Rude house hunters.

The comments here means that I have made one good decsion in life - not to move, been in our house for 45 years. We have put so much of our life into the garden, I would hate to leave.

I did "dress" my house and it sold fairly quickly. I made it clear which room was used for what. I had a dining room which was slightly cut off from the rest of the house and a large long thin room called the breakfast room which we always ate in.

I made the breakfast room into a more clear cut dining area and turned the dining room into a playroom. It was already full of my GKs toys so I just spread them out a lot put down the play mat etc.,

A couple with a small child loved this and they put in an offer for full asking price!

The Estate Agent also sold the cut off dining room as a possible 4th bedroom which indeed it had been used as from time to time.

I also made sure the grass was cut and there were fresh flowers in the breakfast room which was the first room visible from the front door.

Some of the selling process was almost enjoyable because my dear old house looked its best, most of it was a nightmare.

We moved house many times buying and selling and although we have used an estate agent I have always done the viewings my self. If we go again I'm going to try to do it without an agent- money for old rope. DH did our conveyancing once (he's not a legal but is a bureaucrat- did his own divorce too) himself we might do that again too.

I have moved 5 times in the last 35 years and before that moved countries with a small child and 3 suitcases. I hate it but still go through with it - de-cluttering and downsizing as I go.
am now planning my last before the 'sheltered accomodation move' or penultimate before the 'carry out in a box move' for which I will happily let the agents do viewings (although I will be there sitting in the garden) so I can chip in with any useful titbits.
I agree how rude some of the viewers are - arrive late, bring a posse of relatives, criticise the smallness of the cottage, bemoan the lack of en suite for the master bedroom (aka the largest upstairs room)
but my favourite was the woman who walked out of a viewing with no apology because the property was on a road which was a small country lane because she had a 'deaf cat' . they had googled the postcode which centred on a farm up a long drive and she 'assumed' this large farmhouse and long drive was a 2 bed cottage. It would be even worse when I sell this house as satnav and google earth centre on a house a mile away from me.

If your house is a bit off the beaten track, then it's best to have an agent as they can advertise it more widely than you can yourself.If you live on a main road (which we never have done) then I suppose it will be seen by a lot of people.

When we came to view our Bungalow we arrived early ( before EA)
We knew that the property was vacant but there was a landscaping truck outside and we could see two men inside. So we knocked, thinking we could have time in there without the EA.
We walked into the lounge and I just blurted out "what the b...dy hell is that"
There was a huge boiler in the lounge!!!
The landscaper was the owner. Whoops.

A friend of mine was showing potential purchasers around her home for their second visit, they brought their builder, and while she was there, set about discussing which walls they would knock down, rip out the 'ghastly' kitchen, get rid of 'that wallpaper'...........how rude.

Years ago when I was young and feisty I was showing a couple around the house and got so fed up with their comments and rudeness that I opened the front door and told them to leave The Estate Agent was fed up about it but I've never regretted it.

This thread is enough to put anyone off trying to move home. How utterly bad mannered some people are.
I sometimes browse property near to my DD and look at the awful decor and think how much would it cost to remove the black painted mock beams, or the large patterned wall paper you cannot stand.

I feel like staying where I am until they carry me out feet first.

What really annoys me with the property programs is that they never seem to look at property under about 350K

I'm with you there NM.

