What deluded and downright weird properties have you viewed...

[GreenBeeSW]

Just for fun, I'm not looking for a analysis on house values... We've looked at lovely properties, project properties and everything in between. We've also viewed a number of "looks great on rightmove" but then you turn up and its so far off the advertising you have to laugh...

My favourites so far...

1. House priced similar to nearby village despite being much closer to busy road but photos looked reasonable and described as "Move in ready, high standard of decor". It was not. And they had some how managed to avoid photographing the 4 MASSIVE inbuilt reptile tanks, one of which formed part of the wall between bathroom and bedroom so both you and your gecko could watch family members take a shower.

1. House on market several months ago, front garden, courtyard back garden and detached but sizable garden plot, garage and workspace. Recently returned to market for the exact same price, listing states "good outdoor space". But front garden has been tarmaced. Garden, garage/workshop turns out has been sold off. Asked EA "So theres not actually a garden now?" Reply "But you dont need it because now you've got parking for three cars!" (Two bed house).

1. Very ordinary house but nice location, listing highlighted "lovely views" and "family ready home". Vendor was a keen amateur builder. Missing walls, doors to nowhere, garden full of "summer house" projects. But best of all was the enterance porch, which was a sort of stilted-lean-too complete with wet room and toilet. So you could sign for a parcel whilst sat on the crapper...

A house with potential.... When it said the front room had a brick floor that was to distinguish it from the back room which didn't and appeared to be mud. If we had been 10 years younger without the kids and if the location had been better it would have been a cracking project.

Slightly less exciting house I viewed a few days later was a repo in which the reason the estate agent listed a radiator in the lounge was to distinguish it from the other rooms where the radiators had been taken off the walls, the copper pipes nicked as well as I presume the boiler. Nice big rooms but garden was north facing so not for us.

Viewed an extended 5 bed house, originally 3 bed (2 storey extension)

No proof of planning permission or building regs.

Vendor offered us £300 to get retrospective planning and regs. Payable on completion 😂😂

Reader, we pulled out.

We once saw a house where the seller was in the process of converting the loft and the stage we saw it is was just a few boards over the beams and there were four people sleeping /living up there. It was quite unsettling.

We also saw a place where the kitchen was in the hallway of the flat and it was kindly described as open plan.

These stories are killing me

I remember seeing a flat with a roof terrace many years ago. It was lovely - great views etc. - and a huge feature in that part of London.

It was accessed via an attic hatch and a ladder . The best part was that there were no railings. It was literally just the flat roof over the kitchen..

More recently we saw a house beside a lawn tennis court. What could be nicer on a summer's day than sitting listening to the distant thud of balls on grass while sipping a Pimm's and lemonade? We rushed around to view..
We stepped into the back garden to hear a man bellowing "you f&#king t@*t - you do that every week" over the hedge about 6 foot from where we were stood.
They should have showed the house on Mondays only .

We viewed a house that looked fine on Rightmove.

We got there and the house was fine, garden smaller than expected. Asked about the loft as it had been converted. What the estate agent didn't tell us was that there was a ladder hanging on some nails on the wall to climb up so you can lift a hatch and climb through to get to the loft. Estate agent told me it would be a perfect room for the new baby...I declined to climb up the ladder whilst heavily pregnant.

Room also stank of weed.

We didn't buy it.

Oh another one.

Train line at the back of the house but were told the line isn't used much. Went to viewing and for the 20 minutes we were there, we heard/saw 4 trains.

We didn't buy it.

I'm feeling a bit better about our as yet unsuccessful search after reading these! EAs are so amazingly creative...

I went to view a Victorian terrace, set over 4 floors with lots of original features. It sounded great on the description and amazing value for money. When we looked round in real life though 2 of the four floors consisted of the basement, accessed through a trapdoor and a ladder, with a load of graffiti on the bare plaster walls and only one tiny window; and the ‘attic conversion/self contained flat’ again accessed via a ladder and roof hatch. It was actually just an attic with barely enough head height to even stand up in the middle. The vendor told us that it would be perfect for a granny flat. Maybe if your granny is only 4 ft tall and agile enough to use a ladder every time she wants to go anywhere
It did have original feature at least but the coving in each room was painted in stripes so you had bands of orange and yellow, or purple and green running around the top of each room with matching fireplaces and ceiling roses. I’m not normally put off by decoration but stripping all that plasterwork world have been a nightmare.

Viewed a fairly normal-looking, if dated, house. Particulars had said the master bedroom had an en suite bathroom. Well, there was a toilet and a sink in the bedroom...

In one of the wardrobes.

We did not make an offer!

