You spent money on WHAT? (Rightmove thread)

[TremoloGreen]

So, flicking through Rightmove, we've all the seen the granny-ish interiors. Often understandable enough though if an old couple have been living there, it's what they liked or couldn't be arsed to change. But why (oh, why) when a house has clearly been built or refurbed by a developer do they spend huge amounts of money on such crazy shite and then expect to recoup it in the price?

Exhibit A

What kind of bloody PHILISTINE lays decking over an entire garden?? Using a non-sustainable product like wood to destroy what could be a natural habitat for wildlife. Nice one. Not to mention it's going to be green and horrible in about 1 year in the British climate. And the living room floor? A nice, shiny, slippery marble. Just what you want in a family sized home.

I HATE when people pave over their gardens. If we all did that we'd have massive drainage problems and increased flooding.

I don't really see a problem with decking in the garden or marble floors tbh .

That is a horrible thing to do to a garden. Decking makes me think 'rats'. I hate 'town houses'. That house has the footprint of a small 3 bed, with reception rooms to match. You can get a decent 4 bed semi in the same area with a sensible footprint. It is just developers squeezing people in like sardines.

And what have they done to the garage? Why create a second reception room with no window? If they couldn't use the full garage to make a room and put a window on the front, I suspect they weren't really meant to do that at all.

I viewed one house where the vendor was repainting all walls before selling - and had chosen magnolia. Why not use white if you bother to paint? Had I bought the house, I would have repainted all through as hate how dull magnolia walls are.

I know! More tiled reception 'rooms' and paved over gardens here Perhaps these developers preparing for the next flood?

msfreud they did the same in our current house. Each room repainted has been a victory against the magnolia. No-one uses magnolia as the default colour any more!

Pico2 I viewed a house which looked promising until we stepped into the totally decked garden. I just thought, rats hotel.

That is depressing. Sorry if anyone lives in a house like that. But the latest link is awful.

I like the deck. Its low maintenance and since its a small back garden anyway, without room to do too much - I don't see the problem.

Hate the decking, but i do love the marble flooring in the kitchen!

In house one I'm particularly impressed by the ingenuity of turning the back half of the garage into "Reception 2" - no windows wtf

Blank canvi?

I am horrified at the amount of houses on Rightmove that have totally paved or decked rear gardens. Quite obviously done for the Btl market. It makes me wonder how much this fashion contributes to all the flash flooding we seem to suffer from these days. It's also very sad to think that tenants are not supposed to warrant a garden.

RudyMentary - the point is, they're not really. It's a bit of a hassle to pull up all that decking and replant a lawn/ remove all those bloody tiles and put down wooden floors. Especially when the developers will have factored the cost of these things into the price.

They want 400,000 for THAT?!

£400000 for that! The worlds gone mad!

Great minds mairzy

Quite obviously done for the Btl market.

WetAugust I think you've hit the nail on the head. The bathroom for every bedroom too. My DD's bedroom (not big enough for an adult as it would not fit in a double bed and a wardrobe) has a flipping en-suite. We use it as the storage we don't have

P.s. don't feel too sorry for me, my house is not as grim as these ones.

I well remember the agony of pulling up concrete slabs which were tiled over an entire 40ft garden in my last house, before carrying 2 tons of topsoil and all the turf through the terraced house and eventually making a beautiful lawn. The irony is that we had to move due to work and it is now tenanted...!

I don't like it either, but it makes sense; I've been on the other end of house viewings- all the yards are cracked concrete sometimes slimy dumping grounds with assorted ancient paving that hasn't been looked after. I think a one-off decking installation probably looks neater and is a more solid bet than lawn that might be neglected/need care and could look scrappy within a month is not nurtured.

In terms of vendors wanting to recoup money on an investment...we would have made an offer on a house had the vendor not been asking 25K more than the house next door sold for. Her reasoning was that the carpets were relatively new and that she'd painted it.

Sorry, mate. I'm not looking at your years' old carpet in a rented house as something I want to keep. I don't care if it was laid yesterday.

What's with the one black square in the kitchen?

Bishops Stortford is ridiculously expensive. I come from there originally & wish I'd bought a house there when I had the chance.

The back garden looks like a rabbit run.