A number of people we know have their house up for sale at the moment. The market seems to be pretty sluggish which makes for a certain amount of anxiety in the sellers. An issue which doesn’t help are casual buyers who might be genuine, but they don’t seem to make much effort to find out what they are viewing before they arrange to be shown round.
For example.
- Finding out that the house isn’t where they thought it was because they haven’t checked the location properly in spite of online maps and Google Street View.
- Not near enough to schools or in one case, prospective buyers thought the house was in the next town.
- Not realising that the house is on a hill, even though the road name includes the word “Hill” as a clue.
- Not realising that the house is on a main road – maps, Street View and location again.
Of course people don’t take to a house for all kinds of reasons and may not care to tell the vendors what those reasons are. Yet some purported buyers are remarkably casual, they make little effort beforehand.
Or maybe they are just nosey.
13 comments:
It's probably just a hobby for some people. It used to be that I could now expiate on the superiority of the Scottish system but whether it has survived years of marxist socialist government followed by years of nationalist socialist government I don't know. But, by golly, it was far, far better.
To be fair, the road next to us is called ‘x Hill’ even though it is completely level, as is the immediate surrounding area.
It’s an interesting point, though; perhaps some people are so unaccustomed to thinking for themselves that they simply don’t bother with research (or maybe computer literacy is not as ubiquitous as one might think).
Alternatively, they might not want to give the real reason to the agent - recent experience with our young suggests the widespread use of extreme wide-angled lenses and camera angles - and now AI enhancement - to make even the pokiest of box rooms and corridors look spacious or disguise intrusive eyesores in the vicinity but it hardly seems helpful (or polite) to say so.
dearieme - Mrs H and I were discussing the Scottish system a few days ago. I don't know if it has changed from the days when it was held up as much superior to England, but it still seems more formal and more secure for buyers and sellers.
Macheath - yes there may be a reluctance to say the property is not as the estate agent presented it, although reasonably experienced buyers will know that. From what we see, AI enhancement is certainly used, but Street View and satellite images do give a good idea of location.
Maybe it's as you suggest, computer literacy is not as ubiquitous as one might think.
More certain and infinitely quicker. Mind you it was only when we bought a house in England that we realised that the problem was not just in the laws of the land - habit seemed to play a role. English solicitors did seem dilatory and unbusinesslike compared to the Scots.
dearieme - in the seventies we used an extremely dilatory and unbusinesslike solicitor. We had to chivvy them all the time - never used them again.
The main thing I have noticed with Estate Agents is that they have a special camera app. It does not matter what the weather is doing when they take the house photos they always end up with bright sunshine beaming through the windows.
John - yes, at times on a dark street under grey skies and drizzle they must be tempted to push it a little to far. These days they could probably add a digital vase of flowers on a sunny windowsill.
Re sunny windowsill; why stop at that when you can digitally paint the whole room yellow?
The Urchin has just bought a house with a ‘games room’ shown on the details as a gleaming pristine space with bright yellow walls and brilliant white fitted cupboards. The reality, on viewing, was a badly whitewashed former garage with some mismatched kitchen units and a vast amount of random clutter.
Fortunately the Urchin is a) a pragmatist b) not afraid of hard work and c) in need of a workshop, not a games room, but I wonder how many prospective sales that lost?
Macheath - good grief, I'd expect that to lose most prospective sales as a buyer beware warning.
Although I'd far rather have a workshop than a games room!
When we were house-hunting forty-odd years ago one house owner wouldn't open his garage for us to have a look. We assume he ran a criminal enterprise.
Another houseowner did open her garage which turned out to contain the Library of Alexandria - we'd never seen such a huge mountain of books.
dearieme - the first garage sounds interesting, could have been criminal, something embarrassing or a valuable collection he didn't want anyone to know about - or just an embarrassing collection. The second would have to be much less dusty than ours.
Late to the party, sorry, I've been away (yes, Tuscany was wonderful, thanks for asking)...
I am sorry to say that the formerly excellent Scottish system of house purchase has been completely spoiled. Somehow the Estate Agency "business" managed to insert its evil claws into it - charging huge fees and adding no value whatsoever, - and now it's much the same as England. One constantly sees "Sold STCM" which means "subject to the completion of missives", which in turn means not sold at all, waiting for the Estate Agents to get out of the way and let the solicitors do their stuff. Gazumping - formerly impossible - is rife, chains abound. It's all gone to pot, and I don't know how or why this was allowed to happen; I expect money is at the root of it, as usual. Feh.
Peter - welcome back and thanks for the info, it sounds as if money is at the root of it and Estate Agents inserted themselves into a good system, made it worse and made more money doing do.
One reflection, that's not wildly different to what bureaucracies do all the time.
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