[Closed] Viewing Houses - anyone else hate it

Yes.

Rental properties in particular. Politely nodding and smiling as you get shown around yet another grotty shoebox you wouldn't keep livestock in. Suppressing the overwhelming urge to scream, "HOW MUCH??? ARE YOU ****ED IN THE HEAD??!!! LOOK AT THIS PLACE!!!!"

I hate it when I'm under pressure to find a place to live, but otherwise I quite like it, and sometimes go to look at places I have no intention of buying 🙂

sometimes go to look at places I have no intention of buying

I was about to say that I hated looking around houses, but even worse is showing people around yours - especially if they are time wasting rubberneckers!!!!!!!!

feel your pain dude, don't give up its going to be your house.. im sizing down looking for 2 big bedroom (no ensuite....never again) open plan living/dining,huge kitchen.. huge garage that can fit estate car with doors fully open, carpark for 2 .. half or quarter acre garden.and garden connecting the forest where trail centres exists.. oh, must be old house with character with real huge fireplace and exposed beams but also A+ rating energy efficient ..and must be fibre optic ready for internet..must have loft as well.. and must be cheap(ish).. one can only hope this exist, google is a friend (seriously, im looking for this house in cannock chase)

Having sold my house quicker than intended recently I've been rushing to either buy or rent something else. It's been 3 weeks of hell, trawling the web, phoning agents and viewing. I've made 2 offers, both probate sales. One accepted my asking price offer two weeks after I made it, stressing it was conditional on the house being taken off the market. The other I'm still waiting on after a month. Apparently they're overrun with offers and are having a hard time deciding. Strange that the overgrowth leading to the front door isn't battered down.
Now happily due to rent for a while during the economic winter of brexit gloom.
I had forgotten what tossers estate agents are....

time wasting rubberneckers!!!!!!!!

Guilty as charged 🙂

And another thing, why don't all estate agents put the floor plan on rightmove?

Ours wants £250 to draw it... I'm going to do it myself

We're obviously on the market and have had 5 viewings since we went on on Monday. 3 of those have been given miss information about the house. Waste of both of our times.

They are bloody useless - you'd think that when you're considering spending £250k on a property (a flat in our case) that the agent would at least arrive for the appointment knowing the basics about the property, e.g. what council tax band, how much is the ground rent and service charge, how long left on the lease, which car parking space comes with it? - all that sort of thing. But no, they don't even have this sort of information to hand. Basic stuff guys!

To put into perspective, I've had better and more knowledgeable service down at the local outdoor store spending £100 on a pair of walking boots than we did when buying our £250k property!

That's my pain with the whole process. Todays viewing wasn't a complete waste of time but we'll not be putting in an offer. Again the estate agent didn't know if it had an alarm. The best part of the viewing was when I asked the estate agent how much it was on the market for, she didn't know! Following some shuffling of papers and looking at the details of a different house she went back inside to ask the vendor. I bet the vendor feels like she's getting value for money from her estate agent.

How hard can it be for the estate agent to spend a little bit of time before the viewing to remind themselves of some of the basics about the property. It's not like my questions were difficult, I asked how much the house will cost!

Hey ho, another viewing booked for Friday.

Wolfenstein, why no ensuite again?

Its for the above reasons we went with an online agent. £600 & my Mrs has done the viewings.
Sold the house twice now (first one buying chain collapsed).

Here in Sweden everyone who is interested in the house goes and looks at the same time. You end up queuing to go and look in the bathroom . Horrific

I think our agent feels we are/would be impressed with volume of viewings. I'd sooner have a couple of people than one viewing a day with people who the house doesn't match criteria

@gastromonkey .. im very light sleeper... everytime bloody ensuite getting used..the flushing/extractor fan noise/door opening..light.. it wakes me up 👿

The local estate agents are probably tallying up all the houses you've looked at without putting in an offer...they consider you a timewaster so you are back of the queue 😉

Also looking.
Sold our house (STC)
Lost three houses to other buyers, once gazumped (sp?), the last one was matching bids and the vendor just chose them, with no reason given.
Nothing on the market.
There have been at least three offers for each house we have looked at, most finally going to best and final offers.
It's a PITA around here, you invest so much of yourself each time you find a place we all like, then keep loosing it. I don't want to loose our buyer and not keen on going into rented either.

