What’s the point of feedback on viewings?

[nightnightcircus]

We’re first time sellers and our first viewings are today. The estate agency mentioned getting us feedback after and I’m wondering what on earth the point is? I didn’t understand this as a first time buyer and I don’t understand it now!

As a buyer, my feedback was either “I don’t want to buy your house for reasons you can’t change” or “I want to buy your house and I’m offering £XXX.” We almost never gave the real reasons, as they were things like “I didn’t realise how much I’d hate a front door that opens straight into the kitchen until I saw yours” or “You should have left the kitchen and bathroom instead of fitting brand new ones in hideous colours” and why would anyone find that helpful?

As a seller, I’m not interested in the kind of pointless feedback people mention a lot on here eg to do with structure, location. I just want to know if they want to buy it or not! If they don’t, it’s unlikely to be because of anything we can change.

I suppose the only useful feedback might be if they think it’s overpriced, but we’ve priced it very sensibly for the current market.

What am I missing here?

Completely normal thing for an EA to ask and report back to the vendor. A lot of the feedback isn’t useful I agree, but some could be helpful and aid a sale. I hope you get a buyer soon OP.

I agree 100% it's mostly useless stuff that can't be changed and they should have noticed before viewing.

We had "don't like the road" "the layout is wrong" "we need more bathrooms" just utter shite that we can't change and they can clearly see on the particulars.

I'm with you I just wanted yes or no answers.

I agree that generally the feedback won't be useful because as you say, it will be fairly specific to the person, and something you can't change eg "I'd like a bigger garden", or "the location isn't quite right".

But I suppose you might sometimes get feedback where you can fix it eg if someone said "the living room felt a bit cramped", you could rearrange it or remove some furniture or something to make it feel more spacious. Or if you get several bits of feedback that it looks a bit tatty, you could redo some paintwork etc.

I was always confused by this.
It didn't have an en suite. Well, no, it didn't. But it wasn't as if I'd ripped it out and replaced it between putting the pictures on Rightmove and the viewing. There has never been a suite.
It didn't have off street parking. Again, no. It's a Victorian conversion flat in London. Cars didn't really exist when the street was built so it wasn't a priority.
I preferred a simple "just not what we're looking for"

Thanks all - a nice mixture of validation and food for thought here, which is appreciated.

I’d assume those sorts of things aren’t the real reason anyway and they’re just saying any old thing to get the EA to go away.

Oh and one other bit of feedback was "we didn't like how the furniture was arranged in the sitting room". Did they realise the furniture didn't come with the flat? I guess that what they meant was that whatever furniture they wanted wouldn't have worked in the room in which case, fine.

😄

Because if, say, lots of people complain about the colour of the kitchen cupboards and it's not selling, they might replace it with new colours. Or if lots of people complain about the lack of an en suite, maybe they'll drop the price.

I think it's partly in case there is anything the vendor can change eg once we viewed a house that has so much clutter in it we couldn't really see how big the rooms were or imagine our things in it.
Also I imagine because it can help the estate agent when advertising the house. Eg if a lot of people say the third room is too small or the garden is too big to handle they could make clear in the listing that the garden is very big and that t the third bedroom is a box room , so they don't get too many people viewing who are never going to buy it. Also if many people say it seems over priced compared with others they have looked at they can look again at that

We had some absolute classics…
”Where will I put my boot room?” (In a 4 bed semi)
”The house is too narrow” (standard semi, check the floorplan)
Agree OP, mostly pointless

I think feedback is useful. Just sold mine and if something were to keep coming up then even if it’s something you can’t fix you can at least minimise it’s impact perhaps

and those saying it’s rubbish to feedback something you should have known, like room layout or sizes, often you need to physically see and feel rooms to know if it works.

