What do you normally do when viewing houses for sale?

[7in1Pond]

Viewing houses is such a funny thing- it's something you never see anyone else do so you don't know whether the things you do are the same as other people.

I usually take a tape measure with me and an EA the other day seemed completely baffled by it.

What do you do? Do you open up fitted cupboards and have a look at things? Flush the loo and run taps? Or do you just stand in the middle of the room and gaze around? Each room once or multiple times? I would love to know.

I’d be annoyed if someone started running my taps and flushed the loo!

I think turning on taps, flushing toilets and opening wardrobes and cupboards is second viewing.

I think people do it to check the water pressure, but to me that's for the surveyor.

Measuring, running taps and exploring cupboards or the loft is second viewing territory. Measurements of rooms should be on the details, so smaller measurements for furniture comes later.

I tend to look at views from windows and the condition of flooring, the side access to the house, ceiling height, the feeling of space in each room or storage options. All things that aren't really on the details but make a difference. Also checking out the neighbouring properties.

A lot of the houses we viewed last year were empty and we were accompanied by the EA. Most dimensions are on the plans/ details so I’d say a tape measure would be for a second viewing to check if a table or sofa might fit.
My DH was interested in the position/ state of the boiler, electrics, whether there was asbestos in the garage ceiling etc. Space for bins, access to the garden etc.
Especially if the homeowners are there it’s quite rude and intrusive to start opening and looking inside cupboards. I think we only did this in one with a Narnia style wardrobe that led to the bathroom!!
Having said that our FTBs very excited young couple almost charged around opening the cupboards and wardrobes upstairs! They came back 4 times but were buying!! Tape measure came out on the last visit to measure for the media wall 😩 I’d rather not have known but not ours!!!

Agree with above. Listen - note what you can here (traffic, neighbours). Notice how much natural light comes. Look at the schedule and then work out what you questions are? (Eg does the garden get any daylight?) But I wouldn’t really touch anything on a first viewing.

Smell? You can't get smell from an estate agent's pics.
Natural light, is there lots.
How does moving around the rooms feel, is it easy or is the layout awkward.

Potential, I look for potential.

I saw c 24 houses last year before we moved. First viewing I generally wander around and is relatively quick but I open cupboards to see how big they are and think about storage/ look for the boiler. I think I ruled out most houses pretty quickly so didn't need to look at detailed aspects. I look at quality of windows but wouldn't have opened them.

Second viewings I might check water pressure of the shower as it's important to me and I have had problems with it in past places. I didn't tend to measure as that is what the floor plan is for. I guess I might if there was a specific reason to though.

I measure things if it’s a small room and I need to know whether it will work for what I want- things like window positions etc make a big difference and that’s not on the plan.

Round here the sellers are generally out so you don’t need to worry about annoying them by taking too long.

In this day and age i dont know of many who do second viewings. Im the kind thatll open cupboards, will run taps and flush the loo. I gave up on a house when I couldnt go in the loft even though I gave advance warning id want to. Offered on my first viewing, was in 2 months to the day from that. No time to waste.

I check how many plug sockets and where in a room. I visualise where beds, wardrobes , sofas and bookcases will fit and see if the plug sockets get hidden/unusable.

I open all fitted cupboards as some don't have shelving which makes them not very useful. I look to see where my hoover(s) would live.

I look at whether any windows are misted and how many openings there are. I like a small opening for ventilation and a larger one for fire escape in every room.

If there are any problems I try and work out if it's livable until I've saved up or not.

If it's looking okay then I run taps to check pressure and flush the loo - after asking EA or owner if I can.

Unfortunately I also get distracted by shiny things. My bathroom looked new but it is actually crap to use. No heating at all, extractor barely worked and wasn't strong enough to evict a moth nevermind all the moisture, difficult to get in/out of bath due to layout, window straight out onto busy road so everyone can see you so blind is perpetually down/dark. But man, it looked lovely at viewing and I ticked the box of done! 😠

Not in a first viewing. We only looked at one and bought it as I do extensive research before hand. I would hav3 offered without going inside it's so perfect, but seeing inside cemented it and gave the confidence to offer £25k under

We have looked at very few houses on the inside, most we discount just by visiting outside.

We are both very instinctive buyers - it's all about the vibe! We are both pretty good at seeing beyond decor, condition, and mess. Although my DP is obsessed with ceiling heights so he's usually scoping that out. I'm 5'1" and love a period property so I'm not that fussed!

The house we are currently buying we put our house on the market for, so it was a couple of months between the first viewing which was speculative, and the second, where we knew we were going to offer. So we spent a lot of time looking for issues to drive the price down a bit as it was on for too much money and there had been no interest in it for the two years it was listed, but we needed material to convince the (probate) sellers.

I'd be very annoyed if someone tried taps, loo flush and looked inside my cupboards!

Given they’re planning on spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on your house, I don’t think you can afford to be precious about it. It’s the biggest purchase you’ll ever make for most people so they need to know it works for them.

