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

I do agree that obvious things like that are frustrating, but when we viewed ours there was something in the advert that was borderline a showstopper for us; we viewed it though as thought it might be one of those things that is better in person. And we were right, we ended up buying it. For a fundamental thing though it's not good as it should be obvious. That said, the estate agent phoned us with lots of properties and didn't really explain what they were, I suppose for those who trust them they might just go ahead and book a viewing.

My boss thought that was a bad idea for some sodding reason

Because often folks will change their mind on location if they find a house they love. Your boss was right.

As a buyer I hated to give a reason for turning down a house as it's (obviously) so personal to the vendor; sometimes a house was perfectly OK but just didn't feel 'right' and you feel you have to make something up, it should surely be enough to say to the Estate Agent 'no thank you, we won't be making an offer'.

I think most people would say ‘deal breaker’. A ‘show stopper’ is something so incredible that it stops the show because nothing else could top it. It is most definitely a positive description: a showstopping gown, a showstopping performance etc.

Anyway YANBU OP. Our house is near a railway line and when we rang the estate agent to book a viewing she had had strict instructions only to book viewings from people who had already scoped the location and were happy with it.

Showstopper can be a positive thing or a obstacle (check the dictionary if you're unsure) however I agree that it's more commonly used for a something positive.

*Op every single person who views and doesn’t wish to buy it will have a reason. Generally they think of something and say it, because they need to find a reason. And not just nah I don’t like it.

The man might have looked at the floor plans and just not realised what he was looking at. The woman might have accepted the proximity to the pub if she’d loved the house enough.

It doesn’t matter. They are all just telling you they don’t want to buy it.*

This is so true. In the end, the house I bought was one with a “deal breaker” as I loved it so much and could overlook it, even though it was a HUGE deal breaker for me (only home I viewed with no guest bathroom/toilet and no option of adding one).

I couldn’t say to some owners “your cleaning standards are subpar and I don’t have thousands spare to put right everything you put wrong” or “your entire house smells of cat piss/weed/vomit and I’m worried the stench will never come out” or even just “I’m sorry, this house doesn’t FEEL right to me, it could never be home”.

So they could be using a non offensive get out to cover up that there’s just something else they don’t like and that doesn’t sit right with them. I did that with 9 other homes. Well, 8 really seeing as there was one I wanted to buy but as a single FTB I wasn’t taken seriously by the EAs and they wouldn’t take my calls. Guess what? Every single one of those other homes sold. They were right for somebody, just not me.

I’ve viewed houses that have glitches like two bedrooms en suite (I mean in the French sense not as in bathroom).

If I liked the house enough I might think I could put in a corridor or knock it into one room. But when I saw it - the layout meant that wouldn’t work or I didn’t like the house enough to bother etc.

Someone should tell Bake Off if a Showstopper is a bad thing

YES OP! I totally agree. It makes me so angry.

I'm currently selling a property and I have a buyer now, but early on in the process one person said they wouldnt offer because it only had one bathroom! (noone hid this fact- it was all there in the EA details online). Another moaned that it was too far away from town centre- um, hello?- its bloody obvious from its location.

As you say, people are entitled to buy or not buy whatever house they wish. BUT, its wasting everyone's time to view a house and then turn it down on the basis of information you had PRIOR to viewing it. Why view it then? if you know there is a dealbreaker there already, just dont bloody waste everyone's time and get people's hopes up if you know damn well you arent going to buy it. Urgh. It makes me so frustrated.

This is so true. In the end, the house I bought was one with a “deal breaker” as I loved it so much and could overlook it, even though it was a HUGE deal breaker for me (only home I viewed with no guest bathroom/toilet and no option of adding one).

It’s similar to partners really. You have a checklist and there are certain boxes you want ticked, and there may be a dealbreaker(s) - but then you meet someone who feels right for you and the dealbreaker doesn’t matter. You have to compromise somewhere and you don’t necessarily know where until you meet the right house.

@AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter so you dont understand that the descision is only half wish list and half emotional. Read the thread so you understand.

Slightly off topic but it is fair to say EAs can be ace at concealing 'showstoppers'. Less so now (I definitely look at streetview, floorplans and schools/transport etc online before booking a viewing) but in the pre-internet past I have driven across London to be shown:

• an end of terrace house where the already small back garden had been cut in two and another house built in one half of it, accessed by an alley down the side of the original house. Front windows of new house about six feet from back door of original one. Not mentioned in the details or reflected in the price! I did actually say in my feedback 'Well it was the other house in the back garden that put us off...'

