Intresting vendor led viewings - add yours!

Timpu

Looked around a really nice house accompanied by the agent and ended up in the kitchen chatting to the vendors. The conversation went from small talk 'Why are you selling?' to the gentleman telling us how he'd met his wife at a swingers party. DH and I must have blanked out the rest from our memories as the next thing we remember is being invited to join them at a swingers party :eek: We hot footed it but still caught the agent offering to buy the lady's car.

We also saw a house of a divorcing couple, you could tell the lady didn't want to leave. The house had the biggest garden I've ever seen and she needed prompting to show us it. The nail in the coffin was when she said her soon to be ex husband was the agent handling the sale.

lincroft1710

One house I saw had had an incomplete extension which the owner claimed would all be finished before any exchange of contracts. Looking at the very dodgy electrics and the poor quality brick and block work, I wouldn't have worried about completing or not, I certainly wasn't going to buy it!

The second house appeared to be being sold by a divorcing couple. The bedrooms were all dark and two had their curtains closed and children entertaining their friends (nothing immoral), so we couldn't really go in to have a look. The husband had abandoned a car on the drive blocking the garage and the wife claimed he was refusing to move it. Best of all was the dining room with a threadbare carpet and against one wall a rabbit hutch complete with rabbit. When EA asked for feedback I suggesteded that perhaps he should advise his client on how to present a house for viewing!

cloo

Just remembering some more… we went to an open day at a house that turned out to be an HMO (that would explain why only interior photo was kitchen then!) . LL was clearly trying to have his cake and eat it by putting on market with tenants still in situ, and what’s more clearly hadn’t told them he was having an open day, as when about 8 of us who’d turned up got inside, a couple were still asleep, there were some tense conversations and then we were told we’d have to knock on each bedroom door and ask to come in. We left pretty soon after that, it was just too awkward for words and really not fair on the poor tenants.
I remember one terrace in Walthamstow that was just an utter tip and smelled of socks. They had about 4 kids in there and one of the bedrooms ad been shoddily divided into two with a bit of chipboard.

TBH, my first viewing of my first house (also Walthamstow) was a bit odd. The owner was very ill and had been sleeping on the couch downstairs, they were storing their daughter’s furniture so there were wardrobes and shelves and drawers all over the place and none of the doors were hung in their frames. Luckily for them, I could see the potential.

CathA

One house I went to also had an unfinished extension, which apparently had been started by the vendor's builder boy friend. The estate agent said he had said he'd pop back to finish it, tho the couple had split up. I asked how long ago and the EA said 18 months! Not exactly popped out to the shops, back later to finish it timescale!
Doors upstairs had massive gouges out of them, apparently there had been some "frank exchanges of views" before the boyfriend left. Main bedroom painted bright green, including the plugs and light switches.
God know what was in them but there was piles of boxes stacked in the garage, all in nice tidy columns from the floor to the ceiling in regimented rows.
Trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear there!

questionss

We viewed a house on at 610k that had been for sale for some time. O had extended, renovated & now lived elsewhere. He said, not long after we arrived, "I've had it on the market at least 18mths, things over 500 just don't sell so easily, even at 550k I'd struggle!"

CathA

Another one! I went to see a house with EA, and the elderly owners were there. She proudly showed me the lounge (everything covered in woodchip) dining room (woodchip again) kitchen with cupboards specially made to go in the kitchen. When I asked her when they were made she told me 1977!
Stairs (more woodchip) bedrooms ( more woodchip ) and and and all the doors covered in. .......... woodchip!
Bless her she was very proud of the decor, at least it was neutral paint and it had been done recently. I have never seen so much woodchip in my life.

TheKeymeister

I went for a viewing a couple of months back, not many internal pictures on rightmove but looked promising from the outside. I remember speaking to the estate agent and commenting there were a lot of houses for sale in this particular area and I didn't really know why (its a new build village), her response was "well its a lot better than it used to be"!

Arrived for the viewing and heard hoovers going, waited at the door for over 5 minutes for them to answer. The husband came down and showed us the living room and kitchen and then stood in front of the door to the dining room as he obviously didn't want us to go in, when we were eventually allowed to see in it was such a tip, the kids were using it as a playroom or something, it wasn't just general kids stuff, there was rubbish everywhere. While this was all happening the hoover was still going upstairs, the husband was blatantly trying to stall us going upstairs. When we did eventually get up there the rooms were all full of mess again, including their bedroom, and they were in the middle of decorating a few of the rooms!

The estate agents asked what we thought, and I was honest and said I don't think they're in a position to be selling at the minute and explained why. The estate agent said she'd thought the same thing and would be speaking to them about it. A couple of weeks later they dropped the price by £2500 and listed with a second agent...I don't think they quite grasped what the problem was. It's still for sale now and has been on the market almost a year!