We bought last year and viewed dozens of houses. First viewings for me are about the location, the layout, the things you can’t get from photos or maps. What’s the light like? Would it work for us? Are cupboards truly usable or are they misleading in what they can store?

We viewed a house that appeared to have a large under stairs cupboard - on opening it became apparent most of it had been blocked off and panelled in so very little usable space for things like your ironing board. We’d have had to factor in ripping out and making good that space for example.

Running taps can give you an idea of water pressure (we want a decent shower) and kitchen cupboards aren’t always fully usable either. I don’t care what’s in them, I want to see how they would work for me. Ditto built in wardrobes etc.

Second viewings are about the nitty gritty; measurements - would my furniture fit? What work would need doing? Would this house need more work than we want to do?

I definitely wouldn't buy without looking in the cupboards- I want to know what I'll need to replace and that would go to affordability.

Have recently accepted an offer on my house- I'd have been happy for viewers to look at pretty much anything. I wouldn't expect someone to pay me hundreds of thousands of pounds but get cross that they want to know whether my built-in cupboards were wardrobes or shelving 😂

Some of these comments are weird. Why even have viewings if you’re going to get annoyed that people actually view the house? Testing water pressure and looking inside built in cupboards are completely normal. Cupboards aren’t normally in the photos so it’s the only way to gauge the house’s storage. Boilers are normally in a cupboard too. We offered on our current house after one viewing because we made it a sufficiently thorough one. Other things we checked - phone signal, views from windows, had a quick look at the roof/chimney from the garden, inside the garage, how overlooked garden is, built in appliances. In one house my DH got in the shower cubicle to check he would fit (low ceiling) 😂

@yonemlol I agree! Better to check and ask all the questions from the get go than to get a surprise or two down the road.

For me it's mostly about the views from windows, if the garden is overlooked, what the street is like - lots of traffic/noisy/quiet, phone signal, if the EA has missed any interesting original features in the photos, if there's any lovely old flooring lurking beneath the carpets.

We've only ever purchased doer-uppers (the probate cottage we bought in 2024 is our eighth project), so there's usually no-one living there to care if we lift the edge of a carpet! On the flip side, I've never tried a tap or flushed a loo, let alone looked inside a cupboard as - with the exception of any original built-in cupboards - all of this will be coming out and new boiler/bathrooms/kitchen fitted.

We have looked in lofts - but only if there's a loft ladder available as we don't usually have a survey. DH is a conservation builder so we trust our him to spot any issues, although obviously there are always surprises with old houses. It's also essential to look in the garage - when buying this place we'd travelled 150 miles for the viewing, so were a bit annoyed when the EA didn't have the key to let us into the garage. Ahead of the second viewing we made it a stipulation that we must be able to see inside it.

I did also double check the size of the main bedroom (the largest room) as we have a huge antique Persian rug that needed to fit somewhere. I wasn't sure I trusted the floor plan dimensions, plus the room had weird shaped 1960s cupboards that we weren't sure if the measurements included or not. Luckily it did fit (once the cupboards came out) otherwise we wouldn't have purchased!

What I somehow didn't do was look up at any of the ceilings. So all the artex was a nice surprise on moving day!

I’d much rather people flushed the loo and tried out the taps and forewent a second viewing where I’d have to tidy up all over again!

We viewed tonnes of houses last year and I turned on taps, tested the hot water, opened cupboards, opened back doors etc. Don't really care if it annoyed the seller to be honest, they were asking me for an insane amount of money I at least wanted to check the basics worked. Probably we're in a lower budget bracket of house to people here but it was worth it as one back door I opened the handle came off in my hand, in a different I turned on a kitchen hot tap and a loud thumping noise started up from the boiler which after a bit of searching with the estate agent turned out to be in a loft through a hatch in a wardrobe with a sign on the loft ceiling saying 'DANGER.......' I would have completely missed that if I hadn't turned the tap on. I also turned one bathroom tap on and no water came out at all and the estate agent couldn't explain why. I inspected for mould, tested for bouncy floorboards, looked at the light, the garden, the smell, checked the basement. There's so many things you get from walking round. Generally I'd viewed in less than 10 minutes though, I just knew most of them weren't right immediately upon walking inside.

They never have the bloody keys for the garage! It’s so annoying. I thought we were the only ones who always want to see the garage, it’s one of our main reasons for moving.

I recently viewed a couple of houses with a view to downsizing. I checked inside built in cupboards, fixed kitchen units, etc. I also measured floor space for my bed.
After those I didn’t bother checking water pressure etc as I knew I was going no further. Yes, many things are fixable, but if the basics are not there , I will walk away.

I think do what suits you. If there's something specific you need to fit in a room then I would measure it but not generally as the room sizes are on the spec.

My friend laughed when I said I look in kitchen cupboards but I think that's important to know what space you're working with! I just presumed that everyone did that.