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 on a new build estate some years ago. So houses facing each other. One woman told the estate agent that she wished our house was facing the other way but she loved the house. So basically she wanted to live in my house and also be looking at it. The excuses are crazy that people come up with it. We had two full price asking offers so didn’t need her anyway.

Listed building, viewer didn’t like the windows 😂I mean! You’ve looked at the pictures and know it’s listed.

I also took a call the week after a selling a property from the estate agent. The buyers were confused as there were no tenants in the property and it was empty.

The buyers had strung us along for months. On a second visit they had met DH and one of his friends who was visiting. They had then assumed we had rental tenants.

I had no idea how they thought they had bought somewhere with tenants in place and all the furniture with no details of any of that in the sale documents 😂

The EA was on our side and were asking just in case we had done a deal with the buyers!

We got told our property was too big. It was a one bed flat! Admittedly the living room and bedroom were quite big compared to most one beds in the area, but too big? Weird!

I had a buyer pull out because the girl he'd started dating 2 days before had a car and the flat only came with one parking space.
I wonder if they're still together.

Some people are just nosey, have nothing better to do with their time or are plain thick. Same as tyres kickers when selling a car. When I viewed my current house, everything was jammed into cupboards and drawers..I didn’t take offence, just used my brain and realised you shove everything in any available drawers/cupboard etc, it’s so they can dress the house to make it more appealing to buyers. Quite normal .. better than the pits some people post on rightmove.

Opening cupboards is normal and expected....

Cupboards maybe. I have opened kitchen cupboards wondering where the appliances were, and loft eaves cupboards to work out if there was actually any storage space in the house (nope).

A child’s freestanding knicker drawer which is obviously not part of the fixtures and fittings? Nope. That would be like rooting around down the back of the sofa for coins, or rifling through your open post left out on the side.

That one is hilarious - how can anyone hate the whole of Yorkshire? Really, there is not a single place in three counties that she doesn’t hate?

And yes the obvious solution to that is not to go house-hunting in Yorkshire…

Had someone who came to look at my Victorian terraced house (very clear from the details) and said it wasn't modern enough!

A woman who asked where the rain went in the back yard, no earth or plants. Down the drain, I told her.
She didn't believe me, said there wasn't room if there was heavy rain. I'd lived there a few years, even cloudbursts just ran down the drain. She wouldn't accept it.

Years ago we had an upstairs maisonette in a Victorian terrace in Hackney. We had no loft or access into the roof space. That had never been constructed.

Sale was quite far along, with me pregnant, when buyer, who'd been round three times, including with his parents, announced he'd like to get builders in to create a proper hatch into the roofspace, because his survey had said it wasn't possible to inspect the roof internally, but it looked fine from outside. He would have paid for this, but we'd have had the inconvenience, disruption, mess and risk if there was a problem with the work. We were essentially living 100 miles away by now.

So we said "absolutely not, you can't do work on a house you don't own". And he pulled out. We lost our purchase, and shortly after I lost the baby at 23 weeks. Enormous stress played a huge part.

I still think of him all these years later and have sometimes googled him. Smug git.

We were selling a beautiful old cottage with lots of original features. Someone offered £60k under the asking price because they wanted to knock all the internal downstairs walls down and make it completely open plan. I was thinking, why not go and buy from the new build estate near by that's selling houses for £100k less. Needless to say, we didn't take them up on their offer.

The tree beyond the garden would deposit sap..

my house was a very old converted coaching inn, built ( some parts of it) in 1475. My buyers pulled out (despite obviously being aware of the age of the building) because their surveyor said the beams in the roof didn’t meet building standards-they were too thick and weighty for the walls to hold up. Well no, because the building standards they were looking at were devised in 1995. The roof was made out of what looked like bloody great trees and was perfectly sound, and resting on very thick stone walls perfectly happily as it had been for 500 years!
We had our own roof survey done in the end (by a firm that were experienced in old houses) that confirmed it was fine. But we never needed it as the eventual buyers were sensible and realised they were buying an old house.

“the downstairs is a bit small” yeah it’s the same as the upstairs love; as you saw on the floor plans 🤦🏽‍♀️

Although some of this feedback may sound ridiculous as a recent first time buyer we got relentlessly pressed for ‘feedback’ from EAs. My usual response is ‘it’s not for us’ but I often got pressed for specifics in which case it was often ‘we want more of a Seaview’, ‘the driveway is too steep’ or ‘we need more bedrooms’. I imagine a vendor would be at that but it was all I could come up with for a place that just isn’t what you are after.

