What are your turn-offs when it comes to buying a house?

booksandbikes

There have been a few threads about this, but they are years old.... As I am house hunting, I'm spending loads of time on RM, but struggling to find many suitable properties. Possibly too fussy, but hey-ho...

So what puts you off a property? I'm not talking about big things like structural damage, roof falling in, etc etc, but things that you dislike but perhaps wouldn't bother others.

My list (most of which come from negative past experience):

 - front doors next to each other
 - open front gardens
 - common driveways (not necessarily shared, but where you and your neighbour have to park side by side)
 - large garden
 - being overlooked
 - shared anything
 - garage with no separate door to house/back garden
- terraced gardens
- no entrance hallway
- corner house
- no decent fences between neighbours (seen quite a few where just a wire fence separates back gardens!)
- steep driveway

Edited to add some obvious ones that I forgot:
- not a detached
- no garage
- no driveway (or parking space in front garden)

BonaDea

Large paved area in front
Astroturf anywhere
Front door opening straight into living areas
Kitchen appliances in sightline when in living room
No trees nearby
long thin garden
Being overlooked
Decking
South or west-facing bedrooms
Rooms without windows (including loos)
Leasehold houses
Estate management charges

jackieblack

Lack of off road parking 
Overlooked back garden 
Shared anything
Front door opening into reception room/no hallway
Stairs leading directly from living room 
Only bathroom downstairs 
No bathtub 
No gas
No mains drainage 
No garage
Paved area in front instead of garden 
Astroturf anywhere
No trees nearby
Long narrow back garden
Decking
Hot tub
Leasehold houses
Estate management charges

theoretica

Kitchen islands

Open plan

Polluted air

Jami74

When you have to walk through bedroom 2 to get to bedroom 3. Seen quite a few narrow Victorian houses like this, advertised as 3 bedrooms but realistically who wants someone wandering through their bedroom. Or when the bathroom is downstairs behind the kitchen.

Fake grass or all concrete gardens or no garden at all.

Teapot55

Most of the above

No bath, only a shower 
No downstairs toilet

No upstairs toilet 

Dark, sometimes windowless kitchen because of extension on back 
Kitchen sink doesn’t have a window above it 
Cooker other end of kitchen from sink 
No floorplan in Estate Agent details

RHemmings

I'm scared to read this thread because there are likely to be people listing things that would rule my house out for them

Maahes

No second toilet

No garden

Bedrooms too small to put a double bed and desk in

Not detached

Leasehold

Jemma01

Open plan (living room+kitchen=smelly house) 🤢

No front yard (window near a pathway)

No driveway (hate on street parking)

No guest toilet downstairs

No bath/shower room upstairs

Terrace

Leasehold

These are deal-breakers. Anything else, I can modify in the house.

Skiddaw1

Jami74 said:

When you have to walk through bedroom 2 to get to bedroom 3. Seen quite a few narrow Victorian houses like this, advertised as 3 bedrooms but realistically who wants someone wandering through their bedroom. Or when the bathroom is downstairs behind the kitchen.

Fake grass or all concrete gardens or no garden at all.

That's quite common in Victorian terraced houses. It's more accurately referred to in EA talk as 'two plus one'. One of my BF's owned a house like that. She actually found it was really useful when her son was young. Her mum could stay in the connected room when she was babysitting and later son could park his friends in there during sleep-overs.

I'm with you re astroturf and concrete.

One of my other pet hates is bi-fold doors. I can never see the point. Leaving aside the fact that there's generally only a few days per year when its warm enough to have them open, who wants a room-full of flies?

booksandbikes

Jami74 said:

When you have to walk through bedroom 2 to get to bedroom 3. Seen quite a few narrow Victorian houses like this, advertised as 3 bedrooms but realistically who wants someone wandering through their bedroom. Or when the bathroom is downstairs behind the kitchen.

I've seen a 2 bedroom bungalow where you have to go through the 2nd bedroom to get to the conservatory! Needless to say it hasn't sold, even though they keep reducing the price.