OMG so I started browsing and see what I got! Black walls.

www.primelocation.com/for-sale/details/31056116?search_identifier=06fba7d581471e7d8eee1b2e23c00252#WriemT1y8OydzzKf.97

Well, being nice and enthusiastic can help too. We went to see our last house a bit out of curiosity, as it was 'out of our league' and we just loved it, but couldn't stretch to the asking price or a reasonable offer- the owners were so nice and we didn't feel like making a low offer- as we felt it would be unfair. By chance- I bumped into one of their daughters at Waitrose 2 weeks later- and she came and talked to me. Why didn't you make an offer, my parents just want YOUR family to have the house and the garden, as you were the only ones to clearly fall in love with the house? I explained that it would be our dream indeed, but that we could not afford it- having looked at the work that needed to be done, etc. She phoned me in the evening to ask if we could go for a drink with her and her parents the next evening- and said, just work out what his your max price, and make an honest and true offer. We stretched finances as far as they would go, which was substantially below the asking price, and made the offer when we were having a drink. They said 'done- we want a happy family here, as happy as we have been and who would love the house too'- we shook hands, hugged, we all cried and had another drink- sold our own house on first viewer and moved in about 5 weeks later.

Tried to sell on to another lovely family who fell in love with it too- but their own house fell through 3 times, and we just had to let them go. Our old house is now a childrens' nursery and language school (following in my footsteps) and a very happy place in a different way.

That's a lovely experience, Granjura. If only all house moves were like that. x

I am in despair! So many of the places I have now wasted time spent time looking at have lots of black in the structual parts of their decor.
All of this would cost a lot of money to change.

Kitchens with black units or black tiles and dark red walls. Or lots of heavy black furniture which IMO do not show off any property to best advantage. Is it just me?

Or there are odd shaped buildings with plenty of space but rooms in odd places with strange access.

How come this obsession with black interiors has become so popular? This is surely a generational thing.

Stop looking any more Nellie.

I had a look and thought to myself that DD would love that house and its decor, nelliemoser, so perhaps it is a generational thing!

Not necessarily, I loved that decor and the price was amazing!!

I've always presumed that it is a good thing to have the owners present because they can answer all the questions like "How does the central heating work?" "When was the new boiler installed?" "what day are the dustbins emptied and where do we leave them?" and so on. You can be left with sheaves of paperwork when you move into a house and none of it will tell you what you want to know.

I think the worst thing potential buyers can do is start making derogatory remarks about a house. Some people do this to set out a case for a reduction in price. If there are genuine reasons for a reduction to be sought, it is for the estate agent to broach the subject and not the purchasers to start dropping hints about works that need doing.

Most people are very attached to their homes and take any criticisms very personally. My feeling is that it is impolite to make such remarks and also counter-productive. Sellers are much more likely to respond positively to people who are friendly and complimentary about their home than people who barge in and start finding fault.

In 45 years we bought and sold eight houses, and rented six in between.
Once some buyers mentioned loudly how they hated our carpets and would have to change them before they moved in, so we showed them the door.
Although there were lots of things that we changed in the houses we bought, we would not have dreamed of saying so in front of the sellers. It's just so rude and hurtful.

the worst thing buyers can do as well is to state what chages they will make to someone's much-loved home e.g

we could chop down those trees/shrubs and make a 'zen garden'
we could knock down this wall and make a kitchen diner
there would be room for an en-suite if we got rid of that wall
we could extend here, here and here and make room for an extra bedroom/study/playroom/snug
and so on
it is particularly the garden comments that are most hurtful - much love and attention is often lavished on a garden
they can plan/think these things but telling the vendors is not on - any hurtful/rud comments and unless I am desperate they do not get to buy 'my house'

We're spending the weekend on our 'touch up' list. Crossing off bits of painting, fixing as we go! Trouble is I keep noticing things that people might comment on! It's driving me demented already.

We haven't started on the garden or washing down every scrap of outside!

And the DIY shops were shut. x

I think commenting negatively on the decor is rude but discuss how you might want to adapt a house to your needs is a different matter.

It may or may not be rude, depending on what is said, but it is really weird when people comment on the paintings or the design of the bed linen. Why doesn't it occur to them that I shall be taking those with me when I move?

There is one thing I notice is when trying to sell their house people leave a tea towel hanging on the handle of oven door. They spend time getting their house ready for viewing and forget to put the tea towel out of view. I see it often on those house hunting programmes. I know, I do need to get a life.