What phrases do you dislike from estate agents details...

[KitschinSynch]

My pet hates are:
"this fine home" related to any Victorian house
"buff interior" buff meaning fit rather than the colour...
I will add more when they come to me :)

I can't believe nobody has mentioned ideal starter home yet - guaranteed to mean too poky for anyone not desperate to move out of student digs/DM&DF's home to buy - couples, families, pet owners or anyone with more than two boxes of belongings need not apply

Love this thread. I live in a typical family semi in a popular school catchment area. Yesterday, I was told by our local agent that 'there are a lot of gay couples moving into the area who don't have children/need gardens so perhaps you could tweak the presentation to appeal to them'. Apparently, nobody expects or wants a big garden in London either, 'because they just need enough outside space to park a BBQ'. I suppose I could sell half of it off to their developer friend!

Not a phrase I dislike, but this did make me laugh when I read it yesterday in an EA's window - a house that featured an 'artist's storage room'. Only in Brighton...

I sold my house through the poncey high-end agency that first started with all that lifestyle bollocks…...

'Mr and Mrs Jones fell in love with Smugley Manor that sunny spring day as they pulled into the sweeping gravel drive and saw the lush lawns that caressed the house from all sides….

Mrs Jones smiled as she reminisced 'We've had so many wonderful Christmases here, with the roomy Aga, fit for the biggest Fuck Off turkey in the village, and a huge log fire for my husband to sit his golf club cronies around as he wows them with his impressive single malt whiskey collection….'

Luckily my house sold so quickly they didn't have time to print up the poncey brochure, but I'd practically begged them not to do the 'lifestyle' piece and just to take photos and do 'normal' desriptions, room dimensions etc.

They were not happy at all, saying 'Oh but potential buyer love it, our research shows it really works.'

In the words of the late, great Kirsty McColl 'I don't think so.'

I notice loads of the smaller agents are jumping on the cheesy 'sell them the lifestyle' bandwagon now. The fact that they are blatantly/cynically copying makes it even more cringeworthy.

'Viewing is considered essential to appreciate the accommodation...'

As if someone would part with half a million quid without viewing the house.

'all the principal rooms facing south'

I've just looked at a house on rightmove where the dining room was described as a 'dining hall.' It was 8 foot x 9 foot. Hardly of medieval castle proportions.

I saw a photo of a dining room where the room was quite long so they had obviously put the dining table across the room so the chairs at either end of the table touched the walls each side - this was with the chairs tucked in.

How the hell were people meant to sit down?

Squirrel, perhaps it was a house for a couple and they sat next to each other (in the only seats you had access to) gazing out of the window as they enjoyed the semi-rural aspect of a bowling green!

We moved to the United States in December 2013, and some of the realtor (American estate agent) descriptions of houses had us reaching for the dictionary, there were words we'd never heard of before.

For example, the house we ended up buying has several acres of land, which was described as "spacious and verdant land surrounding the property." Verdant, I learned, means green/leafy/grassy. OK, so the word fits, but COME on it's land, I should bloody hope it's going to be green/leafy/grassy!

I LOVE the American term 'fixer-upper'. It's so much more positive, honest and catchy than 'in need of modernisation'.

Wraparound gardens
In a popular suburb of (town with population of 8,750)
'Close to good local schools.' Well don't expect to get out of your house between 8.30 and 9.15 or 3pm and 4.30pm then.

"cottage" when it is clearly just a normal house.

'Restored to its former glory' for when the last person did it up.

Has someone mentioned, "Sympathetically renovated"? as opposed to going at it with a sledge hammer i suppose

Also, why can't they proofread? Our old house apparently 'boasted Victorian widows overlooking the rear garden'. I quite liked this - gave the house a bit of character (with implications of haunting) but they did correct it when I pointed it out. (Oh, and you could only see the garden from the windows if you stood on a chair and craned your neck, so it wasn't really even true!)

Estate agents (and any sellers you happen to bump into) ALWAYS say "it's in the catchment area of the best schools". Nobody ever says "we're near a few bad ones". Apparently according to them, 1) we live in a utopian parallel universe where all schools are best or brilliant, and none are average or bad, and 2) they forget catchment areas no longer apply - you have to be nearest the school you want, not the other way around, and you have to hope the area doesn't have a lot of large families, as siblings get first choice.

"flexible accommodation" = modern house with many floors, too many stairs no garden and no room actually big enough to definitely be the lounge so you end up shifting the dining table and the sofas between rooms trying to work out what works best. And the only place you can put the ironing board is the ground floor toilet.

Can somebody please explain "exacting standards" to me?

This thread is hilarious . You're all giving me a much needed laugh this morning, thank you!

Around here, "popular residential area" = fairly rough estate.

The new builds in our village listed as "benefitting from a convenient, allocated parking space" should have the vital information "if you drive a Fiat 500 or a Smart Car and don't mind lugging your bags halfway down the street". Anything bigger & you might get in your space but you won't get your doors open. Maybe leave your handbrake off & push it in and out?

"Benefits from......" is also a bog standard annoyance.

"Full of character" = full of woodworm, damp, mould, holes in the roof etc.

Some of the C&W details people have linked to are awful. I don't know about anyone else but I would actually stop reading & discard a house based on some of those write ups.

"Stunning". I have yet to be stunned by any house.

'all the principal rooms facing south'

Does that not depend on where in the room you are standing? Or am I being thick? I get how a garden can be south facing but surely a room faces all four directions at the same time?

When EAs describe houses (not areas or roads) as 'rarely available'. Have recently seen descriptions that go:

'An interesting and rarely available house'
'This house, available now for the first time in a decade'

These aren't Georgian rectories or something unique, just normal houses.

Because people normally only live in a house for 5 minutes before deciding to up sticks and move, so it's somehow astonishing if you don't get a chance to buy that exact house every year?

Built In: Knocked up by a DIY beginner during an argument-filled weekend

Dining Kitchen: Might get a collapsible table in the coner if you're lucky

Shows Owner's Pride: Vendors put out a few daffs and hid that BAD stain

Motivated Seller: Nobody wants it and now they're desperate

Estate agents within Greater London: "has a lot of extra storage space" - the top of the flight of stairs is wide enough for two people to stand on, and therefore could squeeze in a tiny corner table or storage trunk!