What small niggles put you off from buying properties

Slinky

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

As far as houses go, my wife was put off by underpants drying on the radiator, and the George Cross and Union Flag flag poles of the neighbour across the road. (She assumed they must be members of the BNP.)

:rotfl:My immediate neighbours have a flagpole, less likely members of the BNP you'd be likely to find. They didn't have it when I bought the house. I hadn't realised how much she's dragging the area down!

Elfbert

I couldn't think of any niggles - then I browsed RightMove...

Both of my niggles are toilet-related! I hate square toilets. And I hate those ones that stick out of the wall with no 'pedestal' resting on the floor.

I work in very posh houses sometimes, and when we're permitted to use the facilities, they're so often weirdo shaped toilets! And taps which cost more than my mortgage...

I know I could just buy a new toilet... but it would put me off to start with.

dgtazzman

I know what you mean about the fancy toilets. Used to have one in my old house. The flushing mechanism got damaged and nobody could source spares for it, the only solution would have been to completely remove the old toilet and put a new one in, but with half the toilet being built into the wall, it would have pretty much meant having a new bathroom installed. Luckily, I passed the problem on to the next owner as he intended to put a new bathroom in anyway ^^

Front door opening into a living space would be a big nono for me, that and rooms of 2m by 2m that people dare class as bedrooms. 6m2 in my eyes is the minimum for a single. 4m2 is bordering on broom cupboard.

buglawton

And Rightmove listings that mysteriously don't say which floor a flat is on or it's lease term. Answers after time wasting will be: Ground and 70.

Elfbert

buglawton wrote: »

And Rightmove listings that mysteriously don't say which floor a flat is on or it's lease term. Answers after time wasting will be: Ground and 70.

There's one on there I spotted today which at one point says it's a 99yr lease...but then further down, in a sort of 'hope you don't notice this' way, says that lease began in 1964!! So 50 years left.... (and it's a horrible looking flat.)

moneyistooshorttomention

Wish I could afford to let "small niggles" put me off a property

If I wasn't restricted by money (like most of us then...) then I could have bought a place that was big enough/big enough garden/nice (rather than just decent) area/convenient location.

There is a slight snag to that though....that means a particular couple of roads back in my Home Area and houses in one of those roads cost around £450,000 and in the other road they cost around £550,000.

They're not houses I would describe as "luxury level" either. Still in the "I'd expect pretty ordinary people to have them" level.

Instead, I'm in a house costing less than £250,000 in a different area, because that's what I can afford.

I wish that I could afford to be put off by little niggles. At the price level I can manage, then it's all I can do to find a house that I find acceptable and that has some quite Major Things wrong (some of which can't be dealt with at all). The consolation to that is that most other people are having to pick "the best they can manage", rather than being able to get what they want:cool:

This is where many of us are at though..and we just have to count blessings that at least we aren't in a grotty inner city area with neighbours from hell.

ccbrowning

I'm sick and tired of finding nice detached homes with their own gardens and driveways (and not cheap, either!) which are leasehold. Not so much a niggle as a deal-breaker, though.

In terms of real niggles - stupid feature wallpapers in rooms, decorating a room with 'love' and other words, and an abundance of black paint or appliances in a house.

Metranil_Vavin

I really hate 'feature' flock style wallpaper too! Every home improvement show you watch these days seems to have this fetish. A strong coloured feature wall in a period property in a big room with high ceilings can look stunning, a textured wallpapered feature wall in a small poky new build, to me, looks horrible.

Also many of the niggles others have mentioned:

Front door opening straight into lounge
Paved over/gravelled garden
Rooms listed as 'double' that you'd be lucky to squeeze a small double bed into, let alone anything else
Damp smells

phoebe1989seb

I can't really think of any *small niggles* that would actually put me off buying a property. Admittedly there are some major one that would - house being a characterless new build, structural issues, being sited on a dual-carriageway/motorway, under a flight path are the obvious ones that spring to mind - but small niggles can surely be remedied later?

That said, I too hate -

Gurning baby photos, corner/jacuzzi baths, wall-words and the like, Keep Calm posters and Union flags......and guess the latter would put me off buying in an area altogether, the former however would be going with the vendor so of no issue to me.

However, my previous decisions to not touch properties with the following features -

No hallway, stairs in a reception room, house on main road (have done the last one before in a city with revving cars sitting at adjacent traffic lights and really didn't ever intend to do so again ))

all went out the proverbial window when we bought our current project

Picture a large-ish (2500 sq ft/250 sq m) 200 year old, non-listed stone-built, newly thatched house on a third of an acre sweeping down to a stream, on a relatively busy village road. The house itself being in dire need of almost complete renovation - with the exception of thatch and oil heating - and with bags of potential, albeit having (IMHO) a less-than-perfect layout.

As we were looking for a rural project and needed to retain a hefty portion of our budget to do the work (plus houses of this size/location in an AONB were rarely this inexpensive), we thought we could work with the layout/position.

Three years on the stairs are still in the second (of three) reception rooms, but now with a beamed wall separating them from the *snug*, the (original Georgian) front door opens not into a reception as such, but into the breakfast area of our recently extended kitchen (an idea I actually love) and whilst the road can be noisy with heavy farm machinery - DG being fitted as I type - we also have an award-winning village shop within a few minutes walk

So, IMHO, worrying about petty niggles can lead you to miss some amazing properties with untapped potential......

Extremely interesting thread though

cloo

I agree most things can be fixed, but I know I don't like:
Strip lighting
Laminate floor *everywhere*
Maybe a big one this rather than small niggle, but weird layout, such as one bedroom coming off another, or being off a kitchen (though that's more in flats, which we won't be looking at this time around)