Why am I so annoyed about one persons feedback

[Blossom88uk]

I feel so ridiculous and I wish I wasn't annoyed about this. So our house is on the market for a fair price (lower than evaluations). I obviously know that it's only worth what people are willing to pay in today's market.

We have had some viewings and had positive feedback about the house, but the garden is an issue that we are unable to fix. It's varying heights of concrete so quite unsuitable for anyone with children. A lot of people that have come to view have had children.
There are obviously pictures of the home on the listing and a "no frills" video that the estate agent made to make it clear exactly what you can expect.

I fully understand that the house may not be for every, but one woman that came to view said the house was very "tired" compared to what she had seen online and she doesn't want it (the pictures were taken literally a week before she came around) we cleaned the house within an inch of it's life before her arrival.

I'm annoyed as the home has gone under a full renovation with modern kitchen and bathrooms. Given that the some of the carpets could do with replacing along with the living room flooring but we allowed for this within the price.

Do people expect houses to be ready to move straight in without having to replace anything?

I need to get used to the fact that people will come around and judge your house, it's not a personal attack, but I certainly have taken it as one 🤣

I think a lot of younger buyers especially expect absolute instagram-ready perfection. Don’t take their unrealistic expectations to heart.

People viewing houses are just idiots.

We had a ton of muppets buying ours. Even the people that finally bought had a list of things they wanted doing.

The back door is sticky to open, yes it's wood and summer the wood swells, they wanted the door to open so we had to shave the base of the door. Laughing at them when in the winter that wood shrinks and they have drafts.

Really try to detach, they just come up with random things!!

Don’t forget there’s an element of gamesmanship with the whole thing. It they emphasise the bad things then they may be able to negotiate the price down a bit. It doesn’t mean it’s actually true!

Some people just give strange feedback. Our first house was a small one bed starter home. One lady viewed it and gave the feedback that it was too small for her grand piano 🙃

I think if the carpet needs replacing that's bound to be such a dominating feature that other things won't seem as nice so I can see why the 'tired' comment has been made

@Blossom88uk what I usually say is "I/we thought it had charm/some very positive features but overall it isn't the right house for us." Generally, don't the agents sanitise feedback? Examples below of badly presented properties bought and resold.

Flat one, early 80s, 60s build and painted orange, sky blue with a bit of lime thrown in, no central hearing and swirly carpets but the rooms were spacious, regular and it was East West aspect. Six months later it had CH, was painted off white and the carpets revealed parquet.

House 1: turn of the last century and it had every original feature including the keys in internal doors and an extra out door lavatory! It had been in the same family until the owner bought it and fitted a cheap kitchen and bathroom and papered it with Habitat paper and put down cheap grey carpet (before it was fashionable). Replaced the kitchen and bathroom and had it painted pale cream, with good carpets and curtains in keeping with its period.

House 2: renovated by developers not quite to the standard of its value when the surrounding area was under development and building sitey. The developers went bust in the 92 recession.

Investment house: built early 90s and very dated and empty for a long time. DH bought it without consultation. I had the downstairs redesigned - back came off for an extension creating a large open plan living space. Landscaped a slopey garden into terraces. We lived in it when we had House 2 renovated to sell.

Each property has been sold perfectly presented. We have made a lot of money for seeing potential and buying at the bottom (except House 1 which I bought late 80s but it washed its face when many lost money). No property will sell disproportionately to values for the road.

People do put nonsense on feedback forms, and are sometimes lacking in imagination and thinking skills. One viewer mentioned how our previous house wasn't wheelchair accessible for his young daughter. No shit! One look at the pictures or floor plan showed that. Why waste everyone's time asking for a viewing?

Another viewer complained that our house was overpriced (it wasn't, we sold it for the asking price with several asking price offers), saying they could buy a cheaper house in a different part of the town. Well of course, in a less nice part of town, with different school catchment, or a house that was smaller etc. All info clearly available online before you waste our time.

Think no more of it apart from what a numpty they are.

This!

I think I’m the opposite! When I bought a couple of years ago I had been stalking Rightmove for so long I had an extremely clear idea of what I wanted.
I found one that had quite a few issues but studied every tiny aspect of available information. Room size, orientation. Every pixel of the listing.
Went to view and only needed 10 minutes to confirm then made an offer which was accepted.
Two months later when purchase was nearly complete I went for the 2nd visit. The vendor confessed they were very worried I was going to pull out because nobody buys a house based on a 10 minute viewing. They had this happen twice because previous buyers had ‘discovered’ it had a north facing garden and high estate charges and needed a new roof.

When I went to the estate agents to pick up the keys there was a man in there who was saying what he wanted and the agent told him they had about 10 potential properties and he said ‘yeah I’ll go and check them all out so I can compare’’. What a waste of people’s time.

I do wish Rightmove had better filters though. Surely they could add things like number of bathrooms, en suite, cloakroom, garage, balcony.

