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.

2 houses we've bought we 1960s with owners that had lived there for 20+yrs so dated 1980s -00s decor. Don't mind a fixer upper.

No I completely ignore decor, my first house was a previous rental and was a tight state but I could see potential in the size of rooms and overall space.

My second house, an older couple were downsizing after living here for 45 years and it was well maintained but undecorated in that time!

I definitely get a vibe from a house though, but it’s not about decor or furniture, some houses I viewed were perfectly decorated but I couldn’t picture myself there for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Not decor but I think of I've seen a house where there's clutter/dirt/mess that seems quite long term it puts me off as I assumed they've not maintained the house properly. I feel you'd be more likely to come across some nasty surprises!

It depends.

I am realistic about how much work I actually want to do so if it's things that would take more work than we think we have time/budget for then no.

However, current house was painted completely grey and a lot of the period features were being ignored. Just decorating definitely was in our scope and also my taste is big bold colours so it was going to be unlikely that any house ticked my boxes decor wise so I focused on light and space- layout was good, house had a nice "feel" and was functional enough we didn't have to do the work straight away. Spent the last 2 years putting our style into it room by room. I have a dark green bathroom with jungle tiles.... i think it's stunning but might be making it unsellable to viewers with different taste. I kind of don't care as think we are here for the long haul.

No. In fact the "better presented" the house the more we suspected the vendor was trying to hide something.

We once had an offer accepted on a house that had an actual cat shit in the middle of the sitting room floor and stank of cigarette smoke. But the house had really good bones - it had a well designed extension and a huge garden with mature apple trees. No one was buying it in the middle of a really hot market because they couldn't see past the cat shit and general aura of neglect.We ended up not buying it though, for other reasons.

The house we did buy was badly decorated with ugly furniture, but similarly had really good bones - large Edwardian terrace with very high ceilings and a decent, not overlooked, south facing garden and garage (garages being relatively unusual locally).

That said.
We are thinking of moving again and I have completely fallen in love with a house on Rightmove. It's clearly been a much loved, busy family home and the children are now grown up and the owners need something smaller. It just had such a nice feeling to it, but DH has poured cold water by pointing out that just because I share the owners taste in furniture, doesn't mean it's the right house for us and the parking situation is unclear (he's desperate for off street parking). It's also another (enormous!) terrace and he's keen on a detached/semi this time. I keep moonily refreshing the Rightmove listing and cursing DH under my breath.

The presentation has put me off buying. It was pretty extreme though. Not dirty, just crazy untidy to the point of being too distracting when I was trying to visualise the space for our own stuff/life.

Decor has never put me off, but I know some viewers struggle to see past decor that they don’t like.

Of course it makes a difference how well it's presented. Yes many people can see past clutter and wear and tear but some can't and some will offer less as a consequence.

The house we bought had been on the market over a year in large part because the decor was seriously worn and dated. It had been reduced twice and they accepted an even lower offer from us if we could sell in 6 weeks (we weren't on the market). We sold in 4 with a bidding war as we presented ours really well.

In a way yes, my current house was well presented and I thought that suggested they had looked after it (they had) even though I didn’t like the decor. There are certain things that would put me off if they were expensive to change, like a black kitchen or astroturf (having seen how they compact the earth and lay hardcore this could be a nightmare)

It has always been about the location, space and value vs others on the market with any properties we have bought. I would much rather put my own stamp on a place and am not influenced by presentation.

Not fussed about presentation, it’s more about the plot for me. Not south facing and no AstroTurf.

Me, no, I look at the bones of the house, the space, the location, what needs to be sorted. Couldn't give a fuck about presentation - the worse the better, as I'll get a better deal - I'll never love someone else's lovingly done up decor.

However, most people aren't like me. If you're a seller, you need to present well, clean, declutter, depersonalise, fix obvious repairs or bodges.

Unless you are a property developer, and you are only talking about buying a home for you, or you and your family to live in, I suspect that sub-consciously we will all be influenced by the state of the houses you look round.
We all know "but they will be taking their stuff with them", but I think we all are more likely to think "this is nice" when the house is well presented.

I remember looking round somewhere nearly 30 years ago and the man was semi-comatose on the couch, can on the floor, TV on. I've never been more put off a house, even though, on a logical basis, you know he wouldn't be there if you bought it.

