How many houses did you view?

skinnyman9000

How many houses on average did people view before they found ‘the one’?

Also, what was your philosophy when viewing? By this I mean did you make sure you were 100% interested before you booked a viewing? My parents have advised me to view as many as I can, to further help me narrow down exactly what I’m after. I understand that my desires and wish list I have before I begin the process might change slightly as I begin viewing, but I don’t want to view houses for the sake of it, and waste everyone’s time.

Should I be worried about wasting people’s time? Or should I view a large selection of properties, even if on paper they might not fit the bill?

Help appreciated as always.

jee

I would visit as many as possible. Some that don't look good on paper or on the website turn out to be lovely inside.

sirmosh

If you have a very clear idea of what you want you might not view that many as you won't bother with properties you know aren't for you, but if you're not so sure it's best to give everything a go (i.e. older houses, new builds, urban location, more rural location) until you get an idea of what you want from your home and then narrow it down.

I started off thinking I wanted a new build as I wanted everything to be brand new, clean and untouched when I moved in, when I actually looked however they just had no character and although the room sizes weren't as bad as some like to make out, much of the space in the house was useless thanks to impractical layouts.

In the end I went for a house I would have originally dismissed but when I viewed it I felt straight at home and loved the character, massive windows, good size garden, plentiful amount of space and nice, usable square rooms (a Georgian town house right in town centre).

It also depends how picky you are, some people will happily buy a house they think is okay, while some people really need to love it to imagine living there. Start off by viewing a good variety and I'm sure you'll quickly get a feel for how to continue your search.

pinkteapot

Personally I wouldn't view a house that I wouldn't consider buying. For example, I wouldn't buy a house with a north-facing garden, no matter how big/amazing/cheap it was. Therefore, I wouldn't bother viewing any.

Location was also key for us so I didn't bother viewing any that were outside the location we wanted.

I think we looked at about 6-8 houses before we found ours but it was over the course of 18 months. Took that long for a house that ticked enough boxes to come on at a price we thought was fair.

cattie

I viewed 28 before I bought this one & always seem to view a high number before I find something that I feel I'd like to buy.

I only ever view properties that, from the description/pics etc, I feel might be suitable for me. I wouldn't waste my time viewing anything that for one reason or another didn't sound right.

Don't fix in your mind that you need to view a lot of properties before finding the one you feel is right for you, some people are lucky enough to find the first place they view is the right one. It's never happened to me, but once I did manage to fall for, & buy, the 2nd place I viewed. It's all down to luck in the end I think.

Welsh_Totster

We had quite a prescriptive wish list and knew we wanted a certain type of house (30s-50s semi or det) we viewed a couple of hundred online first before deciding on what to physically view. We ended up actually viewing 45 houses before making our final decision.

tom9980

skinnyman9000 wrote: »

How many houses on average did people view before they found ‘the one’?

Also, what was your philosophy when viewing? By this I mean did you make sure you were 100% interested before you booked a viewing? My parents have advised me to view as many as I can, to further help me narrow down exactly what I’m after. I understand that my desires and wish list I have before I begin the process might change slightly as I begin viewing, but I don’t want to view houses for the sake of it, and waste everyone’s time.

Should I be worried about wasting people’s time? Or should I view a large selection of properties, even if on paper they might not fit the bill?

Help appreciated as always.

Basically booked 3 viewings same day to get a feel for the housing in the area. The house we bought was the second of the viewings and it was priced higher than we were willing to pay, shook the hand of the agent to be told they reduced that day to the price region we were willing to pay.

So yeah draw up a list of criteria and go and view anything and everything that meets 75%+ of those criteria. Totally admit we were lucky and it was 'meant to be'

phoebe1989seb

This time (we bought our house last May) we only viewed six - even though we were looking across six separate counties (!!!) - and offered on two prior to this one but withdrew from both (one 'cos we realised it was just too small with no potential to extend and the other 'cos we discovered that two new houses were being built directly overlooking the previously unoverlooked garden), but we had very, very exacting criteria and as we were moving to a more expensive part of the country (from East Anglia to south east/west) and didn't want to have to take out a mortgage having been mortgage-free for a while, there were very few that fitted the bill

Previously we have looked at as few as one - that was our potential forever/dream house and although we actually lost out on buying it as our own sale fell through, we ended up buying the house next door privately (owned by a friend's FIL) which was one of only three of its type. In fact when we viewed it the house was tenanted and we were only able to view the upstairs floors as the lower flat tenant refused us and the then owner entry, so we ended up moving in having never seen the downstairs.......although thankfully our surveyor did manage to get in to do his stuff!

Back when we were FTBs we probably looked at around six flats, but I think when we bought our first house we only saw two before the right one appeared.

Having sold a very unusual property that was crying out for the nosy tyre-kicking types to view (Tudor with arts & crafts additions) last year and indeed which did see at least one of those, I personally wouldn't want to waste people's time by viewing something I wasn't serious about, although as others have rightly stated, sometimes external looks can be deceiving and a viewing is the only way to rule something in or out

hazyjo

Think I've always viewed under 10 as usually pretty sure about what I want. It's very rare that I've bought a 'maybe' house. My first flat was a 'let's view it anyway' kinda flat - just as a comparison against others we thought we preferred. Turned out we absolutely loved it, despite it being on a busier road than I'd intended. Was pretty perfect for us. Loved that flat

Jx

**woody123**

I looked at 8 houses overall.

I viewed 4 houses twice and offered on 3 houses.

This was over 5 months.

Take your time over it. In the end i just had to realise i wasn't going to get all i wanted for price i was willing to pay. I had sacrifice something to get my ideal home.

Bluemeanie_2

I have such a rigid list list for my next property that I will only view what I will consider buying. But it depends how easy going/flexible you are about your house.

One thing I will not now or ever comprimiise on is a house with no off-road car parking. Therefore I daren't see any without in case I fall in lve with the actual house, I'll convince myself it will be ok!