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...

A viewer once asked my parents if the property had a garage.

Yes, it's the thing with the big door, built into the house, next to the front door, you couldn't miss it when you parked your car on the drive !

Slap .

I know it's irritating but sadly you have to put up with it with a smile on your face if you want to sell. Or just go out and leave it to the agent.

Of course you can't really tell what a house is going to be like until you view it - as someone else said, you can't get a proper impression of a place just from the floorplans.

But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect viewers to have actually read the details and looked at the floorplans before they arrive, and to know such details as whether or not there is a garage, or if the bathroom is downstairs, or if the place has central heating or a balcony!! It's not rocket science.

And we bought our house in Scotland using an estate agent - they did all the usual stuff about details and organising viewings, and we made our offer through them, though once they'd provisionally accepted it, the rest had to be done through the solicitor, including the formal offer and acceptance.

The estate agents are the ones to blame!

When we were house-hunting we specified that we must have a loo downstairs as my mother-in-law was unable to visit our last house because - concentrating? - she couldn't manage stairs and therefore couldn't go up to the loo.

I remember being sent to several houses that had downstairs loos all right . . . but ten steep steps up to the front door.

We'd stand outside, and wonder what would be worse for the seller - take one look at the house from the outside and refuse to view, thus giving them a complex that they had an ugly house, or go through the motions and waste their time. I was and several times.

Oh we had someone pull out just before exchange because the survey had shown the house had a flat roof - as if that was something that up until that point we had cunningly disguised. It was a 1930s Modernist building, ffs, what did she expect?

Thing is, sometimes it is worth looking anyway. I wouldn't want a downstairs bathroom, BUT, if it were my dream house, at the right price and I could change it, I might want it, so I might look anyway. Because you never know. If I was then asked for feedback, I would probably say the bathroom, even though it is more complicated than that.

And you shouldn't be ungrateful for the viewings, you would all be whinging if you had none.

As for evidence of children, you can't tell that from a floor plan!

When did having children/photographs/non-beige cushions become such a big deal with viewings? It seems so bizarre that buyers expect to walk into some sort of sterile house lab with no evidence of anyone living there at all (except a faint waft of fresh baking). I genuinely don't understand how people cannot look beyong the wallpaper/clutter/avocado bathroom and mentally re-imagine it. The only thing that would put me off is a really stong smell (pets/cabbage/urine) and, even then, if the price was right...

I think you may have unrealistic expectations of buyers - I would arrange loads of viewings in one go when I was last househunting (mainly as we had a 3 hour round trip to get where we were looking).

So sometimes I would mix up house details, get confused about what house had the downstairs loo or en suite or whatever, or ask questions that may have seemed silly etc. It is a big decision to buy a place especially today, and when you are the house owner you are the expert on the place and how you live in it - other people will have a very different view about how they would use it - that is natural.

I got fed up with all the intrusion and tidying up when selling our flat - showing it to single professional types - while i had a toddler and was pregnant - exhausting and annoying - but we got there in the end. So will you spillage.

We viewed loads of houses we hadn't planned to when looking in Cardiff because we'd come up for the weekend and cram in as many as we could. We were looking to buy but had no inital idea of area and a very vague spec.

Floorplans are great, but on our estate our house has the same floorplan but different dimensions (it's larger as it's nearer the motorway compared to smaller but otherwise identical houses further into the estate). Difficult to visualise the space without seeing it.

Good luck though.

Not everyone does keep the house pristine anyway though. I have viewed some which were like show homes and gone straight into others which were like squats - one of which I noticed this morning has just sold. All the decluttering, cleaning etc helps of course, but it does reassure me that there is a wide range in how people approach selling!

Personally, I don't expect to walk into a sterile environment, but it is a known fact that you will sell your house easier if it's clean, tidy and smells nice. You don't have to. But as a buyer, I might not be able to look beyond the mess and untidiness. I am constantly surprised that sellers don't make more of an effort when they're showing their house round - a quick tidy up can make all the difference. And don't even get me started on how gobsmacked I am when you look at properties online and the photos they've used show a complete tip - surely you can at least sort the place out for the photos?

YABU
We viewed lots of houses before we were ready to move. That was what gave us the 'experience' to know what we like and what we don't like. Its difficult to imagine otherwise. Go down the houses in a terrace and look inside - they will all be different.

When we were ready to move we just looked at 3 houses and knew we had what we wanted. The only reason we could do that was because we had already done all the window shopping when we had the time.
Good luck... You'll get one who has already done their 'homework' and is ready to GO. And that's all you need.

when we bought our current house, there were no internal pics or floor plan to look at , there was one picture of the outside of the house and that lovely phrase ' in need of modernisation'

we knew the minute we stepped inside , we wanted the house.

despite the absolute squalor and the amount of work that needed doing, we knew it was the one. DH refused to look at any more houses after that

to give you an idea of the mess, when the guys we hired to remove the carpets came, the first lot refused to do the job and the second lot came with haz.mat suits and masks

but i don;t thikn everyone can look beyond the mess/squalor/hideousness

having said that, a friend has just put her house on the market, and the pics the agent has done make it look twice the size.

people like to look and see what is available , what could be changed, extended, converted etc..

i found it far more irritating when people booked to view and did not turn up.

