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

Many houses you really can’t tell until you see them.

its a waste of their time too

@Timekeeper2

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?

Its standard pracrice in UK property sales by estate agents. The EA advertises the property on their website, with pictures, and the page for that property provides links to Floorplan. Map and Streetview, Schoolchecker, Local Market etc. . In Scotland,it also gives a link to the Home Report (building survey).

  So before buyers even speak to the EA, they can see the property inside and out,  and the exact location, (which they can explore virtually in googlemaps) and know the local schools. They can visually  check out transport links, the neighbourhood,  and they can look up the market history prices  of the property and others in the same road.  It's all there at your fingertips .

 Any serious buyer would  take a good look ,   before they contact the selling agent to ask for a printed brochure, ask any questions,  or make a viewing appointment.

When we were looking at houses we looked at floor plans mainly for layouts to rule out ones that were definitely not right.

One of the houses the kitchen was tiny we could see what we needed to do to make the house what we wanted by using the floor plan. We had a viewing to check the walls could be knocked down without major building works, luckily it could be so we bought it.

Honestly, if you want to sell your main objective at this early stage of marketing is to get plenty of footfall through the door. Anything will sell for the right price.....if you’re not getting the footfall after a decent window of marketing, then probably the price is a bit steep. Good luck OP! Remember you only need one buyer to fall in love with it!

I had this a few houses ago when I was selling and this guy not only viewed but put in an offer which we accepted (and subsequently had our offer on the one we wanted accepted due to being proceedable) and then pulled out due to the house being across the road from a school... I was like ok so maybe from the online advert/maps you didn’t realise the school was close (should’ve realised but whatever) but you came to view and still decided to offer! After he pulled out, the vendors of the one we wanted put it back up for sale!! I was so mad. Like, the school was always there?! It didn’t sneak up on you or mysteriously show up on a survey. Luckily we found another buyer within a couple of weeks and got back under offer with the other one but it was nail biting.

We use showstopper in the negative context regularly at work - normaly referring to defects in IT development which stop release

I look at floor plans before looking at the photos @Timekeeper2

No point even considering a house if the layout is wrong.

*I had a single women turn down our four-bed house as the staircase wasn't wide enough confused It was a regular staircase.

People are fucking mad.*

Easily could have been me. I look the picture of health and have a “high flying career” but I’ve got some quite significant health problems. I need a staircase that’s safe, especially living alone, as I have a tendency to black out and very rarely, may have a fit if I’m very poorly. For some reason, the narrow staircase in my parents first home when I was little was a trigger in my fainting episodes and I fell the whole way down and cracked my head open more than once. They moved houses coincidentally to one with a better lit, wider staircase and touch wood, I’ve not blacked out on it since.

I did find myself “going” when viewing certain homes, especially new builds where the staircases are “normal” but narrower than what I’m comfortable with. It’s unusual but I’m not the only one. For some of us it’s stairs (and a billion other things), for others it’s swallowing, singing, heat, flying on airplanes etc etc. Not a psychological problem btw, a cardiac one. So not “fucking mad”.

And being a “single woman” looking at a four bed home? I’m currently single and was when I bought my home but I have plans to have children and perhaps even foster so need spare rooms. I admit looking at the stairs and thinking, “would I be safe carrying a baby down these stairs?” “Can I safely carry a hoover up and down the stairs?” “Will my elderly relatives feel safe on them when they come to stay?” “If Mum has to come and live with me at some point or if my health were to deteriorate further, could I fit a stairlift in here or would I have to sell up?”.

So you may think she’s mad (and it genuinely might have been me that you are talking about!) but she could have very legitimate reasons.

Eh, I can understand this. Say you're looking for a 3 bed but would accept a 2 bed if it was particularly nice, because y'know, compromise and budget. So you view the 2 bed, but don't find it that impressive, then I might leave feedback like "it's only 2 bed" or "it's a bit small" because I don't want to say "your decor is shite and I can't imagine my way out of it, plus I hate rain shower heads and the ubiquitous white kitchen, so it's not really worth compromising on bedrooms for".

Hasn’t anyone watched bake off?! Showstopper is the last round in which someone needs to cook something epic to seal their ride to the next week. So showstopper = something fantastic!

