Did you wish you'd had more property research before making your offer?

Claire_1122

When I was buying my first home, I spent hours Googling the postcode, checking flood maps, looking up sold prices, reading about the area — basically trying to find anything that might give me a nasty surprise later. It was exhausting and I still wasn't sure I'd covered everything.

My solicitor's pack eventually answered a lot of those questions — but by then I'd already committed, paid fees, and it would have been painful to pull out.

I'm exploring whether a simple pre-offer research brief (pulling together public data like flood risk, EPC ratings, planning history, sold prices, local area info) would have helped. Not to make the decision for you — that's always personal — but just to feel more informed before committing.

Would love to hear from others: what's the one thing you wish you'd known about a property before making your offer? And did you find it easy or hard to find that information yourself?

Slinky

I wish I knew the property had been burgled. The vendors were economical with the truth on the paperwork and I found out to my cost when I got burgled twice in the space of 4 weeks in the first year. I'd still have bought the property but I'd have put an alarm on it before moving in.

Tabieth

I found all the information I wanted before hand quite easily. I’m not sure how helpful your proposed brief would have been. To me location was the biggest factor so I’d already done a fair bit of research there. Checking flood risk of the street was very important to me but that was a 2-minute google. I viewed the house and didn’t see any major faults, my brother and a full survey confirmed this. I’d already sussed out the so,d prices in the area and so when I found my house I already had an idea of value. And EPC is easily findable online and via the EA.

Jemma01

*Before making an offer"... Whether there are problems with the neighbours (esp those who smoke the stinky thing) as it's difficult to find that out yourself or trust the seller to be truthful if there's no formal record. I get that bad neighbours can move in anytime, I'm just not prepared to deal with it, I'd rather buy my peace from day one and deal with movers afterwards.

Also like @slinky said, burglary reports, they're difficult to find on a specific property and the postcode services tend to be by month and limited in historical data.

kipsterno1

Is this research you are after to scope a business proposal? If it is I feel you should make that clearer.

RelievedSheff

Most of the stuff you are "offering" there is freely available on the internet. People can find that information for themselves very quickly and for free if they want to or feel the need to.

Bigphil1474

The house we bought was in an area I knew from being a kid, a bit like coming home. I felt like I knew enough and just needed the right house. Our house is lovely, but there is a public park not far from us and I didn't know that Travellers rock up and camp there, maybe 3 or 4 times a year, for a few days before being moved on. Nothing against them as such, but they do leave the place in a state, and we did have some parcels pinched from behind our wheelie bin the last time they were around - could be pure coincidence of course. Fortunately, the council are putting up barriers to prevent illegal camping. Last time they were there, it took a week to clean the site up.

RelievedSheff

I wish we had know how filthy a state the house we bought was going to be left in.

It looked immaculately clean and smelled fresh thanks to many scented candles and reed diffusers on the two times we viewed it. So it was quite the shock when we opened the front door on completion day to be greeted by the overwhelming stench of dogs, a filthy kitchen and a multitude of jobs that had just been left for example the downstairs loo that didn't flush, the tap with a tiny trickle of water thanks to a clogged filter, the totally blocked back inlet gully, the dishwasher that was so filthy I wouldn't even put the rancid cooker hood filters in it and many more!!

But no amount of searches would have flagged that up.

At least we refound our sense of humour and can laugh about it again now 😀

Herzlos

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81963441#Comment_81963441

There's still some value in providing it in an easy to access format, assuming it's priced appropriately.
I wouldn't pay for it unless it was super cheap, but I can see some people wanting to not have to worry about it.

What would kill the business proposal would be any kind of liability on the information, and what happens if your checks fail to disclose something or pass on incorrect information.

lfc321

It sounds a bit like the Home Information Packs that were briefly a thing a few years ago? If I recall correctly, they were abolished because buyers' solicitors wouldn't rely on them, so repeated all the searches etc anyway.

theartfullodger

Nah. Viewed one property (2 bed terrace house scottish highlands) just by driving by it. Had seen advert for auction sale (repo) in estate agent's window. No other research at all. Views of sea lochs and munros.

Drove to glasgow to auction. Came to that lot. Stuck hand up. One other bidder. Who then dropped out. Hammer down within 3 minutes Owned for 20+ years, rented out for a few years, then sold. Worked out OK but (apologies..) I knew it was a gamble and had enough funds to cope.

As Proudhon said, "Property is theft"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon