To expect people to look at the floorplans before they view the house?

[Spillage21]

In a nutshell, house is on the market. It's a traditional London Victorian terrace, it's clean, well maintained and neutrally decorated (yawn). The third bedroom is small (it's supposed to be an office, but is perfect for a baby) but has two reasonably sized double rooms.

But OMG the number of young professionals we've had who waft round, recoiling at the evidence of children, asking why it's not open plan and tell us they're just thinking of moving (so basically you're window shopping then?) and then come back saying the house is too small. What do they want? Have people just been watching too much Grand Designs? How much space does a young professional couple want/need? We're a family of four FFS and only moving cos DS is verging on teenagerhood and we need extra space.

Rant over...

When we sold our last house, the number of people who came round and then said they weren't interested because of the downstairs bathroom was amazing. In the end we told the estate agents to point it out explicitly to people before they came round.

My sympathies are with oyu

YABU

It's impossible to get a feel of a house from schedules and floorplans.

You need to watch a few property shows yourself, then you'll know not to take it all personally!

It's a buyers market. You have to open your home to buyers. As for storage etc how do you know how much stuff they have or how many rooms they need?

I'll bet you're just as picky/ critical of houses you go to view when they time comes.

Some of it is probably down to the estate agents too.

When we were looking to move last I was very specific with every estate agent that we didn't want an open plan lounge/diner that we only wanted to see places with a separate kitchen.

So you can imagine how annoyed we were when we had our time wasted on several occasions being taken to totally open plan places.

Estate agents are a pain and ignore what anyone says (both buyers and sellers). I guess the thinking is the more viewings they book the more likely it is they'll get a sale.

YANBU

Don't worry, First time buyers can have really unrealistic expectations - they'll learn

When we sold our flat I stopped being there because I couldn't bear how rude/stupid people were.

When I go and see a house I keep any negative thoughts to myself until I'm out of the house.

I know the score with the house selling game. But it was the last straw when the last couple openly knocked on the dividing wall and went 'Hmmm'.

They probably are window shopping actually. We're going to start soon - get a feel for the market and if we're lucky enough to find the perfect place on the first trip out, excellent. But mostly, we're expecting not to. And I would prefer NOT to wander into people's homes knowing we probably won't buy, but I don't think we'll have that much of a choice.

I think a read a statistic somewhere once that you have to look at 10 houses at least before you find the one you're willing to take.

And while I agree with you on floor plans generally - eg if you really really want 3 bedrooms, check the floor plan to make sure it's not just two - I don't think a floor plan gives enough of a real sense to make a decision on.

I really hated it when people rejected our house because of the layout - couldn't they see this from the floorplans in advance? viewings real PITA etc - but have since found myself doing this at least twice while looking as a buyer. And yes, I could have told what the layout was in advance, but went to see these houses anyway because they were possibly right for us despite not ideal layout, and there were other things I couldn't judge without seeing them. I know it's a pain but I think it's part of the process ...

spillage - tell them my house is the perfect size for your tiny budget

you have my full sympathies, we are trying to sell, and I can see as soon as they walk through the door, that they have allready made their mind up.

I appreciate times are tough to sell, but people expect too much, we are a 3 bed semi for £120k first time buyers area basically, but they walk round like they expect the palace, we like you have a small 3rd bedroom.

was it not for the fact we have paid for a stupid Hips, which incidentally no one has asked to look at, we would be taking it off the market.

the blok who done the hips was telling me people are offering stupid amounts for houses, one of his colleagues was offered 130k on a house up for £250k. we cant accept much lower that what price is, and there are a couple of repocessed houses on our estate, so we are stuffed, as the bank will accept silly offers on the repocessed ones.

Exactly - perhaps if the house fitted the bill in other ways then they could compromise. They don't know until they see it.

My mum swears she bought her first house because of the bathroom cabinet!

People buy houses with their hearts, not their heads, as you will too.

But I agree, don't be home. In other countries they have days when houses are open to the public and you come in and look around with lots of other people - the owner tidies up, leaves a pot of coffee on to make the place smell nice, and, crucially, then leaves for the day and leaves it to the estate agent. Avoids a lot of heartache as people slag off the gorgeous messy garden you've spent years creating because they want something landscaped.

I've had some good ones, when selling our shoebox small 2 bed London flat we had one couple who thought they were buying the block of flats (I kid you not)

Had another loon viewer who came round a then moaned about lack of garden (erm on a first floor flat) and also lack of balcony, did it say balcony on the estate agents blurb, I felt like saying why are you wasting my time?

Just a word about EAs: we don't really have them in Scotland as houses are bought and sold here through solicitors (lawyers).

You do open viewing and the seller usually shows the house, though this is more in the way of letting them in and then answering questions than that hideous hard sell they try to get you to do on 'Selling Houses' etc.

The house should effectively sell itself.

YANBU. Last time we moved I got sick and tired of people asking about the central heating. The details said there was no CH and that was why the house was priced at £5k less than identical houses on our street.

Then they'd start the "I'd knock this wall down and move this door..." great- do what you like when you've bought it

I'm sympathetic but if you're buying something that costs upward of 3 times your annual salary, I think a little wall knocking and over analysing is in order!

yabu, it's impossible to tell how a place will 'feel' without actually seeing it. and knocking on the odd wall! Frustrating though from your side, so sympathies!

The repossessions don't drive the prices down by the way, the forced sellers do. The banks can wait forever for their money but the person needing to move for work, divorce, death whatever will be the ones driving down the prices.

YABU, two houses can have exactly the same square footage and one can feel small and pokey and the other airy and spacious. You dont know till you view. This can be due to lots of things you cant tell from floor plans like light etc

maybe they way you have furniture and stuff laid out makes it look smaller in real life than it really is?

and estate agent details are often wrong, sometimes they just make it up! I've seen lots of flats where the details said freehold but it was actually leasehold and vica verca. Lots of them use a template which automatically says things like GCH etc and they forget to change it if it doesnt apply to the particular property. EA floor plans are not always particularly accurate either

re asking why its not open plan - maybe they are trying to find out if its because of supporting walls or not?

YABU and it sounds like you don't actually want anybody to view your house unless they've already committed to buying it!

You just have to accept that a lot of people will have to come in before the one does who will want your house.

When you were buying, did you pick a house off the particulars and then buy it without viewing anything else???

Actually SalBySea that's totally true. DH and I looked at two houses that are almost next door to each other in a row of modern builds and while the lay out was exactly the same, we hated the first one and live now in the second. Makes no sense butthere you have it. Partly I guess it was furniture etc. Partly the garden was slightly different. And partly random choice that was just instinctive.

p.s. the flat we bought in the end did not actually tick our boxes on paper - we didnt want a GFF. we saw it anyway just to compare it to others we were viewing and ended up compromising on the floor because we got a really good "feeling" about it and other things (which we wouldn't have got from the details) made up for the fact that it wasn't 1st floor plus.

Also EAs can bully you into doing viewings in properties you are not interested in. I had a 10 min arguement with an EA in a car park of one place - it had a rediculously short lease, a horrible exterior and wasnt in an area we wanted. I had booked to see somewhere else and she said i "might as well" see this place as it was on the way. This tactic had been used on me before but this time I was stubburn and point blank refused to see a flat that I could tell from the details that I would never ever buy, took her 10 mins to give in and drive on. I think they do it so that if the vendor complains they can say "well I got you X amt of viewings"

I think a certain chain of EAs that drive minis have a particularly bad rep for pushy selling.

You can't have it both ways, foxton are pushy and yet so many threads about houses not selling, no viewings etc make your minds up.

your house probably does seem smaller than on any floor plans if there are 4 of you in two and a half bedrooms. does the small 3rd bedroom have baby things in it? obviously it would look bigger if it only had a desk in. they won't know how it looks til they get in there.

I can't believe how many of you are home for viewings. My flat is on the market and I am not allowed to be here when they show it. I have to get me and all three kids out at all sorts of inconvenient times. Its a pain,but there is no way I would want to be here.,

As to the layout thing, when people view my flat, I am sure they have often not seen many details. They often say to the estate agent that they want to see any flats for sale in our building (or which there are many) so they just see everything. It doesn't bother me.