What are your biggest property turn offs when viewing a house?

blueybug

Must NOT have American neighbours

And MUST
Have parking for four cars

That's all

cloo

It also depends what one is looking at. When we were lookingto buy a flat, a big problem was places with nowhere to put a dining table andchairs, and even some quite expensive flats lacked this.

Looking at houses, the main problems have been:

Smallest bedroom not even big enough for anything largerthan a cot

House had been extended so far downstairs that the backgarden was the size of a postage stamp

No or very little storage

In general:

Anywhere dirty, smelly or clammy feeling.

Weird and hard-to-deal-with alterations – eg one bedroomleading directly off another, corridors that are so narrow you almost have toturn sideways down them, oddly-shaped rooms

Offputting although ultimately dealable-with anachronisms –coloured bathroom suites, leaded glass windows on inappropriate style buildings,fake oak beams in a Victorian maisonette (I have seen this!)

caronoel

A big no-no for me when buying a flat is ground floor. Too many security risks.

System

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

Yeah, because the state of the oven is my number one priority when buying a house.
I don't care if there's no oven or one with last Thursday's fish fingers still in it.

When my parents moved into their current property, the grill pan rusted through with holes - the property was 7 years old at the time and the oven was filthy! There was fat and grease everywhere. My mum refused to cook in it until it was cleaned. A Groupon deal for the oven professionally cleaned. Plus buying a grill pan from Lakeland.

Would you like to use an oven that was coated in 1.5 inches of fat?

TrixA

Main ones are:

Badly-done DIY

Kitchen or bathroom cheaply redone for sale - particularly anything with shiny white surfaces, or worse still, black

Smell of cigarettes or damp

Small or north-facing garden

Dark living spaces

Only one loo

Neighbours with poorly-maintained houses or gardens

Neighbours with barking dogs.

Loopy28

I thought of a few more, some mirroring others comments

Mid terrace houses-noise from both sides and being squeezed in between others (grew up in a mid terrace house)

Victorian Houses-Obviously I would pick this up before viewing but I hate them. Again I grew up in one and all I remember is the damp, being freezing in winters (I imagine many don't have this problem though)

The neighbours garden being messy, unkept etc and noisy dogs next door

Gardens that get no sun or that have low walls or even worse mesh so you can't sit out without feeling like you are part of your neighbours garden.

Odd shaped living rooms. This seems to be the case in a lot of newer built houses post 2003 ish. Some are just not practical in any sense and I have no idea what the designer was thinking.

That said, I love newer built houses and have been actively looking for a more modern one but with a practical lounge shape!

Jagraf

TBeckett100 wrote: »

Here is my short list

1) Artex walls - what were you thinking?

2) Dirty bathrooms - i dont want to see your hairy bits over where you hope I will want to scrub mine.

3) Clutter - there is no excuse for it. You are trying to sell me your house, not your tat

4) 150,000 thousand pictures of your family on the wall. I don't want to see what your family look like. No doubt I will receive 149,000 christmas cards because you forgot to tell them you've moved

5) Coffee and breadmaking - you and I both know it's staging

6) Overpowering plug ins. Your home shouldnt smell like a new car

7) You and your children. I don't want to have to make friends with your snot ridden child who is crayoning that wall I want to buy, nor do I want a lego brick buried in my foot. I don't want you showing me your own home because I will have to pretend to find your husband's shocking DIY "quaint"

8) Old people showing you around - it's hard to smile at the 1970's time machine that appears to have crashed through your living room, up the stairs and rested alongside your avocado bathroom

9) Estate Agents with hair gel and cheap suits. The fact that parking is half a mile away and therefore is "good exercise" will not sell me this house.

10) Fisheye camera shots - I know the room is small, no need to make it look bigger. Nobody buys a family home blind

11) Living next door to white van man - he may be pleasant and may fix your boiler, but come 5am, that diesel van will be running in the driveway and come winter, running for about 20 minutes to de ice it.

12) copper piping running along the wall - lazyness

13) Fresh thick paded texture wallpaper - nothing says our plasterwork is shocking by using thick, 1980s wallpaper

14) Woodchip wallpaper - if you havent bothered to attend to your decor for 20 years, I take it you haven't attended to any other job

15) Chav flags hanging around your neighbourhood - I want to live in Belgravia not Beirut.

I suggest you buy a house off plan, pesky human beings with a life just destroy everything.

Jagraf

Loopy28 wrote: »

I thought of a few more, some mirroring others comments

Mid terrace houses-noise from both sides and being squeezed in between others (grew up in a mid terrace house)

Victorian Houses-Obviously I would pick this up before viewing but I hate them. Again I grew up in one and all I remember is the damp, being freezing in winters (I imagine many don't have this problem though)

The neighbours garden being messy, unkept etc and noisy dogs next door

Gardens that get no sun or that have low walls or even worse mesh so you can't sit out without feeling like you are part of your neighbours garden.

Odd shaped living rooms. This seems to be the case in a lot of newer built houses post 2003 ish. Some are just not practical in any sense and I have no idea what the designer was thinking.

That said, I love newer built houses and have been actively looking for a more modern one but with a practical lounge shape!

I grew up in a new house, and love old ones. My folks grew up in old houses and will only live in newer ones. My daughter loves ultra modern houses. X

quidsy

Vendors who think a kitchen and bathroom newly installed to their tastes is an excuse to add to price. I replace both as most peoples idea of good taste is way off the mark. No parking. Mid terraces. Houses where front door opens straight into lounge. No front garden or drive. Decor, smell, cleanliness etc I ignore as they are temporary.

sulphate

Evidence of damp
Poor natural lighting
England flags hanging from neighbours' houses
Severe parking issues. We currently live in a terrace with no off road parking but we feel pretty spoilt compared where we used to live (in the centre of a city and sometimes not being able to park within a mile of your house)
Near a railway line
Neighbours with barking dogs or other noise i.e. children screaming constantly, loud TVs blaring through the wall etc
Storage heaters or lack of central heating
Solar panels
Smell of dog or cigarette smoke
Rubbish in neighbours' gardens