Also I have 0 spacial awareness so can't really imagine what X square foot looks like, or how well a certain floorplan works just from looking at Rightmove. I need to see it in person.

We viewed at least one house with a downstairs bathroom which we rejected for that reason. We were open to loving the house enough to look past it but we didn't.

Good luck with selling though, it is the most stressful experience without muppets coming round after you’ve cleaned/tidied like mad people and commenting on stuff that’s obvious if they’ve just looked at the ad properly

I don’t think you know what showstopper means OP.

However. I have viewed plenty of houses in my time and have rarely given a truthful reason for rejecting a place. Sometimes I just didn’t like it. Sometimes I thought the house next door looked scruffy or I caught sight of the neighbours and they put me off. It could be something that feels trivial and you don’t want to share it with the estate agent in case they think you’re fussy and impossible to please. Maybe you don’t want to appear rude when you suddenly realise your back bedroom would overlook a council estate.

Sorry but there are myriad reasons for rejecting houses. There’s usually not much to vendor can do about it. I know vendors like to get feedback (and then quibble over it) but viewers don’t always want to give it.

Plus you can’t believe a word that comes out of an estate agent’s mouth. They will say anything to sell a house and keep a lot of useful info back from both vendor and seller if they think it’ll prevent a sale.

@iswhois is showstopper not generally taken to mean the opposite of how you've used it? So amazing nothing further was needed? That's how I've always heard it used.

Here at the moment if you don't call up for a viewing appointment within about 30 minutes of a house going live on Rightmove/Zoopla you're not getting in to see it. Most of the houses we've been to see haven't had floor plans because there's no time to do it, we went to see one that had one photo because it was the right location and the outside looked ok (the inside was not!).

I don't think you know what showstopper means op

I think she does - there are two uses

"1.
a song or other performance receiving prolonged applause from the audience.
"he wants every scene to be a showstopper"
2.
an obstacle to further progress.
"the subsidy limits proved to be a showstopper for other senior Democrats who refused to pass the bill with such restrictions"

I've checked 3 dictionaries, all show similar. Showstopper as a negative blocker is a totally valid use.

INFORMAL
noun: show-stopper; plural noun: show-stoppers; noun: showstopper; plural noun: showstoppers
1.
a song or other performance receiving prolonged applause from the audience.
"he wants every scene to be a showstopper"
2.
an obstacle to further progress.
"the subsidy limits proved to be a showstopper for other senior Democrats who refused to pass the bill with such restrictions"

I think in this context showstopper meets definition 2.

@Timekeeper2

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?

I think it's been a very long time since you were last looking at houses! I'm also confused by how you can be 'very visual' but not like graphs, maps or floor plans as a way of conveying information?

the person who put an offer in on our flat wanted some money off because the outside was "aesthetically unattractive". She was right it wasn't the most attractive of buildings (a 1950s ex local authority block in a road of victorian terraces and conversion flats) but a) that was apparent from when she looked online and viewed it in person (it wasn't like we painted it a horrific colour after she had seen it) and b) it was probably 50k cheaper (and with larger rooms) than the prettier victorian properties

Sorry to disagree but houses just arent the same on paper as they are in real life. You may get the fuzzy feel and decide you can live with less floor space than you ideally want.

We had this with no off street parking. They would literally turn up and ask about the parking! I think the details would have mentioned it if it existed.

@BeijingBikini

Also I have 0 spacial awareness so can't really imagine what X square foot looks like, or how well a certain floorplan works just from looking at Rightmove. I need to see it in person.

I'm not great with knowing what square meterage is but thats not really an issue if its the location of a room. i.e you don't need to understand measurements to look at a floor plan and see the bathroom is downstairs, or a bathroom is accessed from a bedroom.

A few of my friends have recently sold houses. They had similar.

One viewer didn't put an offer because it didn't have a garage. That was obvious.

One viewer didn't put an offer because it was link detached and they wanted detached. That was obvious.

There were others that I can't remember but all equally obvious from pictures or descriptions.

I think people are optimistic and think it's not what we really want but otherwise it's lovely and maybe viewing it will help us decide if that con is worth it.