Asking questions before the viewing?

RoisinDubh_2

On my other thread people seem to think I've viewed too many properties and therefore am not a serious buyer. 

One of the reasons I've viewed places and not offered on many is that there have been dealbreakers which became obvious upon walking in. I try to gauge as much as I possibly can from the photos, but sometimes they're so altered that they give a totally false impression. One of my absolute must haves is natural light...I cannot tolerate a dark flat. I've been to a few places where the agent needed to turn the lights on during the day because it was so dark, which is a total 'no' for me! My question is, is it worth asking the agent to be honest with me about the light level? Because it's otherwise a waste of everyone's time if I go to see a place and it's dark. Doesn't matter how nice it is, I simply will not be happy in it so it's an automatic no. I've been worried that this will be seen as demanding so my attitude has been 'just go along and see it', but this is a big part of why I have viewed many....photos not giving a true impression and being artifically brightened.

Another thing is price...from what I understand, it's pretty normal at the moment for people to offer 20K or even more below asking as the market is so slow. With that in mind, I've set the Rightmove filter to 25K above my true maximum. I'm guessing it's not at all the done thing to ask if the vendor would take an offer before I'd even seen the property, but if I view a place at 320K, love it, offer 300K and vendor says no, then I've wasted my time and everyone else's. 

Would it be a better strategy to enquire much more about a property rather than agreeing to a viewing asap? 

nimbo

I think offers in many places are going over asking prices so by setting it 25k above your top cut off you are then Way over budget. Which may then be causing issues with ea’s seeing your agreement in principle. 

We’d all like an offer of 10k under to be accepted - but this does not seem to one common atm in many places and there are many threads on here of people having offered many thousands over asking price to still be declined. Not on all houses / flats but it’s something to be mindful of. 

Also what kind of % is 25k over? I’m in the north so that’s 20 ish% of my ideal budget. I can afford to go above that burn I don’t want to. 

nimbo

And with things like light (mine is steep stairs) it’s really subjective. And the people booking the viewings probably never leave the office and won’t have seen the address. The houses I’m looking at are selling in a day or two so I don’t have the luxury of waiting to hear back from hob who did the viewing yesterday as the ones I like have gone. 

RoisinDubh_2

I'm in London and I'm looking for a one-bed flat with (generally) no outside space. I think a lot of buyers are chancing it at the moment and I have not heard of anyone paying over asking price for this kind of property.

I'm willing to pay up to £300K and some of the ones I like are listed at £315K or £320K, so 5 or 6% below asking, which doesn't feel that huge?

RoisinDubh_2

RatInACage said:

For the light, it might be worth asking what direction the windows face so you know if it gets strong sun, morning sun, evening sun or no sun (same as many people do with gardens). Some colours will suck the light out, so if has a lot of grey or dark walls, it's going to feel darker.

I think your price strategy is fine if that's what properties are generally going for. The vendor's reaction is out of your control. The only thing you can do to improve your chance is making sure you have idea of what things are worth, so you're not offering under asking on a property that's already priced reasonably.

Yes, I just wasn't sure if this would be seen as overly demanding or weird. I would MUCH prefer to weed out properties that definitely won't suit so I don't waste my time. I can paint walls and decorate but if it's a north facing living room with tiny windows, nothing is really going to help. 

I find it hard to know what places are going for because there's so much variation. I've seen a place at 275K and then a worse off in the same area for 300K. Of course no agent is ever going to be honest, but talking to colleagues who have recently bought, nobody is going above asking price at all and plenty are going under.

[Deleted User]

I think it's tough when the estate agents dealing with it probably haven't seen the property to know and the biggest one, as has been said above, something like light is very very subjective. It's not an absolute such as 'it must have off road parking'. 

The suggestion above about direction of the windows might be beneficial. Or perhaps a question to agents such as 'can you suggest anything on your books in x budget that you think is particularly light'.

Are you seeing anything you like, even at the higher budget? 

I really do think it must be so hard in somewhere like London because the search area is so vast that I think it becomes hard to compare properties and where you draw the line on something being 'the best you will get'. We are Midlands based and I was always nervous with viewers of ours that said they were looking within a 30 mile radius because I knew it must be impossible not to just keep looking. Due to our circumstances, we had a very narrow list of what we needed, within 4 villages max and we knew the area and those properties well so we could gauge extremely quickly before viewing whether something could work and whether or not we were likely to get better.

In some ways it must become a bit like standing in duty free smelling lots of different perfumes - by number 20 you would have no idea what you liked or didn't like and they all start to blur in to one! (Pardon the analogy!)

Irishpearce26

Ok so if you want as much natural light as possible don't buy a flat. generally they have smaller windows than houses and if your in London also have other high raise buildings restricting natural light.

Your generalisation of the norm in offering £20k under is wrong in fact its the opposite most properties are going way over the asking which ok may be down to the SDLT holiday but will take time (IMHO) to balance out.

RoisinDubh_2

I live in a flat now with loads of natural light, my last flat had loads of natural light and so has everywhere I've ever lived. There is absolutely no reason a flat wouldn't have lots of light...high rise buildings....in London? It's not like New York. Zone 3+ is just surburban roads like anywhere else, with period houses split into flats or low rise blocks. High rise flats tend to have better light than anywhere precisely because there's nothing overlooking them, but I don't like them personally. I think the light thing is far more to do with orientation than anything else. 

Most properties going over the asking are not one bed flats in London with no outside space, from what I know. 

RoisinDubh_2

Also, I've now seen many instances of flats being marketed as just added on Rightmove when I know I've seen them before, weeks ago. This is not an indication of a sellers market to me. 

musehead

You can do quite a lot of research online which you can use to rule out a lot of flats before viewing. It's usually possible to determine the street address, so you can look on a map to see which direction the windows face. You can compare with the floorplan, use Google Streetview and Google Maps (the 3D view can be particularly useful), check the size of windows, nearby trees etc to see how light it's likely to be. Check the archive photos of the property on Streetview too - many streets have up to 10 captures going back to 2008. You can then see photos of the street/property at different times of day.

Use Zoopla and Rightmove to potentially see archive photos from previous listings. The house I'm currently interested in buying has three archive listings with different photos from 2013, 2018 and 2020 (on Zoopla). Taken at different times of year, different times of day, with different furniture etc.

I do a good 30-60 minutes of research online before deciding to view a property, I probably end up ruling out 80% of potential houses. I also check neighbouring houses, sometimes download the title deeds, and look at recent sold prices on the same road/nearby area, because I won't bother viewing if it seems vastly overpriced.

Seems reasonable about the price. London flats are not shifting quickly and are probably going under asking price quite often.

Irishpearce26

I would ask if the vendor will be present during the viewing.