You don't need it. The reason it became a thing is that people used to say that the agents weren't doing their job, didn't believe they were showing it properly, thought their house was the bees knees and the only reason people weren't falling over themselves to buy their horrible overpriced house with "all new 1980s pine kitchen" was because the agent wasn't doing enough!. Hence feedback.
I agree with you OP.
All the people who didn't buy my (lovely 😂) house said it was too close to a busy road!!! Of course they did. What about my beautiful peach bathroom or my gorgeous fitted wardrobes - 😁Surely they are worth ££££££££

Also I imagine because it can help the estate agent when advertising the house. Eg if a lot of people say the third room is too small or the garden is too big to handle they could make clear in the listing that the garden is very big and that t the third bedroom is a box room , so they don't get too many people viewing who are never going to buy it. Also if many people say it seems over priced compared with others they have looked at they can look again at that

I agree with this. Once, when asked for feedback, I told the estate agent that the second bedroom was in no way a double bedroom and shouldn’t have been advertised as such. It was the size of a double bed!

It didn’t surprise me in the slightest that the house had a queue of people wanting to view it, but it didn’t sell for months. Such a waste of everyone’s time.

You might not be able to change the things they don’t like, but if it keeps coming up you can consider making it clear in the listing to save wasting everyone’s time. Or, if there’s mitigating factors, make sure the agent is making it clear to buyers.

I have no off street parking, but on street is plentiful and visitor permits are cheap and plentiful. That’s the sort of thing that needs explaining at viewing.

I agree 100% it's mostly useless stuff that can't be changed and they should have noticed before viewing.

I disagree with this, I think a viewing is essential to really see what the house & surrounds are like. I’ve seen properties on paper that in real life were disappointing & vice versa.

obviously those who dislike wall colour or furniture placement are ridiculous but many people do lack imagination. look at how many houses are decorated in an identical fashion.

I tend to agree, we've moved several times and we've never had valuable feedback that we would have used to make changes. It's always things that were unimportant or very personal to one person (didn't like a carpet) or would have been obvious before they arranged to view (too far from the city centre).

We had one viewer who said the garden wasn't big enough for their pony. It was a 3 bed semi, albeit with a nice old-fashioned very long garden. But come on!

I think you rely a lot here on the EA to only feedback useful non-infuriating feedback. I do think giving feedback is very useful for the agents to hear - if they keep being told by buyers that they don’t like the area, it feels too dodgy or loud etc, it might start to build a picture that they need to encourage the seller to drop the price. I’d be brutally honest to an agent and leave it to them to filter.

I think often folks want to know why people don’t actually want to buy. I mean they are in the market for a house like yours. It’s in budget and they were motivated enough to view. So why when they walked through the door did they go nope and leave.

also things like the rooms are too small. Actually mean to small for the price you’re charging. Hideous decor , could be easily neutralised. Concern over structure or damp or kitchen cupboard doors hanging off etc can be pointed out what people are seeing. What’s putting them off.

i am not sure I quite beleive that the feedback is always useless, I think agents sanitise it to save the feelings of the seller. I viewed a house that was filthy. I told the agent this, not that he needed telling, I’m sure he didn’t spell it out quite so baldly to the seller.

another house the condition was very poor, and not what was visible in the pics at all. Again, I said it’s not close to worth the price and more a doer upper. The images are too enhanced. What did they tell the seller? Who knows.

so I think it’s worth while even if eventually it changes nothing.

Yep, I’ve learned that you really cannot tell anything from an advert.

Because there may well be things the vendor can change.

Also sometimes sellers decide they want a certain price that the EA may disagree with but goes with the seller. Telling the seller 20 viewers thought it was overpriced gives them a bit more leverage.

Thanks everyone. Now waiting on tenterhooks to see if any of these viewings result in offers.

I like getting the feedback whether it's something I can change or not. If I don't get feedback, I'll always wonder if it's something I could have changed. Knowing one way or the other is nice (particularly if it is something I can change obviously).

Sometimes the things people mention as feedback aren't actually true, so it's good to be able to address them in the listing. We've had viewers in the past who've done their own research and come up with things that aren't accurate. For example, one couple fed back that they'd been on the local Facebook group and found out the internet wasn't very good. That isn't true for our part of the village, so we could mention the better-than-local speeds in the ad.