Asking what puts you off when viewing a house to buy?

[DarkGreen]

We have had our house valued but we are just getting the house ready to sell. Touching it up bits and tidying up.

For context its a 2 bed terraced house on a country lane with no driveway but space on the Road to park outside the house. It is an old house.

What areas and things should we focus on? What would you look for and what would put you off?

Parking - so I'd be put off by having to park on a road - eg. difficulties finding a parking space in the evenings as everyone else has got there first.
I personally wouldn't want a doer-upper so if there was too much work to be done I wouldn't be interested.
I'd want something I could move straight into and live with. If the kitchen OR bathroom needed ripping out but was liveable with in the meantime then that would be ok but not if both were in a state of disrepair.
I wouldn't be put off by anyone's stuff lying around or personal style but I do think that you should try to ensure it doesn't look too cluttered as people then think the place might have storage issues.

Priced unrealistically - if the work on it isn't the highest quality and everything isn't sorted, then don't ask the top price.

Personally, I like a house that needs stuff doing to it but is priced to reflect that - I don't want to pay for someone else's taste, no matter how fashionable it might be!

@Neron

The owners being there, especially if they lead/follow you around

This!!!! I hate this, it really puts you on edge.

Oh and using purple bricks....because they are horrific..

You need to assume that the average person lacks imagination and wants an easy life.
Table and some nice pots on the patio shows them it’s a nice outdoor space that you use often, so they will use it often too, and won’t that be nice? Bit of weeding shows that it’s easy to maintain because you seem to have kept on top of things ok.
Piles of clutter shows that you do not have enough storage space, which means that they won’t have enough either. They may have half as much stuff but that does not matter - there’s clearly not enough storage.
Etc etc etc.

@MagicSummer

Loos with the lid and seat up Beds not made properly with the duvet pulled over the pillows Dirty skirting boards Smoke-stained walls and ceilings Mouldy shower curtain Piles of 'stuff' in the bathroom, i.e. shower gels, shampoos, empty loo rolls, small pieces of soap in the dish Toys all over the floor Clutter in the kitchen covering work surfaces

😐 I get the toys and kitchen clutter because it may show lack of storage but the rest? This isn't 4 in a bed...

Barky dog next door. Nothing you can do to change that!

Plastic windows
Paved/tarmacced over front garden.

The last two can be changed but are expensive and disruptive to do so, so I’d want the price/offer to reflect that.

Scruffy houses and overgrown gardens don’t bother me, as long as the ‘bones’ of the house/garden are good, because they can be sorted out.

OMG I have 3 dogs, I'll never be able to sell my house!

No - they wouldn't put me of putting in an offer - I though OP was asking about little things which could put a potential buyer off!

Quickie patch up jobs. If they've hidden cosmetic stuff god knows what bigger will be hiding.

Wallpaper. Its often used to cover crap plaster.

Things that are new but cheap/low quality - cheap new carpets or flooring, cheap kitchens & bathrooms. I'll only want to replace them so I'm not going to pay you for them.

Lots of bedrooms but all small.

3 storey newbuilds where the footprint of each floor is tiny.

Stuff done as cheaply as possible to make it sell.

I'd honestly rather see older stuff in place than clock the cheapest possible shitty laminate everywhere and think 'great, will have to undo that' - ditto shitty cheap kitchen/bathroom bunged in to 'make it sell'.

Ask yourself if you would want to live with it, if not, don't put it in and cost yourself money when all you're doing is giving your buyer a job to do!

So be judicious with your touching up.

Declutter with logical storage. Somewhere for ironing board Hoover and mop for example.

Fresh and clean

Bath is a must for me not just a free standing shower

Paved/tarmacced over front garden.

Really?! When we moved here, half the drive was badly tarmacked and the other half was grass. The grass served no purpose, meat lugging the lawn mower round to the front to keep it looking ok and meant we had to squeeze our 2 cars on the drive. We had the whole lot paved nicely, with a couple of bedding areas and it made such a difference to the use and look of the house.

• Bad smells,
• Damp/bad work done on the house,
• Clutter/pictures everywhere
• messy/overgrown garden
• tiny kitchen
• tiny bathroom
• low ceilings

They're all things I looked out for when we were looking to buy. Clean and clear spaces help the buyer to picture themselves living there.

As long as there werent structural issues we would be up for a project and can look past dirt etc and consider compromising on most things IF the price is right.

The one thing I find absolutely maddening is properties where the owner has tried to "add value" with lots of shit DIY projects and then over priced. I go round calculating how much it will cost to tear them out, so these properties always seem to be over priced and languish on the market for longer. If you've done any projects I would recommend getting your bitchiest friend to come round and give you an honest appraisal.

Kind of things I mean:
"Garden/summer houses" dominating mediocre gardens.
Ensuites squeezed into bedrooms.
Rooms chopped up to create extra "bedrooms" that are tiny or weirdly shaped.
Poorly put in skylights or conservatories getting lots of condensation.
Newly tarted up kitchen/bathroom but other things like electrics/heating/roof have clearly been neglected.
"Posh" features like range cookers, grand stone entrances or roll top baths tacked on to ex-council houses .
Front gardens completely paved over to create enough parking for 4 cars when the house only has 2 bedrooms...
Cheaply done porches.

