Feedback on house viewings

[nightfeedtime]

My house has been on the market for two weeks and we so far have had 6 viewings.

Two separate people provided feedback that the house needs an extension. I find this one very tricky to understand because our floor plan and room dimensions are on the sale advert, so it's clear what the room sizes are. In my road, a handful of houses have had a downstairs extension, most have not, so it is a possibility.

I was asked by another viewer why I hadn't extended. Our house has always suited our needs but we're relocating and had always intended to in the future (we've lived here for 8 years). I didn't wish to disclose this to the viewer either but we inherited money from the death of a relative recently, making our move possible. An extension was never something we could have afforded on our salaries before.

Another viewer(family of 3) said they were looking to spend £500k on a property - mine is up for £400k - so was too small for them. I find it difficult again as to why they viewed when floor plan and room sizes are on Rightmove. FWIW, I live in a fairly desirable town in Essex and £400k doesn't get you a sprawling house and neither does £500k.

Very difficult when the feedback isn't really things we can act upon!

Years ago as first time buyers, an agent took us around several houses which we thought wouldn't be suitable but we took a punt and looked anyway just to see what was out there.

Subsequent houses, I've less time and inclination to do this and just say no.

We had feedback that the garden didn’t have another garden beyond the wall. What there was, was an access road. I couldn’t work out what they wanted.

So sorry OP, it is stressful doing the viewings yourself. My agent did most of them, but when I did, I always put my sheltie dog into my car. I exhausted myself tidying/cleaning for viewings, as well as missing a few social events to help people who specified they could 'only' view Sunday morning blah blah. Some people made the most idiotic remarks. In the end I felt irritated at the prospect of stupid remarks before viewers even arrived!

The purpose of feedback isn't to allow you to change your house to make that prospective buyer happy - it's to allow the estate agent to get a better idea of which other houses to show that prospective buyer. The agent doesn't care which house that buyer buys ...

@DogInATent

Because they measure success in terms of viewings, because Sellers are invested in viewings as a measure of success towards a sale. Complete bollocks though. Success is measured in terms of Sale/No Sale, with offers received as an intermediate measure of success. One good viewing that leads to a sale is worth more than a hundred tyre-kickers.

You're not necessarily wrong, but often Estate Agents can't do wrong for doing right.

If sellers WERE lucky enough to have the first viewer, in the first week, offer and proceed to completion, they'd be on here in 5 seconds saying "I've been ripped off by my agent".

In a no-sell, no-fee world, sellers don't value the service, so it's a vicious circle.

The feedback so far is nonsense
We we’re selling a 4 storey townhouse once. A lady and teenage daughter walked round, said all rooms were too small ( bedrooms 5m x 4m, not small )
, she said she had to sell her huge! house as was getting divorced ( I wasn’t surprised. )
But then said she was looking for a bungalow!!!! Did she not see we were 4 storeys
I think she was just a sight seer

I took a day off work to show her around, !
Estate agents should not allow people around unless your property ticks at least the basics of what they want

What nonsense about the extension queries, I’d just say I didnt want an extension but if they wanted one at least they could do it the way they wanted it…if they bought

''@DogInATent · Today 13:08
Because they measure success in terms of viewings, because Sellers are invested in viewings as a measure of success towards a sale. Complete bollocks though. Success is measured in terms of Sale/No Sale, with offers received as an intermediate measure of success. One good viewing that leads to a sale is worth more than a hundred tyre-kickers.''

Very true. I had a viewing on a house over the weekend and I told the agent at the end of the viewing that I did like it but that it was overpriced. Before the viewing I had checked recent sales for that street and average sale price for the past year and the house was at least 15K overpriced . The agent was offend and said ''but we have had a lot of interest: 25 viewings in a month''. My reply was '' 25 viewings and not a single offer, so what does that tell you?''. They contacted me for feedback today and my reply was again that it was overpriced.

I always try to be honest with the feedback. Usually the issue is the there is too much work to be done and the price does not reflect that. Or when I check the neighbour's houses/gardens, there are things that are red flags (badly maintained, rubbish in the garden) and would give me concerns about living next to them.

2p's in cement?
That's just crazy

Why weren’t you “surprised” she was getting a divorce?