I've no idea how they're able to market this as a 3 bedroom house.... for the vertically challenged only!
espc.com/property/40-1-corstorphine-road-edinburgh-eh12-6hs/35894994?sid=513362

We went to view a house that was really lovely in the photos, modern kitchen, all refurbished throughout. When we arrived it turned out the vendor had gutted pretty much everything in the photos, it was just an empty shell - not even any carpets or internal doors. We wouldn’t have viewed if we’d known beforehand.

I looked at a property near Oxford that was two tiny gatehouses being sold as one home. Sitting room, kitchen, utility in one and 2 beds and 2 baths in the other.

The only problem was you had to walk across someone else's drive in the dark, rain, snow etc to go to bed. And it was more expensive than a normal 2 bed house because it had "character".

Isn't it illegal to describe a room as a bedroom unless the stairs meet building regulations?

I once viewed a house that had proper stairs up to the attic which the owners were using as a bedroom, but the agent went out of his way to tell me it couldn't be sold with the attic numbered amongst the bedrooms because the stairs were too steep to comply with building regs.

Saw a house with an outdoor loo. There was some liquid oozing from under the door. DH started reach out to open the door. I remember very clearly saying "Don't open that door it's going to be awful". Before following the estate agent further into the garden to survey the abandoned gym equipment and kitchen appliances. Reader , my husband opened the door and dry heaved for the next 10mins.
The house (4beds) had 15 tenants.
I don't know who was more upset. Us or the EA who had been assured the tenants would all be out.

When I was buying my first home I went to view a modest sized maisonette. All looked fairly conventional until I walked into the lounge and there across the whole of one wall was an absolutely massive glass display case full of the owner's taxidermy collection.

It was a full on woodland scene with rabbits, ferrets, birds and god knows what else. Dozens of little, fluffy, stuffed, dead animals all peeking out from artistically arranged tree stumps and bits of hedgerow.

I must have made some stunned comment about it being an unusual display and the owner then proudly turned on the built in multi colour floodlights so that I could benefit from the full technicolour "beauty" of it.

I left pretty quickly as I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

I remember viewing a house when my parents were trying to move us out of London. The local estate agents all called it the Hammer House of Horrors as it was on all their books and had been for months.....

@Mintjulia can it still be found in RM anywhere, would love to see that!

We once went to see a property which was a probate sale. We thought it would need some work as many probate properties do. We were told we were getting in ahead of the hordes who would be interested as probate had not yet been granted... we later found out the old lady hadn't even been dead for two weeks.

However, the place was awful. The agent had obviously had to cut a path through the overgrown front garden to get to the front door and had fashioned a prop because a branch of a tree was hanging down and blocking the front door.

We got inside and my goodness, the smell. I do not know if the person died in there but something had. It also wreeked of gas - the agent said he had turned the gas off and called British Gas - looking back I don't know why we continued to view it 😂 I think I felt bad for the agent.

In one bedroom we were told not to walk on a rug because there was a hole in the floorboards.

The old lady's slippers and dressing gown were still in her bedroom, together with her medication all laid out on her bedside table - it just felt so wrong being there.

Not only that, they were asking top price for it. I think it stayed on the market for 2 years and I am not sure if it even sold.

We viewed a four bed house that, because there had been no room for an ensuite, the owners had put a shower in the corner of the master bedroom.

Actually IN the bedroom.

I went to view a property with an en-suite in the main bedroom. Although I’m not sure if it should be called an en-suite when there were no doors or walls separating it from the bedroom. There was a toilet/basin/shower/free standing bath built into the loft room eaves along one side of the bedroom.

Though reading some of these stories, it doesn’t seem entirely uncommon to have bathroom units in a bedroom!

Not giving the details because it would be too outing, but years ago I bought a wreck that I later found out I had featured in one of these types of threads (on a different forum, and with pictures!) Fortunately it worked out very well for us in the end..!

I viewed a house which had been newly built as an extension onto the original end terrace, where the drive would have been at the side. This meant there was no access to the small back garden except through the house. The house was oddly wedge shaped and they had put in three bedrooms when really there should have been two from the square footage. In the 'master' bedroom you could have barely fitted a double bed with walking space on one side! It was empty so didn't see how they would have organised the rooms!

@BrowncoatWaffles

We viewed a four bed house that, because there had been no room for an ensuite, the owners had put a shower in the corner of the master bedroom.

Actually IN the bedroom.

I have seen that, in older houses.

Also moved into a flat in a converted house that had no bathroom, and a shared toilet in the communal hall.The landlord installed a shower and basin in the bedroom.

Very tame compared to all these, but I once saw a '3 bed' house where the 3rd bedroom was accessed through the second. EA told us the vendor would be happy to partition a corridor off from the bedroom. On opening the door the 3rd bedroom was revealed to be basically a large cupboard with a window. A cot would fit in there, but nothing much else, and a single bed would be too big. We did not put in an offer.