YABU and also not as it is frustrating enough anyway trying to sell.

This bugs me too although from reading the responses on this thread I can understand why people do it.

We have just sold our house (or should be exchanging in the next couple of weeks - fingers crossed!) which sounds very like yours and we got a lot of the 'its too small' feedback too. We just sucked it up and moved on and just as we were about to give up (keeping house tidy with family of 4 is def a nightmare!) it sold. Just takes one!

As an aside the estate agents fucked messed up our floorplans and it took several emails and calls before they made the ammendments we asked for - funny how they could get details online within 24 hours then didn't give a toss!!!

cross posted with a couple...

Agree that house buying is something of a journey - we wouldn't have bought our current house if it was the first we had seen - it is a smaller than average 3 bed semi, has less character than we wanted and harder to extend which were all things that were important to us. However it was the first one we viewed after realising we couldn't afford all we wanted and it was better to get a house for the 'now' (engaged couple, no children) than the future as we didn't know what that would involve. It had a lovely open plan kitchen diner that was flooded with light from the south facing garden and we just loved it! Some of the people doing the wall tapping / it's too small stuff might be at the beginning of their journey but who knows they may be back in a couple of months having realised they need to compromise and that your house is a good bet afterall

Oh and wrt the cheeky offers I think this is also something you have to put up with. We had a couple before finally fixing a price that was less than we wanted but enough to allow us to make the move up we wanted to. If you are up and opposed to down sizing then it will all work out in your favour eventually as although you will have to take a hit on the house you are in you will get the benefits on the hosue you buy. Just a sign of the times really but once the market starts to rise you will be laughing in a house that you never could have afforded a year ago

as opposed to rather than and opposed to

YABU

If you want to sell your house, especially in the current market, it needs to be presented like a showhome and reasonably (not optimistically) priced. This means decluttering -putting stuff into storage if need be -and hiding evidence of children as much as possible. I would never show buyers around myself, we always got the estate agent to do it. Floorplans give an idea, but you only really get the picture when you walk around. Buyers (ridiculously) place a stupid amount of emphasis on appearances, so given that it's a buyer's market you need to pander to that. Hide most of the family photos, paint the walls neutral colours, remove pet smells and children's toys etc etc etc.

Cheeky offers are to be expected too. No-one is going to offer the asking price at the moment!

We have sold 2 houses. The first in a rising market went after one viewing. The second, under offer in Jan 08 just as prices start to fall went under offer after 4 viewings in one weekend. In each case the key was presenting it immaculately, pricing it realistically and in the latter case, not expecting to achieve the asking price. Prices will fall further, so accepting a bit of an offer is probably sensible in today's market.

love it, Spillage!

our 3 bed semi has been on market for a year, weve had lots of viewings from people

'oh we havent decided if we want to move yet'
'oh we actually wanted to be in a different location'
'we wanted a 4 bed but wanted to see yours'

do they not realise the work that goes in to prep for a viewing?!
esp. with a 2yo and a 8mth baby!!!!!!!!

But voodoo the people who 'haven't decided if they want to move yet' might well be back in a couple of months.

I sympathise with the amount of work prepping for a viewing (we have a 3 year old and a 18 months old) but unfortunately in this market you just have to suck it up and take allcomers.

If you are serious about selling I would take a look at the price you want too - if it has been on the market for that long then it is probably over priced as houses ARE still selling, particularly smaller family homes like yours (and mine before you htink I am being cheeky )

We did A LOT of window shopping before deciding to even put our house on the market - we wouldn't have wanted to pay for HIP to put house on the market if we couldn't afford the sort of house we wanted in the end. And we are now in the process of buying one of the first we looked at while we were doing that window shopping so stick at it!!!

...and I understand as everyone has said 'more eyes, more buys' but please, think before you view!

and when you view, don't raise the sellers hopes cruelly
our last viewers basically said they were going to buy it. Now they have vanished.

I would rather people be honest then everyone knows where they stand.

the people who 'hadnt decided if they wanted to move' wandered round saying theyd put in stairs here, dig a veg garden there, as soil looked great for carrots (seriously) flag over the front lawn for hardstanding for a large caravan for her father to live in 'we will pipe the gas straight from the house'

so I say 'have you had any interest in your house?'
they say 'we arent sure if we want to sell up yet'

wow thanks for spending time with me one saturday afternoon living out all your pie-in-the-sky ideas!!! crazy. I suppose it's a free trip out...

Ok voodoo so I can see that the way they played it might have pissed you off!!!

I also hate the people who are not honest. Really get your hopes up for nothing. We had a couple of these too and agree they are more annoying than anything

we arent overpriced either...
few houses the same style as ours are up for more dosh and have less features than ours ie double garage, conservatory, big front and back gardens...
anyone here want to move to Sale? its lovely.

Or the ones that say they dont like the area. Personally blame the agents. They will take potential buyers round anything so they can kid the sellers they are generating lots of interest.