We looked at over 40 houses before going with ours - not exchanged contracts yet but hopefully no issues!

There's a real lack of mid size houses at the moment - 3 bed semis. We really struggled to buy one.

howsyourdad1 - Member

Here in Sweden everyone who is interested in the house goes and looks at the same time. You end up queuing to go and look in the bathroom . Horrific

it was like that when looking for a flat to rent in Munich. nightmare. happened a few times that we turned up and saw a queue of hoprefuls going up the stairwell. walked out.

Where I am if your not making an offer on the way out the door your wasting people's time 🙂

We're both too picky and because we're not under any pressure to move it means we reject houses on the tiniest details.

I'm amazed someone hasn't come along and revolutionised the estate agent industry yet. The service you get for the money is shocking. We viewed one house and as soon as we went upstairs the estate agent said "I won't go upstairs with you." Why? What? Surely that's part of your job? Shit at sales, then why not become and estate agent.

And £250 to do a floor plan? They've already taken the measurements, would take 20-25 mins to make the floor plan.

Here in Sweden everyone who is interested in the house goes and looks at the same time. You end up queuing to go and look in the bathroom . Horrific

Open house viewings. I avoided any property that tries to sell this way when I was in the market recently.

Quite common in Oz, you piss off for an hour, the agent is there for an hour everyone is gone. Normally on a Saturday morning so more people who work can view it and saves the masive disruption 10x.

The chance to actually view a house would be nice. Tried to view 3 properties in the last week.

House 1, we arrived at the correct time, knocked on the door and the owners answered. They didn't know we were coming and had asked the agent to stop viewings 3 days ago as they had accepted an offer. The agent had confirmed the appointment 2 hours earlier.

House 2, I turned up, the agent didn't. Phoned agent and he had forgotten. Appointment was confirmed with him by phone an hour earlier.

House 3, I turned up, agent turned up. Agent forgot to bring keys with him. He suggested I could see all I needed to by looking in the windows.

Cretins.

I'm car hunting and have been for ages. I'm too picky and because I'm not under any pressure to change it means I reject cars on the tiniest details.

My moan is mainly that I hate looking at cars. Most of the dealers are less the useless, and it seems they have no idea about the car or the model. Trying to get a test drive out of normal working hours is almost impossible and when you do see a car you're in and out in a few minutes without any time to consider what it'll be like to own etc after you've bought it. Then the b*st*rds try to sell me cars that don't meet my requirements ("I know you said you needed min 200 bhp, 3 doors and no fricken diesels but there are some lovely 1.0 eco 5-door diesels for a lot less than your budget").

And another thing, why don't all dealers haggle?

Anyway, I'm off to look at another car.

I hate it too. In all honesty, I have normally made my mind up from looking at the photos and floorplan online and then driving up the road the house it on.

The problem is you cant just keep driving if you have already discounted it, you feel obliged to go inside and be lied to by an estate agent for 15 minutes. My particular favourite is "We have had 3 offers well over the asking price already but decided to let you see it too as I am sure you will fall in love with it..."

It's crap isn't it - we've been looking for a year now, at the start it was pure hell, Mrs Jay would book to see anything remotely suitable to have a nose around I think, I was seeing 4-5 a week.

At least now we've a agreed on a set of peramiters which mean it's 2-3 a month, it's still maddess though - she's waiting for the "right one" a sort wave of joy and happiness to wash over her as we enter - the letting agents are dicks though - we're RENTING and this guy actually said "this is a unique opportunity to get in cheap and do it up" what sort of lunatic is going to put a new kitchen and bathroom into a rental place with a 12 month lease?

Then there's the places which have been decorated as cheaply as possible, dirty carpets, mouldy kitchens so the Landlord doesn't give a shit and probably considers themselve a 'property magnete' because they've got a house on a BTL, how are they going to handle me calling them in Feb saying "the boiler is broken down".

