Has the presentation of a house ever influenced your decision to buy?

[OneDayIWillLearn]

Like do you reflect on the way a house you bought was presented and think: ‘yes that detail really made me know I wanted it when we viewed’

Or conversely, can you think of something about how a house was presented that you thought you’d like from the particulars that just totally turned you off/ gave you the ick to the extent you didn’t offer?

I’m talking about presentation rather than things fundamental to the house or location itself.

Nope. But I've only ever bought two houses and one of those was a working barn complete with owl and sheep poo. 🤣

My mum on the other hand has no mind eye at all (aphantasia), so for her... It would have to be exactly what she was looking for or she just wouldn't be able to picture herself there at all.

This sounds like my kind of house buying 😂. So what kind of thing would sway it for your mum?

Any space that could be something would need to be like it now, so a third bedroom full of boxes and stuff couldn't be a bedroom to her until the boxes all went and ideally a bed was there.

Anything with 'potential' isn't real... So could there be a lovely new doorway through to the garden from the living room... Nope unless it's already there. 😬

But from a vibe point of view, no point dressing it to anyone's taste cos that could be anything depending on the buyer.

The smell can influence me.

No, because I know that decor, furnishings, layout, windows, everything can all be changed. It just depends how much I want to spend.
So with anything from a lick of paint to an extension, I can change a house into what I want to live in.
And I have the opposite to aphantasia, inasmuch as I can visualise it down to the finest detail. Unfortunately, it runs away with me and I do it with friends' houses, hotels, cafes, pubs, etc.
We got a lovely rural house dirt cheap because it was terrible inside. Come to think of it, we got this one cheap because downstairs was terrible. We lived upstairs for about 18 months.

People may think I want grey and plain, no I don't, I also don't want an operating theatre kitchen. The house we bought was a probate house so emptyish.

I viewed a house where the previous occupant had passed away (not in the house).

Her hand-washed rights were still hanging over the sink - not a single effort had been made to respectfully tidy away her things. Tv magazine opened in her chair, slippers by the door. Heartbreaking. I couldn't hear to go upstairs.

15 years later I met a man who lives in the house, having bought it 6 months after I viewed it from a developer. Completely transformed and flipped in 6 weeks.

Not for me, as I can always see potential. I have always preferred worst house best street.

My DH is the living example for me that people love it to be staged for them.

We have renovated up the chain a lot and for me it’s easy to understand that scrupulously, obsessively clean, devoid of too much mad personality but full of comfortable function charm (like you can see where you will put all your books and crap in cupboards, but also how you’ll have a lovely dinner and a lovely cosy evening watching tv, and a great seat in the garden right where the sun hits… etc etc). People are super busy and want this done for them, I’m happy to oblige and it has always worked for me!

Never moving again now though!

I've bought a house that smelt of piss in the past because it "had potential". Didn't regret it. A house that needed nothing done might actually put me off - I'd feel I was paying extra for walk-in standard that may not be to my taste.

Bit niche but lots of bait boxes around the house put me off!

No because having rented for 10 yrs prior to buying I am well aware that not everything is as it seems. What is more important to us is that the house has been well looked after by whoever has lived there previously. Everything else that is cosmetic can be changed.

Yep. I looked at easily 60+ flats before I bought one.

Unflushed shits in toilets, evidence of police forcing the front door to several flats on the same landing with the Big Red Key (I refused to go in, I was a copper, it was waste of both our time), one that was exactly what I had asked not to be shown - magnolia paint, cheap shite kitchen, cheap shite laminate all done in a fast nasty "renovation", smelly homes that had tried to hide the whiff of mould, mildew or rotting.... I was very picky indeed!

Husband also has aphantasia so can't see last anything as he literally cannot visualise any changes that could be made or see how our furniture would look.

Yes and I never thought I'd be that person .
I viewed a Victorian garden flat full of high ceilings , dado rails , skirting boards .

Every bit of wood was chocolate brown and every other surface was burgundy . Repeat for every other room . I could not get passed the amount of work it would take to sand it down and repaint .

Yes our house now had each room in a different colour, which we loved. We would have done the same anyway but they had done it all for us. I asked the vendors to leave any paint tins they had so we knew which colour they were. We still call them after the colours- the red room, the green room, the blue bedroom, the yellow bedroom.
In fact now I think of it, the blue bedroom is no longer blue and we still call it that!

Strong smell of cigarette smoke put me off one house. I was pregnant at the time so maybe my sense of smell was a bit sensitive, but every room stank like it had seeped into the walls.

Interior decoration etc. wouldn't influence me (my current house looked like it was out of an episode of Changing Rooms...)

A lot of clutter might put me off if it was clear that it was due to lack of storage space. Similarly, I'd be put off if it was clear that it would be hard to fit (regular, run of the mill) furniture into rooms.

Yes, I had a choice of two identical townhouses. One was “dolled up” with Chanel and Tiffany shopping bags (the paper ones!) hanging on door handles, fake diptique candles and other “trappings of wealth” bollocks visible. The other was just a normal, tidy and clean family home. I bought the normal one as it was £50k cheaper, had a nicer view and wasn’t owned by a pretentious wanker. I know the woman who owned the first house ended up taking it off the market after it went under offer and then back for sale a few times. No idea if it ever sold, despite the staging.

Haha my DH was like this when we first went house-hunting. I'd ask his opinion after a viewing and he'd comment on the furniture or the wallpaper 😂

I would never buy an expensively decorated house that isn't to my taste. So things like marble floors, tiled living spaces, floating glass staircases, lots of built-in complicated electronic stuff, artificial grass, fountains, boring expensively landscaped gardens, excessive ceiling lighting. I'd resent paying extra for stuff I didn't like or was going to rip out anyway. Tired and shabby fine, because then I'd see somewhere I could make my own without destroying value.

I dislike any house in which my children will essentially be skating across the floors in their socks or where they could trap limbs in the staircase.

Yes. Fluffballs floating across the hallway, dirty pots piled up in the sink, main bedroom smelled manky and bathroom was unviewable as the Son was showering. Garden was waist high in weeds. It was pretty gross, we wiped our feet on the way out.
It was 2pm on a Sunday ffs, there was no excuse to have cleaned it and smelling fresh. I could have seen through the lime green artexed walls and badly painted red kitchen units if it was actually clean.

I once sold a house to a couple and the woman later told me she chose it because when they viewed my daughter was curled up in a swinging chair in the garden reading a book and that was what she wanted for her (yet to be born) children.

Awwww, how lovely!