To expect people to do a bit of research before viewing a house?

[iswhois]

Had three people turn up so far and have turned the house down due to a "showstopper" which they could have easily for seen had they done some research on the location or looking at the floor plans.

I know they are entitled to not buy the house for whatever reason they wish but it just feels like a massive waste of everyone's time.

Maybe I'm just bitter and desperate to move haha

Why? You’re allowed to say “It’s a perfectly nice house but it’s not for us”. It’s pointless making stuff up, it doesn’t help anyone

I’m assuming you’ve never bought or not bought in recent years. When you say it’s not for us, you’re asked why not. So they can give the feedback to the sellers. That’s when folks say spurious shit.

Exactly, I can't just say "It smelt of dog and also it would take ages to scrub all the 'Live Laugh Love' stickers on the wall"

I viewed a house the other day that had very complicated access. This wasn’t made clear in the description, in fact it was carefully glossed over. The estate agent was grumpy with me but honestly, if your photos are taken at an angle that hides a problem, you only have yourself to blame.

@Bluntness100

Why? You’re allowed to say “It’s a perfectly nice house but it’s not for us”. It’s pointless making stuff up, it doesn’t help anyone

I’m assuming you’ve never bought or not bought in recent years. When you say it’s not for us, you’re asked why not. So they can give the feedback to the sellers. That’s when folks say spurious shit.

Don’t assume Bluntness. I’ve said exactly that. Any agent who’s shown more than a couple of houses will have had that feedback regularly.

Stupid feedback like the shower room’s too small, not enough outside space or the bathroom’s downstairs is no use to anyone and, as OP says, just pisses vendors off. I had “the kitchen needs updating” - yes, we know it does and we know kitchens are personal which is why we haven’t done it and have priced the house accordingly.

@IsaLain

Showstopper doesnt mean what you think it does.

A showstopper is something awesome; so good it beats everything else.

You're looking for deal breaker.

I think someone in your office started using show stopped because they forgot the word deal breaker and the rest if you have just gone with it.

In my world a showstopper is a major issue that stops a project/systems upgrade from proceeding until its fixed. I'm guessing the OP may be in IT/tech as it's very common - something that literally stops the show 🙂.

I feel you OP - selling houses is one of my least favourite things to do as an adult, so I'm hoping our current home will be where we stay for a good many years. But you just need to find 'the one.' The buyer who loves your home as much as you do. Keep going and good luck!

Why not just be very clear in your property description

My properties description on Rightmove is 4 bed detached house.

Viewer last week said they didn’t like it.

They wanted a 10 bed detached house.

Looking at the pictures you can tell it has a biggish garden and biggish driveway. But no way is it 2.5 acres which was another thing they wanted.

So, question to sellers - what feedback WOULD you be happy with? The only message I'm getting here is that any feedback other than "it's a lovely house but not for us" is seen as completely insulting or that the buyers are idiots.

Kitchen needs redoing - "yes we know, that's why it's priced low"
House is on busy road/only 2 bed/open plan/no parking - "WHY DIDN'T YOU READ THE LISTING"
Decor is ugly and I'd have to re-paint every single wall - "are you so thick you can't out-imagine the decor/so lazy you can't do a bit of painting"
I thought the rooms would be bigger "are you so thick you can't visualise what 3.52x2.96 looks like on a floorplan"?

What on earth do you actually want to hear from buyers then?

I would just be grateful for potential buyers to read the description

BeijingBikini
I find myself wondering what the point is in asking for feedback as most things are going to come down to:

1. Something the potential buyer was considering compromising on because of the property's other merits, but on visiting they don't think the compromise is worth it
2. Something that's décor based that the seller is unlikely to change anyway

I did once get feedback from a couple of buyers that the bedroom was too small, OK I had a 6 foot bed in there, so I put in a smaller one and it sold immediately

@LolaSmiles

BeijingBikini I find myself wondering what the point is in asking for feedback as most things are going to come down to:

1. Something the potential buyer was considering compromising on because of the property's other merits, but on visiting they don't think the compromise is worth it
2. Something that's décor based that the seller is unlikely to change anyway

After around 40 viewings I told my EA not to bother asking for feedback. Unless someone was making an offer I wasn't interested.

I also think a lot of EA make some of it up.

Yabu - people find it helpful to see show stoppers to see if they could live with them. It’s lucky you are getting footfall if you have a show stopper. They could have easily said they just didn’t like the place - not suited to them but have been honest about the show stopper.

