Buyers / Viewers from another planet

pinkteapot

Oh, and conversely - a few years ago we had a weird seller:

We viewed a house and were shown round by the owner. We arrived before her - she pulled up a few minutes later, but fair enough we thought, she's been out... Inside there were four piles of post on the side in four completely different names. So clearly a rental (it was in a popular student area so probably students). But the weird part is she was telling us it was her house and she lived there. Why?! It got even better when we went upstairs and one of the bedroom doors was closed. She said "Oh, I'll just need to check with my son it's OK for you to look in his room." She knocked and put her head round the door and had a whispered conversation then came out and said "Sorry, you can't go in there at the moment." :rotfl:

We didn't buy that house.

AdrianC

Ah, weird viewings...

One house had every single internal door locked apart from the master bedroom. Which stank.

Another house, the vendor was a bloody HUGE mountain of a guy - bodyguard for the film industry. He just sat in the living room and said "I'll only make the place look small - show yourselves around." (it was small)

Then there was the place with a dark and claustrophobic conservatory, or the one where the vendors promised they'd have finished swirly-artexing all the ceilings by the time they moved out, or the one where...

Brodiebobs

Had a very rude viewer, walked round wobbling, kicking, and prodding things to work out if they needed replacing, and stating they did if they moved. Also advised the place would need total redecoration because of my horrible taste in interior design!

I was (a young looking) 22 year old at the time and he proclaimed i was clueless and should be thankful to accept a £25k discount on a £75k house.

Took great pride in informing him we'd already had two above asking price offers that day and only let him look as the agent advised he was in a position to move fast, but i would be rejecting any offer he made on the grounds of his attitude.

But agents can be just as bad, I made an offer on a house 5% below asking, which had been for sale more than a year with no offers. Agent said i was 'a silly little girl who knows nothing about the housing market' (can you see the theme? guess i should take it as a compliment!?). It was an empty house of someone who has passed away so we put a note through the door addressed to the execs explaining our offer and that the agent refused to pass it on.

They phoned me within 24 hours apologising and accepting the offer.

hazyjo

Brodiebobs, sadly I've been treated the same on many occasions (including job interviews! One horrible bloke told me I was way too young - I was 30 !!!!!!!).


I don't remember any crazy buyers, but one I refused to deal with who tried to intimidate me in a similar way, and tried to get me to take a ridiculously low offer. Nasty horrible man.


Another was such a timewaster. Viewed about 3 times, then said no it wasn't for her. Then wanted to come round to measure. I ended up saying no. Even the EAs said she'd messed people around. Didn't want to deal with her.


When viewing, one woman told my OH off for leaning slightly against a wall on the landing (my mum was there too and we were all chatting), and another pointed out every fault with the house and every hidden carpet stain etc lol.

MaxiRobriguez

Enjoying this thread, keep them coming!

(Although making me nervous about us selling our place!)

Bluntman_1983

When our place was on the market a guy walked off the street up our drive as OH and I were putting our toddler daughter in the car - very obviously on our way out - and asked if he could come in and take a look around. He was even making as if to just carry on past us to the front door! Told him to speak to the estate agent like everyone else - never heard anything else from him.

When viewing properties we went to one that ticked quite a few boxes and the pics looked nice. When we got there the whole place absolutely stank of cigarette smoke - very obvious a heavy indoor smoker lived there with yellowed ceiling paint above a particular chair in the living room. The whole place would have needed practically gutting to get rid of the smell. When I phoned the EA later in the day to say we weren't interested she was absolutely adamant that the owner was a non-smoker and that she had been on multiple viewings and never noticed any smell. Very strange.

SouthLondonUser

One seller tried to get me into a bidding war with other buyers (who, for all I know, may have not existed at all). I was having none of it, so the seller said he would accept my lower offer because I was chain free, but wanted a non-refundable deposit of more than 2% of the price. I literally laughed at the estate agent when he told me on the phone.

Another seller wanted to meet with me in person to determine if I was a serious buyer. I understand meeting a tenant, but a buyer?

Another seller withdrew a few days before the exchange; he gave one reason to the estate agent and another to the solicitor. After a week, he changed his mind again and wanted to sell. After exchange, he “changes his mind” and wanted to keep a number of items which, as per the contract, were actually included in the sale. Erm, no!

A property comes back on the market. I make an offer. The estate agent very rudely tells me the seller has rejected it because it was lower than the previous offer, so I was offering below market value. I tried to explain that non-proceedable offers which get withdrawn do not contribute to setting the market price, but to no avail. In the end, the property sold, but the completion date, as per the land registry, was more than 5 months after I had made my offer, and the price was less than 1% more what I had offered. I was chain free and should have been able to complete in less than 2 months. Not sure waiting that long was worth it.

On the other side of the fence, as a seller, the oddest remarks were comments, well, sometimes very direct harsh criticism, actually, on our choices of interior design. One viewer criticised us for having too much bespoke furniture and cluttering the rooms, while another one said it was a shame there wasn’t more bespoke furniture to make the most of the space. One viewer criticised our choice of locks (bog-standard Banham mortice locks).

One viewer didn’t like the property because there was no lift. Ehm, surely she knew this before coming?

One seller offered 30% less than asking price because they were building new flats nearby. True, but those flats were marketed at 20% above my asking price, came with much higher management charges, and overlooked a very noisy road.

Skiddaw1

We were due to be shown around a house by the EA on a pre-arranged appointment. The EA duly arrived but the seller, who was clearly in, wouldn't open the door. Poor EA was hammering on it and ringing the bell repeatedly. EA then rang the seller, who answered phone and said they'd been urgently called away. We could actually see the seller in one of the upstairs bedrooms, taking the call on their phone.



Needless to say we didn't make an offer....

diggingdude

AdrianC wrote: »

Somebody stole a small rubber duck from the side of our bath on a viewing.

That is well out of order

diggingdude

The best one I had was when viewing last December. I turned up a little early from an earlier viewing with the same estate agent. The owner of property two was outside the house on the phone, not noticing me and talking about his pending bankruptcy and how any offer would be better than nothing. Sadly i didn't like the house as feel I would have had a strong negotiating position