And yes I have seen 2 bed places even though we want 3 because we are willing to compromise for a perfect location or other positives. Seeing those 2 bed then made us realise we needed 3. Seeing more inland properties made us realise we wanted to be more coastal. It doesn’t mean we expected the property to be different given we can read the listing. Nor do we expect the vendor to move the property or grow another bedroom but it’s why we don’t want to offer on the property not a criticism and it helped us compare and contrast to find our perfect home.

These people aren’t time wasters they are checking the market. It’s akin to looking for eg a pair of shoes and being criticised by the shop for the temerity of trying on a pair you liked but realising they are too high, uncomfortable or actually you’ve changed your mind about the style you want.

Unbelievably irritating of them to say that, but possibly what they really meant was that IF they fell madly in love with your house they could have overlooked whatever they didn't like about its location, but it took two viewings to be certain that they were not sufficiently in love?

It was a flat and she wouldn’t know who the neighbors were in the future

I'm sorry for your loss.

Its however really not wild to want to view the loft space though... in all three houses I was buying thats where MAJOR issues hid, the rest of the house where fine and the roof from outside look absoloutely fine on 2 of them.

The house we have bought has a brand new looking roof on externally which really impressed roofers but then inside had several snapped rafters (not urgent accord to roofer but good to know) and a damaged structural beam. The roof had been replaced BECAUSE of the damage effecting the old roof so the new roof was a result of the problems (which hadn't been fixed).

We put an off on a well priced probate house with no loft hatch either, the EA was baffled too as the loft/roof CLEARLY had a leak and water damaged ceiling which would need access to assess and fix. They seemed to think we would be able to punch a small hole in the airing cupboard roof for the roof survey to occur. We didn't get it so never found out how bad it was but who ever did get it would have to investigate too.

But you do this earlier on. There was no evidence of damp or anything else. If you don't like the "no access" issue, you don't put in an offer. You don't put a seller to huge inconvenience amd risk of employing a workman with whom they have no contract.

I'm going back a few years now but I rented a house

Next door wanted to sell (lovely house,nice area and at a good price)

It was a Sunday and we where at home when the door went

I answered it and some woman was on my doorstep

She informed me she was thinking of buying the house next door and wanted to see what the neighbours where like (fair enough)

I had a chat with her and she suddenly told me 'I'm moving here because my son moved here for uni,if I buy next door,you will keep THEM (my dc) QUIET as I need SILENCE AT All TIMES!'

My youngest was a newborn baby at the time and the others where not massively noisy but where children under 10 (i wouldn't allow endless screaming,but kids do make some noise)

I explained this to her,I can't stop a newborn from crying as that's what they do (and i always did everything i could to stop the crying) and I did allow my dc to play in the alley behind our house (just like the other parents in the street did) so she may hear a tiny amount of noise outside (plus the walls where so thick,I never heard either next doors when they where home)

'No,no,not good enough!I need silence at all times!i cant bear voices outside!' and then she looked at me,fully expecting me to say id gag my dc so she never heard them

Didn't happen and she didn't buy

Ill always wonder where she'd lived before and where she ended up-she was the type to make neighbours lives hell for daring to sneeze in their own homes or to rush outside at yell at anyone walking past and chatting!

I did apologise to my neighbours and they swore they'd never heard my dc (apart from them playing out in the back alley and even then,they said it was just normal hum of voices)

TBF, I'd be dubious about that. I'd probably be polite about it and just go "oh ok" but I prob wouldn't buy.

So you think I lived in a flooded property for years? Drains drain away water; the clue is in the name!

Potential buyer looked around our old house in the winter, when it was dark outside, and seemed to like it. Feedback from the EA was that she thought the garden was too small - our back door was on the side of the house and she had stood in the doorway and peered round the corner of the house into the back garden. I suggested to the EA that she come and view the house again in daylight. She did and obviously changed her mind about the garden size as they bought the house !

There wasn't space in the garden for a pony to graze. It was a 1930s semi. I mean sure, it had a lovely big garden, but it wasn't listed in acres!