I find myself wondering what the point is in asking for feedback

I agree. Theres no point asking for feedback if its moronic stuff like location - WTF can I do about that?- pick the house up and just move it?
Or things like they want two bathrooms- yeah, not gonna spend £30k on building a new bathroom extension just to sell it and then be told its got "too many bathrooms" by the next buyer. Feedback is only useful if I can actually do something about it. Otherwise its kind of like telling someone you'll date them if only they'd change their height lol

We've just had this recently, our property was advertised as a 3 bedroomed family home. One viewers feedback to EA was it was too big for her on her own and was more of a family home...

@Mumoftwoyoungkids

We had someone announce at the end that there were not enough bedrooms. Huh?!?!

I’m a total people pleaser so was desperately trying to remember the secret door that opened up to an extra bedroom.

😂😂

Do you meal deal breaker? Show stopper means the opposite

@Boredbumhead

Do you meal deal breaker? Show stopper means the opposite

Gosh! This whole thread and nobody else has thought to mention that!

What on earth do you actually want to hear from buyers then?

Feedback’s completely pointless unless you can do something about it. I’d actively welcome “It smells of dog”, I probably am nose blind and it’s a very easy thing to sort out. Decor’s the same - a couple of days and some white emulsion takes care of that.

People may see the flaw (showstopper to me means something spectacular- like an amazing view or beautiful pool, not anything negative), but think if the rest of the house appealed they would compromise. Not in the case of bathroom through bedroom perhaps. As for proximity to pub, no I would not expect anyone to know that unless the pub was next door.
People don't always know what they want, can't visualise room size from floor plans and also sometimes don't know what to say when asked for feedback so pick a generic reason (too small, noisy road etc).

I never knew how awful people could be until we sold our house! Some people just seem to view houses as a hobby with no intention of buying. Considering some of the nightmare properties I viewed trying to find a house for myself (marriage breakup) the house we sold was a palace in comparison. Yet people still came up with the silliest excuses why they didn’t like it. 🙄

I think there are a few issues here. One is that estate agents and estate agents details/photos are notoriously unreliable if not actually inaccurate. We've been flat hunting recently and 2 essentials were a bike store and a parking space. On several occasions one or both of these were not included in the descriptions but did actually exist. We wouldn't have known that if we hadn't viewed the flats. We eventually made an offer on one of those and are hoping to exchange soon. For another flat the listed floor space of the living room was massive and the phots made it look very spacious. What wasn't apparent until we viewed was that the room was divided by a huge eave that protruded 8 foot into the 14ft wide sitting room. It was about 8 foot long and stopped about 18 inches above floor level meaning that 64 sq ft of the room was effectively unusable.

Even if the estate agent details are reliable it's very hard for some people to envisage space from photos or measurements. They only get a true sense of the space when they visit.

And a final issue is that sometimes it's very hard to explain why you don't want to offer on somewhere. You can walk into a property and even though it sounded great 'on paper', when you get there you just don't like it. That's fair enough - if you don't love it you don't have to buy it. But if the estate agent is pushing for a reason to pass on to the vendors it's much easier to fall back on hard facts like space/storage/parking than woolly mumbles about feelings. On the positive side sometimes things look very poor on paper but when you actually view it something clicks and you know it's the right place for you. I once went to view a two bed, two bath flat with a terrace (all essentials) and hated it. The estate agent insisted on showing me another flat in the same building - a one bathroom studio with no terrace. It didn't meet any of our 'must haves' but I went along to be polite. I fell for it instantly and offered the asking price on the spot even before DH had viewed it. We still have it and we still love it.

Those kind of reasons just mean they didn’t like it enough. Most people can’t have a house that has everything they want so they view a variety of houses that aren’t quite perfect and choose out of them. We viewed our house despite the fact that it didn’t have its own parking and one of the bedrooms is so small it barely would fit a single bed in. If we had liked another house more those are the reasons we would have rejected it even though those things are obvious from the listing. As it happened when we saw the house we just loved it so much we didn’t care about the downsides.

Estate agents know that many buyers are just like me and so encourage people to look at houses that don’t completely meet their criteria. It works otherwise they wouldn’t bother.

I think sometimes people just pick up on an atmosphere or vibe in a house they don't like then find some material thing to justify it.

@Boredbumhead

I think sometimes people just pick up on an atmosphere or vibe in a house they don't like then find some material thing to justify it.

I think you’re right and “It just doesn’t feel right” is OK too. Maybe the people we should be cross with are the agents for pushing potential buyers for reasons when it’s just a case of not liking the place enough to buy it.

yes, it's been interesting reading this thread. When I view houses, I will be a bit braver telling people why it was a 'no' from me.

Within reason. But it pisses people off more it seems if you say ''i could hear the traffic'' rather than ''the interior did NOT come close to making up for being so near a main road''.