house she was due to view.
It was xxxxx Avenue , not my address ( which in fairness is very similar). What really amazed me was that mine is a five bedroom, three storey Victorian house. The house they were viewing was a three bedroom terraced..........surely, they would have realised that when they had explored my back garden??
Plus it was around half the price of mine,!!
Apparently, I should have had clearer signage 🤔

[Jurassiclover]

I viewed a few flats just over a year ago, first time moving out of my parents house (only 22 at the time, just finished uni and had lived at home throughout uni so never had experience of moving out etc) and had some rather interesting experiences.

First flat I viewed belonged to my dad's ex boss - the flat was above a pub which I wasn't thrilled about but the owner was offering to rent it out at a very reasonable price and I thought for a first flat it wouldn't be too bad. Viewed it the first time and didn't think it was too bad, did need some work done to it but nothing crazy that I could see. Took DP with me so he could see it and he then pointed out all the faults. There were holes in some of the floorboards where you could actually see lights underneath which I assume was part of the pub below, the windows were broken and didn't shut properly, they also weren't double glazed. While we were there a band showed up to play music in the pub below and not only could you hear every single word you could feel the flat shaking from the noise. Not to mention the previous owner had died (and we are pretty convinced it was in the flat, there was a few air fresheners but only in one room, which seemed strange) and there was such a strange feeling about the front room - after that it was a swift no thanks.

Second flat I viewed, again belonged to someone my dad knew, probably shouldn't have trusted my dad clearly haha. Wasn't as bad as the first but the owner was asking for a lot more in rent than the property was really worth. Needed a lot of work and the bedrooms were at the front of the flat when you first walked in, the bathroom was past the kitchen at the back of the house. I couldn't get past the idea that you had to walk through the kitchen in the middle of the night if you needed the toilet. The flat is still empty and the owner still hasn't lowered the price as i spotted it on rightmove a few weeks ago.

3rd flat I viewed was an old office building that had been refurbished into flats. Was a bit pricey but still within budget and advertised as having sea views so decided to have a look round. When we turned up the letting agent was late (not that I was too bothered really as it was nice weather outside) and had forgotten the access code to the building and had to call the office. Once we got in the first flat was okay, but had a lot of furniture left behind from previous tenants, and for some reason each bedroom and the front room had drill holes in the walls as if they'd had a tv mounted on every wall. The 'sea view' was actually just a tiny view of the sea from one of the bedroom windows, which seemed strange to have the layout so the bedroom got the view not the livingroom. We then went into one on the next floor up, and the whole flat smelled like fish, there were stains on the walls as if things had been thrown and then spilled down the walls etc, some furniture left behind. Then worst of all, the bathroom had a shower over the bath and a glass shower screen, the whole shower screen had smashed and there was glass all over the floor. You could tell the letting agent hadn't seen it before as she was just as shocked as us and said 'oh dear, well if you do want the property I'm sure they would be willing to fix it before you moved in'. Needless to say we didn't move into either of those properties, although we did end up in a block of flats across the road - I can actually see the other flats from my living room window haha! Which has a nice view of the sea, very happy with the flat we're in now, even though it's smaller and more expensive, it just felt like home instantly.

[myBumJuiceSmellsLikeRoses]

1993, went to view a 2 bed terrace that, like many around that time, had been repossessed.
Every room needed to be redecorated as the previous owners had torn at least one piece of the wallpaper down the wall.
The kitchen cabinets had random doors ripped off the hinges. Light fittings had been pulled from the ceiling, like they'd been swung on.
I seem to remember some damage in the bathroom, possibly the sink smashed.
Finally, there was a night storage radiator in the living room (the only heating) and the EA said there was a suspicion Coca-Cola had been poured into it. So essentially we couldn't trust the electrics.
As it was our first home, and every room would need to be gutted we just couldn't afford the work to put it right.
The owners must have been REALLY pee'd off by the bank.

[DisgraceToTheYChromosome]

We viewed one where we got as far as the kitchen door. The carpet squelched.
One of our viewers offered 30% under the asking price, which we promptly rejected. Didn't stop her phoning the agents twice a day until it sold.
The worst I've heard of was a friend who went to view a farm cottage, which she was told was a former tied house. It was still occupied by the tenant, who was dying of cancer.