Things that annoy you about Estate Agents listings? (lighthearted)

[Wintersgirl]

OK, I'll go first!
Panoramic/wide angle shots of the driveway to make it look double the length/width it actually is (same goes for internal shots)
No floorplan
Pointless photographs of taps running or a bunch of flowers, I'd much rather have more photos of the property
Virtual tours when they just use just stills of the photos you've already seen...why? It's not a virtual tour at all!
Anyone else got anything? I'm sure there's loads more but those are the ones that I see frequently.

Tip - on RM use 'true bungalow' as a keywords search.

Not knowing the direction of the garden infuriates me. As soon as you email to ask, they're on the phone to you.

Also a photo of your SMEG toaster and kettle ...why?

'Bedroom 3' in a house I looked at last year was the junk room behind the kitchen.

Or a glass of prosecco on the garden table.

Never any mention of the length of the lease of a flat, and when you phone to ask they haven’t got a clue and seem to think it’s a minor detail, like the colour of the bathroom floor.

It goes without saying, the atrocious spelling in blurbs - flower boarders, shower cubicals, etc., and the fact that they don’t care enough to have anyone halfway literate to proofread. Sure sign of a sloppy attitude which = best avoid this one, IMO.

We had to write our own blurb when we sold as the agents’ one was so poor. Didn’t even get the number of bedrooms right.

They also had a standard thing about amenities and transport that they stuck at the end of all listings in the postcode. Fair enough but we were at the very edge of that postcode and far closer to those in the next one, including a much better connected station, so we wanted that mentioned. One of the reasons we chose that agent was that we wanted access to both their offices and we had discussed that in the beginning when we chose them. Obviously when the listing emerged they had slapped the info for the wrong place on. Once agents have got you signed up the level of effort really is piss-poor.

Hard agree on random and unlabelled photos. What is the point?

In my area a right move property might have 20 photos on it. First 4 photos look promising and then suddenly we have 16 photos of the bloody beach. It's not the bloody beach I want to see. I already know what that looks like, and I'm sure anyone moving from out of the area would have done some research about the town before hand. The other bugbear of mine is estate agents who take photos of a property using a wide angled lens to try and make a small room or kitchen look massive.

The photos of kitchens with built in ovens that appear to be six feet wide are always quite a giveaway on the fish eye lens.

My favourite local listing said "good transport links". House was overlooking a motorway junction.

I had quite a disagreement with an first EA about this sort of thing when trying to sell our first house. They maintained that they had the experience and knew how to get interest/sell a house. The house was a tiny 2 bed in a fairly rough area of town and had originally been some sort of workshop. It had a small shared drive way but no other outside space. It was a few streets away from the start of an area with a much better reputation and about a 20min walk to the town centre. The EA description on RM included:

• Photo of the outside of the house showing half of the house next door (as well as our house) which made it look like what we were selling was about twice the size
• Wide angle photos of rooms, with all the furniture moved around as they were taken, so that the rooms all looked about 4 times the size
• House described as a 'barn conversion'
• On the outskirts of Naice Area
• A short stroll from the centre of [small town] with it's eclectic mix of shops, eateries and bars (it was a 20 min walk at a fast pace from the centre of a small town with a few pubs and a pizza express)
• Flexible outdoor social space (= shared drive way, I'm not even sure they knew what they were trying to suggest)

Unsurprisingly we had quite a few viewers who were clearly not interested from the moment they knocked on the door and didn't get a sale until we changed EA

Flexible outdoor social space (= shared drive way, I'm not even sure they knew what they were trying to suggest)
😂

Not listing the length of the lease or the service charges.

Prominent position = busy junction.

Generic pictures. You keep seeing the same kettle and toaster.

I saw a house in the next town advertised. It's a really attractive period house but on a busy/awkward double roundabout junction (obviously built well before the road layout)

The photo managed to include some of the church grounds the other side of the road, but making it look like that was a pretty garden immediately in front of the house. Tbf I'm impressed they managed to take it without being interrupted by several cars!

Another one was some flats built on a busy junction. The artists impression looked like leafy gardens surrounding it when in fact its on a junction with the railway bridge and the co-op.

“Property has period features throughout”, but all that there is a tiny knock off flower on the celling from the 80s.

Another one, “comes with white goods”. White goods meaning, questionable low quality lamps that should've been in the skip about 10 years ago, but owner was stingy and also wants you to clear out the mess lol

And don’t get me started on the kitchens…

When EAs try to disguise an auction as an ordinary house sale, so they pocket fees from both the buyer and the seller.

Anyone remember this styling technique for rented studio flats?

Oh and I once saw flat floorplan including parking space, which was also measured and added to the total sq.ft. 😂 not sure why measured, it’s not like you could build a mini house on it or anything…. It’s an allocated parking in the gated car park behind the building.

This just looks nasty to me 😂

When they say it's a semi or detached. But it's a terrace!

I keep reporting them on Rightmove as misdescribed 😂 I don't know if it actually does anything though

My number 1 pet peeve is when they don’t have the orientation on the floorplan so you have to go to street view to work out if it’s a north facing garden.

Agree with downstairs reception rooms being labelled bedrooms and unlabelled photos as well!

The ones where the first photo is not of the front of the house. Or it isn't shown at all. You know it will look like shit.

Erm, I do? I’m under 30 and have almost zero understanding of imperial measurements