All (can) devalue rather than add value so price realistically.

Anything dirty and junk plied on every available surface. No parking would be a deal breaker

The thing I've noticed is that people tend to declutter when they move out - my cousin had a skip and a removal van at the same time! From now on I declutter before the estate agent comes round.

I suppose I wouldn't not buy somewhere if there were bottles in the bathroom (someone pulled me up on that before but it wouldn't give me as nice a feeling as a clear room. It's all about how a house makes you feel isn't it? If you can see yourself there, with your stuff in. So I suppose a cluttery house wouldn't give me that urge to buy it as much as a clear one - even if it was dated and needed a reno.

I don’t understand how the (not permanent) smell of an animal could be the sole factor that would influence a £100k+ decision.

I bloody hate the smell of dogs (and smoke), and the previous owners of our house smoked and had a large, drooly Labrador.

Yes, the house smelled when we first moved in, but was completely gone in two or three weeks. Might have lingered if there was more carpeted areas, but carpet can be replaced.

Unless animal wee had permeated the floorboards, dog/cat smell isn’t going to stick around forever.

I think what this thread illustrates is that there are a variety of people out there who are your potential market and some you will never be able to reach. Made up percentages, but I think it looks a bit like this:

5% will turn down a house for too many bottles of shampoo in the shower. Presumably only interested in show-homes/new builds. You can probably afford to write off this fraction of the market.

15 % with a reasoned tick-list (no on-street parking, for eg, large enough garden) which they will not compromise on and have the money to know they don't need to compromise on. You can't reach this fraction - again write them off.

20% who simply lack the visual imagination to see past a bit of clutter. You can reach these if you're prepared to put in a bit of work, and it's probably worth doing in order to boost your chances of finding the right buyer at the right price.

20% who don't mind a bit of clutter, but will be put off by something like a bad bathroom. Depends on how much money you're prepared to spend - but the general rule of thumb from estate agents is that you don't put a new bathroom/kitchen in simply to sell, because you will not get the money back. So if your kitchen is dated, simply on financial grounds you may have to write this fraction off - but it's swings and roundabouts. Maybe accept you don't want to spend 15K on a new kitchen which will only make the house marginally more likely to sell, but accept that you maybe need to put the house on for 8K less than the one down the street which has just had its kitchen done.

15% who don't mind major decorative renovations, in fact the "clean slate" aspect quite appeals (I was in this category when I was young and full of energy) but will expect it to be priced accordingly. If I'm putting in a new kitchen and bathroom, I expect the house to be cheaper by roughly that amount than a comparable house in the same area with everything done perfectly.

5% who don't mind major structural work but will be expecting it at a knock down price.

People in the last two categories are probably going to be put off by a perfect house - they're looking for a bargain!

Any house will sell at the right price.

No house will ever appeal to 100% of the market - the bargain hunters will assume the perfect "show home" isn't for them, people looking for "move-in-ready" won't even bother looking at a fixer-upper, people with the money to be able to ask for an extensive tick list won't look at a house that doesn't meet that tick list.

But you can "tinker round the edges" - decluttering, lick of pain on the obviously shabby bits etc. - to increase the percentage of people you will get through the door.

Having looked at many many weird and wonderful houses over the years, I like somewhere to be as clutter free as possible so that I can see surfaces and most of the walls. I just assume loads of furniture might be hiding something awful or a lack of power points. When I'm selling I put some of my furniture in storage or in a friends garage. Its amazing what you can live without.
I'd tidy up the garden as best as you can- it requires a bit of hard graft but v little money.
I'd also agree with the gallery of pictures thing someone up thread said, especially in a hall. The cost and/or the pita of decorating a hall with stairs is always way more than you think.

if it smells or is dirty. I know that you can change those things but it's hard to see past.

And... I can't count because my percentages don't add to 100... but hopefully you get the idea, OP.

Brilliant post Cara, you've said what I was trying to say way more articulately!

I can tell you that what made me want a house was the fact that the first impression was that it was immaculate. The windows gleamed and the front hedge had been cut by a professional. It only had a concrete back yard, but they had pressure washed it and planted pots of geraniums out there. It looked loved. I once turned down a house for an identical one, a small two up two down terrace, because the first one had all their children's school photos framed and on the walls going up the very narrow stairs. It felt closed in and cramped, and even though logically I realised that the photos wouldn't be there if I moved in, it put me off the house.

I don't like en suites, actually, that is fair point. It comes under "would be very expensive to change" category.

Mostly, anything that's so filthy or in such bad repair that it will take me ages/£££ to fix

Outside noise, obviously difficult neighbours

Nothing else. I don't care about trailing owner or their clutter or mild mess. I can replace fences etc.

@Sunshineandflipflops

Paved/tarmacced over front garden.

Really?! When we moved here, half the drive was badly tarmacked and the other half was grass. The grass served no purpose, meat lugging the lawn mower round to the front to keep it looking ok and meant we had to squeeze our 2 cars on the drive. We had the whole lot paved nicely, with a couple of bedding areas and it made such a difference to the use and look of the house.

Unless there's literally nowhere else to park, a paved garden would put me off. It's a flood issue as well.