Page 14 | To expect people to do a bit of research before viewing a house?

iswhois · 2020-08-14T15:02:24+00:00

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

HexyAndIKnowIt · 16/08/2020 23:28

We listed our three storey house once with external steps to the front door. The main image was the front of the house with the steps up to it. One viewer commented she didn't like the steps and needed a bungalow.

Anxietea · 17/08/2020 11:33

The thing is, even if you are specific or honest with feedback the EA can be a pain. I once viewed a "perfect" house which utterly stank of cigarette smoke. I didn't want to deal with the smell and nicotine sweating walls and I told them as much. He was very pushy and insisted that I could just air the house out and you could get scrubs for the walls, etc. I ended up buying a smaller house which I was also surprised about. We went to view it out of desperation and just knew we could make it work as soon as we walked through the door.

Bluntness100 · 17/08/2020 11:37

@Twofurrycatsagain

A friend had feedback on her house, that as lovely as the house was, it wasn't in village A. Surely if you want to live in village A looking at houses there would be a good starting point? You can change a lot about a house but transporting it 5 miles isn't one of them.

Because they didn’t love it enough not to be in village a and when they viewed they were open to not being in village a if the house was one they loved.

hoorayforharoldlloyd · 17/08/2020 11:37

Sometimes people just need to have something tosay for why they don't want it and the real reason could be they just don't like your house but that feels rude. Or maybe they didn't like the downstairs bathroom for example but might have gone for it if they really loved the rest. Some of it is just people being daft though

LolaSmiles · 17/08/2020 12:51

A friend had feedback on her house, that as lovely as the house was, it wasn't in village A.
Surely if you want to live in village A looking at houses there would be a good starting point? You can change a lot about a house but transporting it 5 miles isn't one of them
Or alternatively, they liked a lot about the house and on paper/with estate agent photos they felt they could compromise on location, but on viewing the property they realised that ticking other criteria wasn't enough to outweigh not being in Village A.

Buying a house is almost always about making compromises. The sooner sellers accept this and stop getting wound up because they only want to be told 'beautiful house but not for me', the better.

Though I imagine some would be starting threads moaning about 'beautiful house but not for me' feedback because that's really unhelpful and they want to sell their house etc.

Clockworkprincess · 17/08/2020 13:32

To be honest we had decided on a 4 bed house with living room and dining room. We ended up with a three bed and third bedroom is tiny and a living room. But the garden is massive, room for us to have an extension without comprising the space. We didn't dream of a garden this size on our budget so we changed everything we wanted

PointyMcguire · 17/08/2020 13:52

I feel your pain OP. With our original estate agent we lost count of the amount of feedback that related to stuff they could have realised from a quick look at google street view. My favourite was the lady that wanted to be close to the train station, but didn’t like that our house was close to the train station...so weird.

To give a little bit of hope, we changed estate agents and had a huge number of viewings the weekend the listing went live resulting in several offers including one at asking price so I’d say if you don’t feel you’re getting the right type of buyer it’s definitely worth getting a couple more estate agents in to give valuations and their thoughts on how to best market the property.

museumum · 17/08/2020 13:54

It does not matter why a viewer doesn’t want to buy your house, they just don’t. Would you really rather they did it bother viewing? You won’t get any sales if you don’t allow people who are maybe interested to view but by definition most “maybe” viewers will say no.

bp300 · 17/08/2020 17:39

@museumum

It does not matter why a viewer doesn’t want to buy your house, they just don’t. Would you really rather they did it bother viewing? You won’t get any sales if you don’t allow people who are maybe interested to view but by definition most “maybe” viewers will say no.

It matters to the seller as they want some constructive feedback as to why its not selling.

VinylDetective · 17/08/2020 17:59

It matters to the seller as they want some constructive feedback as to why its not selling

As a seller, it really doesn’t matter. Particularly if it’s stuff I can’t do anything about. All I care about is someone buying it. And you only need one.

Timekeeper2 · 17/08/2020 18:33

@bp300 It matters to the seller as they want some constructive feedback as to why its not selling.

I don't understand this. What on earth could the seller possibly do to change it? If the 'feedback' or whatever it is called is that rooms are too small, wtf can the seller do about that? Can the seller start knocking out walls and extending? Or if "it's on a main road", can the seller mysteriously somehow pick up the house and move it somewhere else? Stairs are too narrow? Should the seller expand the stairs and alter the structure of the house? Yard (NOT 'garden') too narrow? Can the seller remove their/neighbours' fence and encroach on the neighbours property to extend the front or back yard?

Seriously, what exactly CAN the seller actually do with the feedback that doesn't entail spending tens of money and/or extensions and knocking out walls and fences?

I mean, what is the point? It's not like the seller can actually do anything about their complaints, can they? I just don't get it.

bp300 · 17/08/2020 19:01

[quote Timekeeper2]**@bp300* It matters to the seller as they want some constructive feedback as to why its not selling.*

I don't understand this. What on earth could the seller possibly do to change it? If the 'feedback' or whatever it is called is that rooms are too small, wtf can the seller do about that? Can the seller start knocking out walls and extending? Or if "it's on a main road", can the seller mysteriously somehow pick up the house and move it somewhere else? Stairs are too narrow? Should the seller expand the stairs and alter the structure of the house? Yard (NOT 'garden') too narrow? Can the seller remove their/neighbours' fence and encroach on the neighbours property to extend the front or back yard?

Seriously, what exactly CAN the seller actually do with the feedback that doesn't entail spending tens of money and/or extensions and knocking out walls and fences?

