What’s the most bizarre reason someone had discounted your property on?

[Peteryourhorseisheree]

One viewer had looked inside a freestanding chest of drawers in dds bedroom. Bedroom was otherwise tidy and neutrally decorated. But she’d shoved a load of clothes and random bits in the drawers, as teenagers sometimes do.

The feedback to the estate agent was that the mess inside the drawers “showed our characters”and indicated that we had probably hidden structural issues in the house.

One viewer who I showed around stated properly having a go at me as my house was too close to her mums. I asked her why the hell she had come to view it then, it was hardly a surprise where it was situated. She told the agent she wasn’t interest in the property as I was rude to her.

Someone else started bashing the walls as he walked around taking about blown plaster. The entire house had been renovated two years prior and all taken back to brick. Every single wall and ceiling was new plaster. He insisted that he was a builder and it was still the original 1930s plaster hidden by lining paper. There was no lining paper on any wall at all, it was all painted plaster. I pulled up some photos on my phone of the house all back to brick two years prior - he told me that those photos were AI generated He did put in an offer, 15k under, as “the house needs to be completely gutted and re plastered”. The estate agent said she was actually embarrassed telling us.

A friend of mine had someone who said they would put in an asking price offer, if they emptied the house of all furniture and belonging so they could see it empty. Funnily enough, she told them to jog on.

Between those viewers and the two sales that fell though, I was very glad when our circumstances changed and we didn’t have to sell after all. I honestly don’t think I could put myself though it again.

I lived in a house which had slightly wider-than-average stairs and it made fitting a stairgate almost impossible! We tried the extending ones but they didn't fit tightly enough, so it could have been that your viewer had dogs or children that needed restraining but who could knock over a stairgate that wasn't actually firmly attached. In the end we had to build our own (which was also a pain in the bum).

Just to possibly explain!

Feedback from viewings is pretty pointless. It’s basically either ‘we want the house and offer you £X’ or ‘we don’t want the house for reason you can’t change.’

Buyers do come out with a lot of nonsense when put on the spot by the estate agent.

When selling my house, one buyers feedback was ‘it’s not open plan, we wanted open plan’.
So why on earth are you viewing it then? Floor plan and photos on Rightmove clearly show it isn’t open plan.

We were pushed to have a look at a lot of things that weren’t suitable too, but I really wasn’t going to waste my time or anyone else’s.

It’s such a huge decision in life. Surely you check out the area, look at the floor plans, research the house, the schools etc before you view?

The area we weee going to move to mainly has Victorian housing. Many of them are marketed as 3 bedroom, when actually, the only bathroom/toilet in the house comes off one of the bedrooms. Or, the second bedroom leads off the third. So they aren’t really 3 bedrooms - one is a walkthrough for the bathroom or another bedroom. Completely useless to me with three children.

But still, I’d have agents call me about a wonderful 3 bedroom house. They would push me to book a viewing, but I’d always ask to see the floor plans first. Lo and behold, it was as above, so not suitable. The amount of times I told them I was not interested in any houses like that and they didn’t listen.

We had an agreed offer (on a typical 3 bed) quickly reduced by the potential purchaser because "they wanted to knock two bedrooms together and that was the price for a two bed house". Needless to say we politely declined and found some lovely buyers soon afterwards.

Currently selling my in-laws' house. Craziest feedback so far is "it's too far back from the road" (it has a 100ft front garden). I can only deduce they must be the sort of curtain twitching nightmare neighbours from hell for that ever to be an actual problem.

One house sale for us included a viewer who complained that there were "too many bedrooms" (5 bed house). There were pictures of 5 bedrooms and measurements for 5 bedrooms so why go and see it if that's a problem???

God god 🤦🏽‍♀️

I think you might have found your viewer! It's drawer gate round 2!!!
(Just going to say we had people opening cupboards 'to see the space' I caveat it with - if you open it expect to see mess. It's not your house. I would never dream of doing this on a house I hadn't an offer accepted on!)

We were selling a fairly rambling, characterful Tudor house that had loads of original beams inside/out and a double height main living room with vaulted ceiling. One of the bedrooms had a stained glass window overlooking that room, kind of like a minstrels gallery.

We knew it would get a few tyre kickers, keen to have a nose around, but we'd specifically instructed our EA that we wanted proceedable buyers only. The very first viewers (we did the viewings ourselves) informed us that their relatives lived round the corner and they'd always wondered what the house was like inside..."oh, and has it been used as a film location, because it looks like the set of a horror film?!"