Having your own things in a property gives it life.Things like photos, pictures and books are fine. There’s no need to depersonalize. However I really don’t want to see a house with kitchen doors falling off and missing, worn grubby floors and a cluttered kitchen and bathroom, and don't leave washing everywhere. If I see this, I tend to think the owner doesn’t care for the property or maintain it.

I can see past decor but if there’s clutter everywhere or things piled on the floor it makes me think there’s a lack of storage or no room for storage furniture

I have just seen 20+ houses with and on behalf of my daughter who wants to buy, she has not got loads of money so we are at the bottom end. I can get past most of the things that would put someone off (clutter, dirt, badly planned rooms, lack of parking space) but we have seen some that have some that have some details that are really underplayed by the estate agent, and once you have seen more than 5 at a fast pace you find it difficult to work out which is better. I often wonder if the owners (if they have a good house) don't miss a trick by providing an honest booklet on the house, exact dimensions, locality etc. including the bills for heating it. For example, we went to one recently that had all newish windows, and a newish and serviced boiler, nothing much you might think, but there is £5k there immediately that you would not have to do. It was 0.6 miles to the local metro, and within a mile of good schools. The kitchen was awful, but had decent base units in, just asking for new doors to be put on and maybe a new work surface, and a lick of paint and it would look completely different. Once you have been in plenty they all blur into one. I realise this is the estate agent's job, but they do it so badly half of the time. If you have a good house, and you have been happy there, then be honest, but give the buyer something to go on. I think most buyers would be happier with the known than the unknown. Just my thoughts though.

"Unfortunately, it runs away with me and I do it with friends' houses, hotels, cafes, pubs, etc." God, me too @Giggorata.

My ex had to stop me once because I was coming over a bit rude at a friend of theirs house, describing what they could do with it. Fair play, I just do it in my head unless specifically asked for my opinion now.

Yes, we viewed a house that was absolutely beautifully decorated, immaculate. It was very clear from the family photos that they had the house perfect and intended to stay there forever - and then a surprise baby came along and they needed more room.

But neither of us liked the style at all, and beautiful though it was it was the exact opposite of what we would choose. But we also couldn't rip out a relatively new very high quality kitchen, for example, and the style carried all the way through the house so it was every room. We would've been living with their taste forever. Not to mention it was priced to reflect the fact that it needed no work.

There were other practical considerations too, and we didn't need to move, but the look was a big factor.

This is the exact words I couldn't think of!

I've only ever bought empty houses that need a bit of TLC (Repossessed flat, ex rental, and about to buy another ex rental) - so all have been viewed completely empty.

I think buying a 'done' house I wouldn't be able to justify making it exactly how I wanted it, so I prefer to start from scratch, if you will.

thanks so much for all the comments!

I’m much more in the ‘see-past anything’, don’t want to pay for other people’s taste category and have always bought project houses. Our current house had had nothing done for 30 years and been rented for most of that, smelt of old dog, dog shit in the garden, weird old/ massive furniture but location/ type of house were exactly what we wanted.

Thought we would stay here for a couple of decades and extended kitchen and into loft and re-did everything three years ago, including a bespoke kitchen. Three years on circumstances changed and we are moving. So we are probably now (unintentionally!) that house that I wouldn’t buy because I would be paying for someone else’s taste.

We did a lot of house hunting for the next house and out of 20ish that we saw, 2 were ‘done up’, one I hated and one I did actually quite like but was by a main road, all the others - including the one we’ve bought - big projects.

So I’m finding it hard to put myself in the shoes of people viewing a house where work is done!! We’ve done a massive declutter/ tidy and deep clean, cleaners come fortnightly and viewings start on Monday after they’ve been next….so just a case of seeing how it goes I guess.

But I’m finding it hard not to see every flaw or slightly out of place item and think ‘it’ll be a deal breaker’.

but it’s very helpful to hear all these points of view, it’s helping a lot with my perspective!

Fancy coming round to mine? I could do with advice.

I have aphantasia and don’t think this is true. I can’t visualise a space but I know eg high ceilings and good light are great to have even if the room looks awful now. We’ve completely renovated our house since buying it and the previous owners wouldn’t recognise it now - I designed it all I just didn’t know what it would actually look like until I finished.

I couldn’t give a shit if the house has been done up or ‘dressed’ to sell. Decor has never swayed me one way or the other. First two properties we redecorated from top to bottom anyway and current house was tatty, worn and we did a complete refurb.

Location and space are all I am interested in.