I mean, what is the point? It's not like the seller can actually do anything about their complaints, can they? I just don't get it.[/quote]
If its on busy main road then it needs to be priced lower than equivalent property on a quiet road. That isn't a legitimate complaint if the buyer knows it is on a busy road beforehand and it is priced lower than than a property on a quiet road.
For some reason a vast number of property buyers in this country are deluded. You often hear people saying they put offer in on a house but couldn't get a mortgage, in any other context this would be ridiculous e.g I tried to buy a Rolls Royce but couldn't get accepted for the finance.

LolaSmiles · 17/08/2020 19:09

Timekeeper2

I agree with you. The only useful things I can think of include:

hard to see past the clutter in the house
house smells badly of smoke or pets
photographs are misleading

Most things that would put a buyer off can't be fixed by the seller.

DinoDeb · 17/08/2020 19:39

I think much of the more useful detail of feedback often gets lost with the EA.

Things like ‘too close to the pub’ when they would have known that already. This might have already been mentioned to the EA before viewing in a ‘we’re not sure if it may be too close but we’ll view anyway just in case’ way.

Feedback may then have been ‘sorry, we thought if the inside space was generous enough for the price we might have seen past the proximity to the pub but on viewing there just wasn’t enough we liked internally to overcome it’. EA then reports - Too close to the pub.

DinoDeb · 17/08/2020 19:49

Our current house was also only an on-a-whim viewing. It wasn’t our desired area but we had a day free and thought we just as well have a look as it was only the next village over from our desired area - but we weren’t really that interested and had no intention of seriously considering it to be truthful.

We walked in and loved it instantly. Truly shocked ourselves as we weren’t expecting to. The spaciousness of the rooms, the excellent layout, the light, the views - even though the photos and floor plans were excellent, they really hadn’t done it justice, you had to view to appreciate them.

We had a long chat and decided that we loved the house so much it was worth not being in our desired area. Checked that school catchments still applied which was the final tick box and offered the next day.

So sometimes the ‘time waster’ viewings pay off - as a seller i’d welcome all viewings, you never know.

AdobeWanKenobi · 17/08/2020 20:01

I don't understand this. What on earth could the seller possibly do to change it? If the 'feedback' or whatever it is called is that rooms are too small

Remove furniture, paint it lighter, put a smaller bed in if its a bedroom, remove blinds from windows. Just a handful of things a seller can do to make a room look bigger.

Buddywoo · 17/08/2020 20:17

In my experience (30 years an estate agent) vendors ask for feedback but get very annoyed at specific negative feedback, it is better to keep it general if you want to keep the instruction.
I had one vendor with 2 very large dogs in a small house. The house reeked of dogs and even worse they had used loads of Shake and Vac to try and cover the smell. Windows were never opened and the house was overheated which made the smell worse.
Every single viewer said the same that the smell of the dogs put them off.
Eventually, I took my courage in my hands and told the vendor the truth. I was immediately disinstructed and, after the waiting period, the property was placed with a rival agent. During the waiting period I was headhunted by the rival agent and was there to greet the vendor on his first day with his new agent. His face was a picture!

LirBan · 17/08/2020 20:47

Ha ha!!!

LirBan · 17/08/2020 20:48

Did the house still reek if dogs?

Timekeeper2 · 17/08/2020 20:59

Remove furniture, paint it lighter, put a smaller bed in if its a bedroom, remove blinds from windows. Just a handful of things a seller can do to make a room look bigger.

They are selling the house as is. If they were going to bugger around moving furniture in and out or do renovations like paint walls, they would stay there. Not waste money on paint when they are selling it.

cologne4711 · 17/08/2020 21:02

For some reason a vast number of property buyers in this country are deluded

I think it's the sellers who are deluded, having just seen a bungalow in St Albans which is for sale for over £1 million and it't not even that nice!

However, I would buy this: www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-71286165.html for half the price

catnidge · 17/08/2020 21:11

We had someone look at our house and they were disappointed as the house was an extended semi, not a purpose built detached.
If the pictures and words on the EA profile didn't give it away, I'd have thought the fact it was about 750k cheaper than the purpose built detached they were dreaming of
I feel your pain OP

AdobeWanKenobi · 17/08/2020 22:34

@Timekeeper2

Remove furniture, paint it lighter, put a smaller bed in if its a bedroom, remove blinds from windows. Just a handful of things a seller can do to make a room look bigger.

They are selling the house as is. If they were going to bugger around moving furniture in and out or do renovations like paint walls, they would stay there. Not waste money on paint when they are selling it.

😂 You've seen the cost of a tin of white paint yes?

If you want to sell a house spending a few quid staging it could mean the difference between a quick sale and it it hanging around for months. It could also add to the value.

Frankly I'm staggered anyone wouldn't tidy a house up before sale, but it does explain some of the shit tips on right move I suppose.

BeijingBikini · 18/08/2020 07:23

They are selling the house as is. If they were going to bugger around moving furniture in and out or do renovations like paint walls, they would stay there. Not waste money on paint when they are selling it

What? A £10 tin of paint and re-arranging the furniture could be the difference between getting an offer close to asking price, or it sitting on the market for months only getting lowball offers. Surely the small bit of effort is worth it?

MsMarvellous · 18/08/2020 07:33

We're viewing places at the mo. You can get all sorts of data from the ad but nothing beats actually being in the house. Take the bathroom thing. I might have thought: "Ok, it's not ideal but if the house wows me I can compromise"

Then you get there and the house isn't as wow as you thought it might be but you can't just say to someone you just don't get the right feel from their house, and the agent is mois hint for reasons, so you say it's the bathroom

Buying a house is an emotional as well as practical purchase. It's not all in the plans and photos.