How long and how many houses before you made an offer on a place?

WLITC

I'm curious ask to how long and how many places most people viewed before making an offer on a place? I've been watching the likes of 'Location, Location, Location' and it seems that most of the people on the show have looked at 20-30 properties or more and spent anything from 6 months to two years searching. Are these extreme cases par for the course?

Mrs_Z

I think on average about 10 for us... it's not so much the number of properties but the gut feeling.....

Worry_Wart

I think the people on LLL are desperate cases. They usually haven't worked out what they want or what they can afford, or two halves of the couple want completely different things. A bit of research about what you are likely to afford and prioritising what's important to you helps narrow things down. And then if you've narrowed too much you need to go back to the drawing board and reduce your criteria.

That's what I've learnt from watching LLL for years, anyway, and it worked for me!

Worry_Wart

Oh and to actually answer your question, I bought the first house I looked at. It went to sealed bids so I had to wait a couple of weeks for the outcome, and in the meantime I looked at four others but none of them matched the first.

onlyroz

I looked at 10-20 houses before I found one that I made an offer on, and a further three offers before I had one accepted. Most of the houses I looked at were crummy dumps compared to the estate agent photos - be prepared for disappointment because wide-angle lenses can make poky sh*te-holes look like spacious palaces.

movilogo

It is very open ended questions.

When we were FTB, looked at 30+ houses. Initially we couldn't even locate the exact place where we wanted to buy. After that made 3 offers on 3 houses. 2 rejected and last one accepted.

Now we are looking to move house. Seen 10-12 houses so far and made 3 offers - all rejected. Now we know exactly what we want to see only houses which apparently ticks all boxes.

I know people who viewed 50+ houses yet couldn't make up their minds.

Alphamare

We viewed over 30 but loved the third (unsuccessful) and the fifth (also unsuccessful). Nothing else compared but we looked at everything anyway as we liked things that didn't look good on paper and hated others that did.

Got lucky on the last house we viewed. Thank god because we were actually talking about taking a break from looking. It is devastating losing your dream house and you compare everything to it. The house we are buying is good, but it's not my dream house.

DKLS

Thanks to google street view I have cut down the number of houses I view, I can discount at least 90% of the properties by using the internet and to look for the tell tale signs that make me not want to buy such as neighbours with trampolines, solar panels and Engerrrrland flags in the windows.


Last purchase I viewed 12 properties before making a couple of offers

DigForVictory

We spent almost 2 years looking, but not all day every day, just most weekends.

As we took the whole family (three under five!), we didn't view much (4 properties) & our opinions on estate agent photographers were admiringly blasphemous.

Fell for one place but the structural survey was a dealbreaker.

Whole family fell for second place (skidding youngest in nappy on polished wooden floors), we put in what structural survey recommended & got it! (Think owners glad to see their family home stay a family home & that we appreciated its quirks.)

Next time, we'll be downsizing & will probably be scouting (relatively) sheltered accomodation. Oh Gods.... Ah well, googlemaps & maybe even drones by then!

LLL has a niche bunch of buyers. Real world different!

TBagpuss

I think I looked at about 12-15, first time round, and about 10-12 second time round (first sale fell through when the sellers pulled out at the last minute)

I would say that up to half of the ones I looked at the first time round could have been eliminated without viewing if the agents had provided a floor plan and/or better information or pictures

(for instance, 2 had not mentioned that neighbours had rights of access over the garden, several had very misleading pictures especially relating to the size of the garden, one had a bathroom which wasn't big enough for a full size bath (no plan, and description didn't give the dimensions of the bath room) One had carefully taken pictures which left out the very obvious signs of a serious damp problem)

They all had issues which were deal breakers for me.

When I started looking again I had a much clearer idea of exactly what I wanted, I think of the properties I viewed there were again about half which failed on the 'if the particulars had been better I'd never have bothered viewing them', plus 1 which looked OK but absolutely stank of dogs and stale smoke, 1 where I could hear every word of the row the next door neighbours were having as I went round the property, and one which turned out to be immediately next to a massive building site where a huge estate plus Mega-Tesco were going up (and building was only just starting, so it would have meant living next to a building site for the first year, even if the house hadn't also been overpriced and with very misleading photos.

Of the others, I think there were 3 or 4 which were properties which I felt I could have lived in but none of which were absolutely ideal - 2 had (allegedly) other offers on them which put them above the price that I would be willing to pay (I think the agents were telling porkies on one of them, as it is still on the market, but I like the one I eventually offered on better!)

One I realised talking to the vendor that the house was having to be sold as part of a very acrimonious and as yet unfinalised divorce and I decided that as the house wasn't my dream home I would steer clear of that one!

TBagpuss

forgot to say - first time it took me about 4 weeks, second time about 3 weeks - mostly due to only being able to view at weekends due to work.