Oh, and I'm not looking at £300 a month bedsits, I've got a £1000 a month budget and I'm not looking in London.

I've been looking since January and am getting pretty sick of it. There's usually at least six people all trying to buy the same place, I've been gazumped several times even when I offered 10k over the asking price on one occasion. There's hardly anything on the market that's suitable and I feel like killing estate most agents within five seconds of meeting them 😥

the estate agent said "I won't go upstairs with you."

I quite enjoy the experience myself.

The best viewing we had was where the vendor let us in then said I'll wait in the garden whilst you look round then come ask me any questions. We walked round pointing at stuff and being honest rather than just saying "oo it's nice and airy." Then the guy took us round again to point out more stuff we'd missed.

I would definitely recommend doing this when selling your house.

Didn't buy it though!

When we bought our current house it was the vendor that did the viewing, very relaxed and told us loads of stuff before we asked.

Before we bought our house we were renting. When I gave notice to the landlord that we were leaving, he contacted several letting agents to come and view the house so he could choose an agent. I then had a load of agents contact me so that they could come and inspect the place.

The look on their faces when they all turned up and realised I had booked them in for a block viewing was priceless

letting/Estate agents are the worst of the worse. License to print money if you ask me.

I also agree why hasnt anyone worked out how to streamline everything yet.

"The look on their faces when they all turned up and realised I had booked them in for a block viewing was priceless" did they go back outside and just compare cars?

I went with HouseNetwork online to sell my house. £700 all in including the EPC and plans and virtual video - all looked very professional. Service was excellent. I won't ever use a high street EA again, they did it so much better!

did they go back outside and just compare cars

1 - Fiat 500 painted up in business livery

2 - Range Rover Vogue SE Sport Overfinch BastardSmug

In the middle of it at the moment.

Mrs Tyred and I are so indecisive this is not an activity that suits us.

Most of the places we've been to see the vendor has done the viewing, but at the weekend we went to an open viewing of a pretty dilapidated place in a prime spot where we want to buy. Too much of a wreck for me to consider, all the husbands were wandering round exchanging if-she-wants-to-buy-this-my-life-is-over looks.

Haven't bought a house since the advent of the home report thing - do you no longer get your own survey done? I think I'd want my own survey done, and be hanging over the surveyor's shoulder at the time making sure he actually does it properly.

Surely you check the house out online before viewing ? If you don't know the layout & price etc, then you shouldn't be viewing !

As to people just being nosey, that's just weird, odd and a waste of everyone's time.

Agents are weird. I went to one place before we bought the house we are in now. Old couple had died and the house had been on the market for 10 months and was stuck in the 70s/80s They wanted £200k for it(reduced from £220k). I laughed when they said the price was the price and went nope!! The agent said I was wasting their time as it was worth it. The house sold for £155k (5k less than what I offered) 4 months later.

I'm now glad we didn't get it as this house is far better i.e. I don't have to do DIY SOS.

my mrs is obsessed, checking rightmove hourly for new possibilities. me im quite content where we are so it has to be pretty special on paper to even warrant a viewing but when we do we really take our time looking round.

always the same verdict tho, she's blindsided & loves it, i list the negatives. spent ages looking at one on saturday, house itself was perfect loved it, but the garden was shit. spent ages trying to convince ourselves it didnt really matter about the garden, ... but ultimately a bigger garden was the reason we started looking in the first place!!

so yeah, i hate it too.

seriously considering building my own now...

another thing, floorplans on rightmove are always in-accurate!! we sit at home thinking about which walls you can knock down but you get to the site and its completely different!

Most of the places we've been to see the vendor has done the viewing, but at the weekend we went to an open viewing of a pretty dilapidated place in a prime spot where we want to buy. Too much of a wreck for me to consider,

My perfect purchase! An undefiled virgin property. I'm fed up with being offered "tastefully and sympathetically" updated properties. I was a joiner for 30 years and have the sort of tastes I couldn't afford if I had to buy them. I'm not going to pay over the odds for someone elses poor taste or DIY experiment. Sadly though, people do...

we sit at home thinking about which walls you can knock down

Not just me then!

it's worse than decorating

Try meeting the agent on your pub bike, he looked at me like I had dog mess on my face, the scorn was tangible.