I've probably given feedback like this! When buying a house, it's basically all about compromises and sometimes it's not until you see a house that you realise it's a compromise too far.
I might know a house has a smaller garden than ideal but it's not until I see it that I can see how overlooked it is, how shaded it is and things and can then balance it against the other features in the house.
Similarly, I might know there's off street parking for two cars but, until I see it, not know how tight that parking is and what the chances are of visitors being able to park on the road. Although with that one I will at least do a drive by before arranging the actual viewing.
At the moment, a big thing for me when viewing is wanting to see how easy it would be to un-open plan it. I hate this trend for a massive, open downstairs area and am likely to want to put some walls back in. In some houses, that is relatively easy to do. However, if you've got a whole wall of bifold doors and a massive great island just where the wall needs to go, it's going to be a bigger job or, if I compromise and put the wall elsewhere, the layout might be a bit odd. Explain that to vendors, though, and they look at you as though you are mad, which I am sympathetic to as you are criticising their design choices and way of living

Don’t take it to heart. When we sold our last house we got feedback from one couple that it was too vanilla. They want something more quirky. Why on earth were they looking at a four bed, three bath two storey detached new build house then?!

Often the response to most feedback should be well if you want that you need a bigger budget!

Feedback is absolutely pointless. I'm pretty sure some estate agents make it up, because some of the feedback I've had over the years was simply not believable.

The last property I sold I specifically asked not to receive feedback. It still sold.

I wouldn't be too upset about the extension feedback. They are just saying they'd rather buy a house where that's already done for them and depending on how much movement there is on your street, might be waiting for one of the extended houses to come on the market.

Was just reading the thread when our estate agent rang and the house is fine but the garden is facing the wrong direction.....

Complete derail obviously but couldn't resist this

I viewed a beautiful looking house last weekend. Looked absolutely amazing on Rightmove.

When we got there we realised that the DIY wall panelling and DIY floor tiles were done so badly that'll it'll be a huge job to replace / cover. I work in construction and I could see that the walls would need replastering and the floor would need screed. The tiles were gappy and not fitted to the edge of the wall. Leaving sporadic large gaps.

Anyway, told the Estate Agent and he agreed. Said many people had been put off by the level of DIY (its become all the rage on Insta and Tik Tok!). But he said the Vendor was very precious about the price and her DIY skills and that'll he'll tell her that it's too small instead.

😌

Also she had painted the kitchen units and tiles. Both were flaking off and it looked so tatty. So that's another expense - replacing cupboard doors and or kitchen. (On Rightmove it looked nice. The house is only 3 years old so assumed it wouldn't need any work done!)

The bathroom smelt damp and could see she did her own grouting and sealant. So water trapped somewhere.

Anyway, now I'm known as one of the viewers who said "it was too small" when it wasn't :(

She’ll be grumbling to her friends about another viewer who didn’t have the taste to appreciate her hand painted kitchen units 😂

I NEED a Rightmove link!

Are you sure it's not a subtle way of saying the price is too high, i.e. for that price we'd expect an extension? Especially if people are viewing with a much higher budget. Maybe their expectations are unrealistic, though?

Tell your estate agent that you do not want feedback unless it is something you can act on.
We sold one house. Good size 3 bed semi. Great primary catchment. Parking for 1 car plus garage and small garden. They all had small gardens but large safe communal greens at the back. The estate had 500 houses, and only about 4 house styles.
Feedback we had was garden too small, only 1 car space. I just said stop telling us. Only interested I'm offers.

I don't think asking why you didn't extend is a silly question, it only seems it because for you there's a personal reason why. From the buyers perspective it's possible you had encountered a problem with extending that would be useful for them to be aware of. If extending is an option you could prepare an answer to that, and add it to the listing blurb. I think feedback is useful because if there's a pattern to it, it can give you a clue what might need a better photograph or clearer description.

Having recently moved house and soldin the summer I understand! Feedback is wild! Like did they not see the floor plan and specs?! As pp's have said just don't take it to heart. Stuff which is changeable or not reflected in the house pricing is worth listening to. Such as it feeling very cluttered or too high in price for the quality of stuff like kitchens and bathroom.

But stuff like it hasn't got an extension is wild. I'm assuming it is priced accordingly?!
I'd also maybe feedback to the estate agent that they feel time wasters and you'd like potential viewa vetted a bit better!

Some people just don’t read the details or look at photos properly.
When my parents put their 1980’s built top floor flat (6 in a block, 3 flats last each side of stairs)

1. They had viewers complain there was no balcony.- none mentioned in schedule or home report (sellers here have to get a survey done before putting on sale.) so not sure where they got that from.
2. That it was electric heating and they wanted gas heating. - schedule said electric heating and electric cooker.
3. They expected it to be a walk in shower instead of a bath. Again schedule said it was a bath with shower over and there was a photo.
4. There was no private garden. Again schedule and photos showed a Shared drying area with own whirlie. No mention of a private garden.
5. No garage !