I wouldn't take any notice. When asked for feedback she probably reached for the first thing that came to mind (the carpets) and went with that.

In answer to your question, yes sometimes people want a turn key property. This can often be the case for someone buying on their own for the first time after a divorce or bereavement - sometimes the idea of having to navigate tradesmen and a (even modest) renovation can feel overwhelming if doing it for the first time “alone”. Also sometimes people don’t have much liquid cash and need it all for the deposit so worry about the cost of needing to make improvements afterwards.

Other people want to put their own mark on their home - so it’s just horses for courses and try not to take it personally.

This is why ‘feedback’ is such a waste of time. ( I didn’t know about feedback forms, what a nightmare).

it’s in the sellers’ interests to present the house as well as possible, it’s the agents job to tell their clients if there are things to do which would help to sell the house (we had a very old, rather wonky bookshelf unit in a cottage, the agent told us to put something under the feet to level it or people might think the floor was uneven. sensible and practical).

Thé only feedback I have ever given to the vendor is that it was either not quite hat we were looking for, or that I was offering £ xxx. ( I would say to the agent that we didn’t want something in that road once we had seen it, for example, but with street view etc that’s not necessary any more).

The only feedback I’m interested in is if you want to buy it, how much and how long it will take you to come up with the money.

Everyone wants ( demands) feedback now, but nothing ever seems to happen as a result ( irrelevant rant there).

Why are you doing the viewings yourself if you find it so difficult? I just let the estate agent handle it, never knew what our viewers thought of the house, only the price they wanted to pay!

Also: people might be critical because they don’t want to show their enthusiasm… it’s part of the bidding game.

I asked my agent only to tell me if someone wanted to buy my house or not, unless they felt feedback was critical to help me sell. This was after one woman left a list of about twenty things she didn’t like about my house. This included things like my “dated bathrooms” which I had updated less than five years ago, my horrible carpet (neutral and new) etc. I felt quite wounded and that the comments just weren’t necessary. We’ve sold now for a good price so I try not to think about it!

I think she’s saying the pics made it look a lot more up to date than the reality. That happens a lot , you don’t see things like paint scuff marks, done in carpets etc. it’s not went through a full renovation if flooring needs replacing.

take it as she’s simply said the pics make it look as it’s in better condition than it is. Houses often look way better in the pics.

Our most frustrating was someone that said they wanted a bigger house, in a more central location but that ours was out of their price range.

we live in the kind of village where a mile into the center/ posher area can increase a house by £150k so it was just ludicrous.

@cunningartificer a friend of my mum's was selling a 3 bedroom house. Since there was just her and her DH they had one of the bedrooms as an office. They were advised by estate agents that they would need to get rid of the office and dress the room as a bedroom or viewers would perceive a 2 bedroom house and be put off. Are people really that hard of thinking?

I had a 3 year old solid wood handmade kitchen when I was selling my house. It was stunning, a real wow factor and it had cost £30k.

The buyer had a survey and the surveyor said that the kitchen was only just fit for purpose, old fashioned and needed to be replaced immediately. The buyer pulled out saying "he knows better than me".

I was more furious with what the surveyor said than that the buyer pulled out!

That sounds really hard. I prefer the Irish system where the estate agent shows the house in your absence, and you don't hear anyone's views. Much kinder!

I think 'tired' just means the decor isn't exactly as the buyer would choose themselves. They were probably too lazy or too broke to change the flooring.

Tired is my favourite kind of house to buy.

Tired usually means dated or well used, not not to my taste. It’s literally meaning what it says.

I had this too when selling a modern flat in a block that was built less than 5 years ago. Two people saying it didn’t have period features???!!! Well no it won’t do will it being that it was built less than 5 years ago which is obvious from the ultra modern glass and steel building in the picture. Baffles me why they waste everyone’s time!

You need to detach from the house emotionally just see it as business now and accept people will want different things - carpets are expensive and the photos etc may not have shown their real state . Who knows. I had someone not offer on my house years ago because there wasn’t a tap at the front for washing their car , another couldn’t handle the fact I backed onto a old cemetery despite it being very clear on photos

I feel your pain, it’s difficult to understand what some people want, we can’t get a buyer for our house, estate agent can’t offer any explanation why, we did have a buyer at the original asking price who pulled out as the contracts were being drawn up, they said it needed a new kitchen and bathrooms( both refitted within last 3 years) , others say they like the house but not the trees which surround it, not much we can do as they have protection orders, it’s so frustrating and what one person likes another doesn’t, get really annoyed with people who ask to view who haven’t even got property on market, why waste everyone’s time, I’d take constructive comments on board but not about things which are ok but not to their taste

Same. You’re giving this far too much headspace. It’s a numbers game. The house will be right for someone. If the photos are honest then people shouldn’t be surprised by what they find.