Same agent couldn't fawn enough when I arrived in a white BMW, I don't even think he clocked I was the same person so closed where his perception blinkers.

I loved viewing houses, but we struggled to find what we wanted, and houses coming up where we wanted to live were hard to find, in the end we had to live without a couple of things, parking being one, but that's an issue for another thread!

If we hadn't of took this house we would of ended up with a flat, I did things a bit odd, we could of had a mortgage of £200k but I refused to borrow that sort of money so we got a house at £128k it was trying to work within the budget and proximity to the OH work as she walks to work.

We viewed using Purple Bricks they tend to allow viewings anytime as he seller set these up, we viewed our current house at 8am, 8pm and dinner time before we finally decided, not on the same day lol!

We're feeling frustrated, tired and grumpy with house hunting and viewing too.

We saw a house we liked in a different area pretty early on in our search. We decided that was it and we sold our house within a few days. Second thoughts kicked in and we decided we couldn't leave the area we live in so we pulled our of the purchase, but our morals got the better of us and we honoured the sale of our home. We had been mortgage-free and ended up getting a rental, at nearly a grand a month!

Now finding the right house is proving very very hard. The levels of interest in the ones we like is insane; one in particular (I spoke to someone who knows the agent) had 106 viewings and 10 offers! Another, last week, went for more than our offer of £47k over the 'offers over' price (£12k over the home report price).

Not sure if I want to go into all the details, but we've an offer accepted on one now, but again, doubts are gnawing at us as it's not in one of the prime school spots we're really after and the sellers haven't got a house to move to yet so who knows how long it might take.

And there's one we went to view at the weekend that had probably a dozen different families viewing at the same time! Needs a lot of work but is definitely on the list and we're waiting for updates. Not cheap though...

So we're sitting here paying a fortune and feeling time pressures when we should have really been smarter, waited for something we weren't going to have doubts about, and remained mortgage/rent-free for the interim period of time. BUT, you can't change the past, and being in a rent may work in our favour if we end up offering very close to someone else who isn't ready to move.

We've done 37 viewings since January and really have had enough of them. One thing it certainly does is teach you what you DON'T want in a house!

Not just down here then GlasgowDan.

I have spent the evening designing flyers to homeowners, going door to door at the weekend...

Glasgowdan - almost the same as us except we have been living bill and rent free with friends for 9 months. Finally got a house which needs work but I am really hoping it goes through ok. I don't think it's been as mental round here as you have described it where you are but it's certainly brisk trade at the moment and the sellers hold all the cards.

I did around 60 flyers but silence. A friend of a client is putting theirs up and my client mentioned me looking but she wanted it on the open market rather than selling direct. Agents are telling sellers exactly what to do, and because most sellers around here are old people they're doing it!

Personally, I'd pay more if a seller wanted to negotiate than a closing date final offer.

Same round here to be honest, we're stuck in the endless loop at the moment where we want to move, but the properties we are looking at are pretty scarse, so we are a bit reluctant to put ours up for sale until something comes to market we want to buy. I don't really want to put ours up & mess the buyers about when we have nowhere to go to yet, but for us, there just isn't really anything to buy

but our morals got the better of us and we honoured the sale of our home. We had been mortgage-free and ended up getting a rental, at nearly a grand a month!

mitsumonkey - Member
but our morals got the better of us and we honoured the sale of our home. We had been mortgage-free and ended up getting a rental, at nearly a grand a month!

Expensive morals! But fair play to you.

If they were a young professional couple then it would have been different, but they had 2 young girls and had moved in with relatives miles away for a few weeks until conclusion so there's no way we'd have wanted to upset them. Kids need to feel at home more than anyone I think. Our wee boy's too young to care, as long as his mum and dad are around he'll be grinning and enjoying every second of life as always!