They proceeded to tell our EA they weren't going to make an offer as they believed it was haunted...yeah, right!

When selling another house (thatched with beautiful 0.3 acre garden full of mature trees/shrubs) which we'd recently extended to 2500 sq ft, one set of older buyers asked if the trees could all be removed and if we thought they'd get permission to extend. It had five beds, three bathrooms, a lootility, 36' kitchen plus two large receptions - so not sure exactly how much space they needed!

They did make an offer, quite a bit under asking - because it was "a bit smaller" than they'd expected and they'd have to remove all those trees. (Dimensions all on the floor plan). We declined their offer and sold at asking price a few days later.

The seven year old kid didn’t like it.

That’s another bug bear of mine with estate agents. You tell them that under no circumstances will you let people view who aren’t ready to proceed, and what happened? People come and view and you ask about thier sale and they say, “oh, it’s not on the market, we just wanted to look.”

That drove me insane. I’d tell the agent and all I’d get was, “we didn’t know that”, even though I’d asked them to confirm if they were ready to proceed.

I had three children and a dog to get out of the house and tidy up for before viewings, so time wasters really pissed me off.

One viewer said the house was perfect but discounted it on the basis the stairs went slightly round a corner at the top and they'd have to completely redo it so they went straight up. Another where the bloke was too tall and had to duck down to get through doorways. My doorways are a normal height so pretty sure he'd have that issue everywhere. And the usual, people saying offstreet parking is essential despite it being obvious there's none.

One really odd family waxed lyrical about the downstairs then the went quiet upstairs did lots and of whispering and frowning then left. The estate agent said they felt there was ‘a bad vibe upstairs’ and wondered if crimes had taken place there.
A lady brought her smelly, yapping dog which ran around the whole house like a Tasmanian Devil slobbering everywhere then said her dog didn’t seem comfortable in the house so it wasn’t for her.
A woman from a city a couple of hours away looked round twice, seemed really interested said she wanted to move closer to her daughter then said the house was too far away from her daughters house…in London which is at least 4 hours from where I live and only two hours from where the woman had travelled from.

Indeed! Last year we were selling a very rural cottage in Wales ahead of moving back to England. We knew that chances were our buyer/s would be either someone looking for a countryside bolthole or else making the move for a change of lifestyle. Again we instructed the EA that we wanted people preferably already sstc/cash buyers etc, but of course the first two viewings were from people not yet on the market.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and our EA got all excited because she had a viewer coming from London especially to view our property. Was he proceedable? I asked her. "Oh, I don't know," she replied. "I didn't like to pry" WTF? Surely that's part of her job?!?

I actually spoke with him as he arrived for the viewing before the EA, just as I was taking the dog out. It turned out he hadn't come from London specifically to view our cottage at all, but was staying with friends locally and viewing a few. He later told the EA that we didn't have sufficient parking (we had more than half an acre of land, so not sure how much he needed!), therefore he wasn't interested in buying.

Some years ago, (early 1990s,) we were selling a small 2 bed semi (mid 1980s starter home,) as it was becoming too small, after having DC. A couple in their late 60s, put an offer in and we accepted - £46,000 at the time. It was only £750 below the asking price - so we were happy with that.

Around 8 weeks in (and 2-3 weeks from 'exchange') we got a call from the buyer and he said 'we noticed there's no fireplace in your house, and aren't sure it's worth the money, so we're dropping our offer to £38,000!' A drop of almost a fifth!

DH and I said no way are we doing this, and DH told him to sod off and we will put it back on the market. The man said 'but you're so near completion now, and the person whose house YOU are buying, needs to move in 3 weeks, they won't want the chain to break. Don't do THAT to them. You will just lose the house that YOU want if you cancel the sale for me.' DH said 'I don't fucking care' and slammed the phone down.

He immediately called the estate agent and told them what had happened, and that we need to put our house back on the market, and cancel the sale to this couple. She said 'oh for God's sake, I'm so sorry, he KNEW your house had no fireplace (just central heating) and he can't just drop the price like this. Awful manipulative behaviour. I will ring their daughter. She looks after them and runs around after them sometimes, and seems to be a big influence in their life.'

An hour later, the daughter rang and said she was so sorry, and her dad should never have contacted us, and of course they will still pay the £46,000, and to not speak to them again. She said 'if they ring just hang up.'