• a 'top floor' central London flat where another flat had been clumsily added to the roofline on top of it with a teetering NY-style metal staircase outside for access.

• a pretty Georgian house with a busy elevated railway line cutting through the row of buildings about 3 feet away.

• a gorgeous Victorian cottage which simultaneously managed to be next to a busy pub, under a flight path, opposite a railway bridge and parallel to a busy A-road flyover

All had been artfully photographed and beautifully presented in the paper details which we'd been posted, without mentioning any of this.

so you dont understand that the descision is only half wish list and half emotional. Read the thread so you understand

I understand it perfectly thank you. I'm saying dont view a house with one bathroom if having one bathroom is an absolute deal breaker for you. Equally, dont view a house in a rural location if being very close to town is vitally important.

Not really that hard to understand. Seems extremely obvious to me....

Yanbu. I’m a tenant moving soon, and having people come view the property is scary in a pandemic. Had some viewers who didn’t even know how many bedrooms there are. Wtf. I think agents just try to get as many viewers round as possible and hope thet someone falls in love with the vibe.

BUT, its wasting everyone's time to view a house and then turn it down on the basis of information you had PRIOR to viewing it

However that’s not what’s happening. If they loved the house enough they would buy despite these deal breakers. What they are basically saying is they just don’t like it enough.

Purely based on odds, you're better off getting people through the door to look and dismissing it than not having them view at all. One of them might actually compromise and put an offer on.

I viewed a house twice. Dismissed it the first time, then decided to have a second viewing and actually put an offer in. Sadly rejected, but c'est la vie

YABVU. These things may not have been dealbreakers if they loved your house enough, so they wanted to come check it out to see if they could cope with them.

They decided your house isn’t worth compromising in these areas ie. being near a pub, unusual layout, so didn’t buy.

What they are basically saying is they just don’t like it enough

It isnt though- they were very, very specific these were the deal breakers.
Plus this was during the pandemic when unnecessary viewing is not only annoying but it could also be harmful

OP we had the same thing when we sold last House. Several people saying we didn’t have a garage. We certainly didn’t advertise the house as having a garage.

When we looked for houses we looked properly on rightmove and did a drive by to get a sense of the location. You can also see loads on street view now.

They’re probably just looking as a hobby to be honest.

Sometimes floorplans are wrong, or there's a solution to the floorplan problem, sometimes there's not, not necessarily obvious until you view!

Sometimes you view a house with a feature you don't like but if the rest is great you'll put up with the bit you don't like.

Sometimes things like garden orientation (and light) aren't obvious until you can see it in person eg our last house had an east facing garden but surrounding gardens were long big so the patios at the end got the evening sun. Other houses have west facing gardens but are small and hemmed in so the neighbour's house shades the garden from mid afternoon. Google maps can only do so much.

Also, 1 issue might be tolerable, 2 or 3 is too much.

We viewed a house with a kitchen that totally lacked space for stuff - would need totally replacing, the garden was hemmed in and small (plus not level enough for a trampoline) and the living area was dark. The built in garage would be awkward to convert (nowhere sensible to put a door). The deal breaker was the living area being north facing, exacerbated by the kitchen layout and the inability to convert the garage easily to add living space on the light side of the house. The mental totting up of cost of what we'd 'need' to do to be happy living in the house was too high. If the house/plot orientation had worked for us, the kitchen would not have affected our offer!

I remember when we were looking for a house, we told the EA our budget and necessities. They still constantly sent things without parking, no garage, above the price range.

We went to see a few to see if we could sacrifice but in the end none were right. And the ones over our budget that we would have gone for wouldn't come down in price.

However one necessity was a downstairs WC and we ended up buying a house without, so it does happen if you find the right place.

Also EAs definitely do the "we're in the area for that house, let me tag this one on the end, too" but as PP said, maybe not in lockdown.

I understand what you are saying and as we are currently early in the process of house hunting we are looking at those kind of things online but it does drive me mad that when you see a house in the window of an EA it often doesn't show a floorplan or even give an easy link/qr to the online details, I find myself trying to search it on my phone.

It never would have ever, ever ever occurred to me to look at floor plans (besides the point that I am a visual person and am as hopeless at 'reading' floor plans as I am at reading graphs, maps etc). Unless it is a massive, massive house or mansion, I didn't think floor plans was even a 'thing' that you had access to. Last time I was looking at homes, floor plans weren't even a thing mentioned until during the contracts were drawn up. Why would you think any normal layperson would even think about floor plans, let alone even look at them, 0R could even understand/grasp them as a reference?

They're probably just making excuses so as not to seem rude by not making an offer.