Attracting the wrong viewers?

[Yippeeforme]

We're trying to sell a 3 bed corner plot with a smallish back garden. We keep getting viewers who want 4 or more bedrooms and a traditional long rectangular garden. They of course reject the house as soon as they've seen it.

Why, when the listing clearly states "3 bed" and "corner plot", do these people keep coming, knowing it's not what they're looking for? Are they hoping it'll be possible to split the rooms? Why do they expect the garden to be any different from the photos?
Or are they possibly not using the internet at all and just phoning up agents in the area and viewing any detached house that becomes available?

Today I had a couple who rejected it saying "It looks so much bigger on the outside!" 🤦‍♀️ Is this kind of thinking the source of the problem?

Is there some way we can better target the right buyers, perhaps getting the agents to drop the suggestion of "young family" from the description? (Even though it's a great spot for a small family given schools and parks are a stone's throw away?)

So confused!

Do you think perhaps people are viewing thinking that since it is a corner plot they can build an extension and turn it into a 4-bed? And then when they actually see the size of the garden they realise it isn't feasible.

Maybe the agent's wording is giving that impression.

That's quite possible. They've described it as being on a generous corner plot I think. There's not really sufficient space on any side to do an extension big enough to make another bedroom. Thanks for the idea!

Perhaps they think they could go into the loft to get that 4th bedroom. With regards to the garden, they might just want to see in person if it’s ‘big enough’ even if not actually big.

Also, with the hot market these days, some buyers might be going to see properties that they normally wouldn’t as they’re worried about missing out.

I was once selling a house which did not have a garage. The sales particulars did not make any mention of a garage because there wasn't one.. The photographs of the property did not show any garage because there wasn't one. Without fail, one of the first comments most viewers made on arrival at the house was " oh, it hasn't got a garage". When I sold the house, the new owners immediatley built a garage.

Your agent needs to put more time and effort into screening those wanting to view.

@canteenofcutlery

I was once selling a house which did not have a garage. The sales particulars did not make any mention of a garage because there wasn't one.. The photographs of the property did not show any garage because there wasn't one. Without fail, one of the first comments most viewers made on arrival at the house was " oh, it hasn't got a garage". When I sold the house, the new owners immediatley built a garage.

Soooo annoying!! Can't they just ask the agents on the phone and save everyone the hassle? 🤦‍♀️

Is there a floor plan with the garden drawn in to? That should illustrate it clearly.

@SouthWestLolly

Your agent needs to put more time and effort into screening those wanting to view.

Yes I think we'll push them a bit harder on that front. There's a pandemic after all so they should be making an effort not to have needless viewings going on!

There is a floorplan alright but the garden isn't included. I'll see if they can do that, thanks!

IMO if it says corner plot I'd expect a generous garden in order to extend etc.
Our house is a corner plot and we've put a huge extension as a result and still have a decent size garden albeit an odd shape.

My parents were selling their large, 1930s semi-detached house for £275k 10 years ago (this was expensive for the area). It was a leafy street leading out of the town centre, popular with middle-aged and retired professionals. A prestigious street - very near the centre of town and bourgeois/boring with people keeping themselves to themselves.

My parents were elderly and spent a lot of time cleaning and preparing for viewings.

One viewer from London said that they wanted to live in [name of small nearby village] but had been persuaded to view the house by the agents on the basis it was a quiet street. It kind of was, but “villagey” it wasn’t. She wanted village life and had made this clear to the agent! Waste of time.

Another viewer was a cash buyer - a 19 year old footballer who was accompanied (dragged around) by his parents. He was disgruntled and uninterested - the parents said that they’d always coveted the street. Problem was, it wasn’t their money or their life!

The agent needs to be told OP.

Are the photos accurate? We viewed a house where a long lens or something had been used and foolishly didn’t pay much attention to measurements. The rooms/gardens looked twice the size they were.
The difference was quite amazing.

And yes, we check measurements now.

I once sold a house where the kitchen was upstairs. The brochure said it was upstairs, the floorplan said it was upstairs, I'd mentioned it twice in the online blurb so people would know the kitchen was, ya know, upstairs.

Every single viewer: oh is the kitchen upstairs?

People can't read.

EA's don't help the cause using wide angle lenses. We viewed a property recently, the conservatory and garden looked huge, got there and I was shocked how small both were

The problem with 'corner plot' is that, depending on whether it's as it were the inside corner or the outside one, it can mean either 'tiny' or 'massive'. And since 'tiny' isn't usually a selling point, people are probably assuming the other!

My dad's house is on a corner plot at the end of a cul-de-sac, and it's got far more garden and driveway space than the vast majority of the houses round there, so I personally certainly wouldn't assume that 'corner plot' was trying to communicate smallness.

The garden isn't tiny, certainly room for a couple of kids to play in but it's certainly not big enough to extend into. I think the photos show that it's a wide garden, not a deep/long one 🤷‍♀️

I've checked over the listing and they haven't described it as a generous plot after all. I think it might be worth taking the emphasis off families though.

It's awkward. There are literally 2 nurseries, 2 primary schools, a secondary school and a college on this street, with more schools and nurseries in nearby streets all walkable from here. So I understand why they mention families. It would be fine for a small family of 1 or 2 kids. But families might expand to 3 kids unexpectedly, and then they might want a spare bedroom for guests too. Our house is a very tempting price if it's at all possible to make a 4th bedroom materialise. It costs 80-100k more than ours to get a 4 bed detached around here!

It sounds like a family area.

Many families might prefer something they could extend in the future if need be/they have extra money so perhaps it’s a case of waiting for the right buyer.

This drives me mad and I've had it with every house I've sold. Feedback like that is rubbish. Is your agent making sure they know it's not 4 beds?

EA's don't help the cause using wide angle lenses. We viewed a property recently, the conservatory and garden looked huge, got there and I was shocked how small both were

This times about a million.

I can understand why they in some cases have to use wide angle lenses in order to be able to photograph a room and actually see it (rather than just one corner or whatever), although I think they often make a hash of it. I'm actually really loving those 360 tours they've started using now, because you can definitely see the room sizes and dimensions properly, and how the spaces relate to one another.

I actually get this.

We are looking at perfect houses in the "wrong" area (for us) and also looking at imperfect houses in the "right" area. There are very few perfect houses in the right area that we've seen.
In each case, we look to see it the property is enough to overcome the other challenges.

So much of house buying is gut feeling, so I think this is entirely normal OP.

We found when looking it was impossible to get a sense of the size of gardens as they aren't included in measurements or plans, and they're all photographed to make them look so much bigger than they are.

In the end we chose a house that we nearly rejected because the garden looked too small, but it was the biggest of the lot. It's so hard to tell until you see it in person.

The wide angle photos are beyond deceptive. I dont think we've viewed a single house that hasn't disappointed on size!

Some of your viewers may have thought RL would be a bit different to the pictures - but people just don't read things properly.

When we sold my late father's house, we were very clear about the back garden, which was massive. Listed it as plot of an acre+, had photos taken from the bedroom windows showing it disappearing into the distance (!), and still we had people saying "Oh, I can't possibly cope with this, I want a low maintenance garden".
Personally, I think some of them just wanted a nose around.

Perennial problem - I had the same years ago. It’s very frustrating.

Too many people waste everybody’s time by not reading the blurbs properly - or at all - before viewing. Too many agents urge people to view even before they’ve seen any blurb.

Of course it helps if there’s a proper floor plan, with measurements, inc. the garden, with measurements, but alas even if they’ve seen these beforehand, some viewers are too dopey to understand how they translate to reality.