The sale went through a few weeks later, and we got our £46,000, and moved into our lovely new 3 bed home! And the people we bought off moved into their shiny new build 5 bed detached.

I felt sorry for that woman having to put up with her parents though. I did not care that they were probably going to be awkward next door neighbours for the ones we were attached to, as they were fucking dickheads. I hope they enjoyed living next to each other. 😆

Imagine thinking it's OK to be dropping the price by a fifth, because he noticed there was no fireplace - 8 weeks ago when he viewed it. Left it til it was nearly too late to complain though (in the hope he could drop the price!) 🙄

Twat.

.

Not just a viewer but our buyer. After 2 months of going through the legal process they pulled out, the reason given, that they didn't want to live in a "kumbaya commune". It was an apartment in a converted house, and yes we got on with all of the neighbours but hardly ever saw them!

Second buyer pulled out also after 2 months of going through the legal process, as he decided it was too big for him on his own. Surely he could have deduced that on the first viewing, not waste months of our time?! Infact on his first viewing I asked if it was just him and made the comment it was a big place for one person, he said no it was fine.

Sale went through with the 3rd buyers, but we spent 3 months half expecting them to do the same.

There really should be penalties for buyers pulling out for frivolous reasons.

In 3 bed semis the 3rd bedroom is usually smaller, there are thousands of houses like this. They looked at the bedrooms and said it wouldn't be fair if one son had a smaller bedroom than the other!

TBF, we bought a home once but hadn't inspected the kitchen drawers and cupboards. It had never been an issue before on previous purchases but in this case the drawer bottoms were all bowed and knackered. Lesson learnt.

This was just a freestanding drawer unit though. Not something built in, or something that would come with the house.

I do understand looking at anything built in if you are serious, but not bit of furniture that won’t be there.

The only weird comment we got was the buyer saying he could buy a flat in X area for the same price we were asking. It’s a completely different area with a completely different housing stock so we told him to go and buy there.

We had a house with a walled back garden, beyond which was a service road. One woman said she would like another garden beyond the garden. Absolutely nothing I could do about that.

More recently, our house, described as ‘immaculate’ by the agent, recently decorated throughout and with a beautiful garden, was viewed by one man. Pretty obvious from the feedback what his intention was. He told the agent that there had been a leak in the living room ceiling ( there hadn’t), that the whole place was shabby and needed painting (it wasn’t) and that the garden would have to be ripped up and redone. This was the garden that had been tended, with flowerbeds, borders, trees, a pergola, extended patio and water.

Then he made an offer £20K under the asking price. That had been his aim all along.

To be fair we needed a 4 bed house with 2 reception rooms but 4 beds are rare here so we viewed a lot of large Victorian 3 beds under our budget with the view to changing layouts/building walls to create a 4 bedrooms with the extra money.

EA would then phone up and offer viewings on tiny new builds (50s+) 3 beds with 1 open plan reception room that where top of budget. Our feedback was 'no thanks, we need 4 bedroom'. Which probably confused them as we had viewed 3 beds before but theres a huge difference between what can be done to a 120m2 3 bed victorian terrace and a 60sm2 little 60s box house.

I have no idea if they ever told the sellers of 3 beds we where looking at that we 'wanted 4 bedrooms' but we only looked at houses that had room to be rearranged. However just like any house sometimes we just didn't like them on viewing.

Its very rare the first house someone views is perfect and they don't need to look at any other, they probably look at a dozen similar houses but pick only one. There might not even be anything 'wrong' with the others they just weren't the 'right one'.

The drawers woman was outrageous! I'd have told her that there was no way I was going to sell to someone who thought that was appropriate behaviour as they were clearly going to be incapable of conducting themselves reasonably during the sales process.

I don't think that's always true. We went to see one house which we were asked for feedback on - it had an attic and an outdoor workshop which were both full of junk. The house was empty otherwise...We went for a second viewing and it had all been removed.

One viewer of my mum’s house fedback that they didn’t like the fact it didn’t have a garage..she knew it didn’t have a garage BEFORE she viewed 😠

Selling our first property years ago, a nice but fairly small 2 bed flat.

A male viewer who was absolutely stunned & disbelieving that we had no access to the rooms upstairs. The rooms being our neighbours’ flat.

Clearly listed as a 2 bed ground floor flat, clear photos & floor plan provided!