What shocked me the most was the build quality of new houses. At one semi we looked at you could hear next door holding a normal conversation.

I only have a couple of requirements.

Must have large enough lounge to take £10k worth of home cinema and be sound proofed or have no neighbours. :)

Must have garage plus off the road parking for at least two more cars. :)

Lee

[Edited by logiclee - 7/4/2002 7:09:10 AM]

unlike my wife I was very interested in the property and went back several times to have further viewings (but don't tell the wife), in the end I decided the price was too high, (it would have cost my marriage) :-)

[Edited by plug - 7/5/2002 2:38:01 PM]

House Hunting??

In the 80's we looked at a house which was owned by a Citreon Car Enthusiast - it had a battery bubbling away in the porch and it had eaten away the carpet and was smelling rather interesting - it had a gearbox on the kitchen worktop with oil all over - an engine was in bits on the lounge floor - a dog had eaten the sofa - the extension was built DIY and rocked away from the house when you walked in - the 'shower' consisted of a copper pipe with a Watering Can Rose araldited on the end!!!!!!!!!! I kid you not!!

Now I am looking again and went to see a house the other night which was so cluttered up that you could hardly move around!! and they want £325,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! price bears little resemblence to what you can expect it appears.

Have you any horror house viewings to comment on??

What do you look for in a viewing?? would a dog around put you off?? how about a rat in a bedroom??

What would clinch a house for you? - clean? - garden? - kitchen? - room for growth? - the owners?

I have a brilliant tale regarding the sale of our neighbours house about 5 years ago - but will keep that for later :D

Pete

Pete
As a consultant in this field...Ive seen it all!!!The best ones are the "cover ups"... They can be so stupid and wouldnt fool a child. Some of them are done by "Pros" and always the Surveyors never spot them ( but they are Krap anyway)

About five years ago when we were looking, we went to see this bungalow which sounded fairly nice.
We got in, and had a look around. Wasn't quite as big as it looked on the outside. Lounge was a bit dark. But there was this musky smell pervading, which i couldn't immediately recognise.

Then, after a while, the owner announces that her dogs want to come in, as they've been outside for long enough. Not even asking us if it was ok, and my then girlfriend was petrified of dogs. So in they come, straight upstairs to where we were.

And they went everywhere. On the beds, in the bathroom and into the bath, everywhere. There was dog hair everywhere, matted into the carpet, with paw marks on absolutely everything.

They couldn't see it, as they were such dog lovers, but for a couple one of whom was scared stiff of them, and myself who's alergic to them, we couldn't get out fast enough. Opened my eyes as to how some people live...

Interesting, Luke, my mate bought a house with a nice understairs cupboard.

Imagine his horror when he moved in and found it was made up of Cornflakes Boxes!!!!!! :eek:

So? Luke, as an expert what would you advise me to do before putting ours on the market?? we are getting rid of clutter, giving a quick coat of neutral paint here and there, glossing the window frames, sorted the garden, put up hanging baskets (for colour), washing the carpets, - Am I wasting my time or will it come back in a quick sale??

Pete

Pete
My main fields is "Fraud". To me the most important thing is what you/buyer wants to do to the house.

If its going to be a "rip out and start again job" then The basic structure is important.

If its a "Bit of this /bit of that" then sevices are important. Check the electrics and plumbing.Work out if it is sufficeint for you.Have the heating on when selling.Its a good sign. Demo/test all toilets showers etc..Look at lighting and cables. If the fuseboard is modern the cables should also be in good condition. Check that the "New" wires from the Board dont just go up to the ceiling and then join on to old rotton stuff under floor boards etc. (OLd trick looks good!!)

If selling remove as much furniture as possible.Nice neutral colours are always safe.

Fresh paint can be a bad sign.....This always gets the alarm bells ringing.
Cleaning carpets is always a good sign. Even if the new buyers will throw them away it makes the house look better.

Wouldnt spend money on Bathroom/kitchen.

My best advice is.... If you are buying forget the surveyor.... They tell you nothing. Get a builder you trust to spend a few hours in the house.

If your selling. Clean the house. Get rid of the clutter.Remove signs of animals. Pay your neighbours to tidy garden and keep quiet!!!


If you do paint... Make it look like you did it last year....
Nothing should lok too new.


Luke

Thanks Luke

Pete

sold our house easy peasy by making sure there were NO sign of kids, NO sign of dogs, No clutter and nice netural decoration (ie. got rid of the family photos on the wall and swapped with pics of daisys! )

even dumped the lazyboy at my parents to make the lounge look bigger!

sold easy.

Tiggs

ps- viewing houses.... went to one were the teenage kid had 2986 posters of jordan on the wall t1ts all over the show, went to another where the 14 yr old son was in bed at 4pm- not ill! just kippin in a room like a tip! some ppl dont deserve to sell!

Id have bought it for the posters.....

*slurp*

Pete

You pays your money and you takes your choice. I am shocked that a man of your financial standing is looking at such low priced property. Personally I find anything <£1M sub-standard :D:D:D

TONY

Not 100% related, but

Lost the plot once looking at a house, in the kitchen my wife pointed at the central heating, this happened to have the sellers wife (she was no looker) stood just in front of it, so my wife goes

"How old is your boiler?"

I then fall to bits, and have to take an interest in the garden all of a sudden

Tony - I buy what I want, if that is £350k - then thats what I want - why should I take out a £220k mortgage which I suppose I could - and buy a house at £500k if there isnt one that I want?? :rolleyes: I dont know, you dont HAVE to spend what you CAN you know??????

Now, my teenager has a room with a Gothic theme - its ALL VERY dark blue with Gold stars and moons all over the wall - its also a large room but looks TINY :( should I decorate it while shes at school??? ;) or make it a 'Feature'??

Pete

LOL Pete :D

TONY

Not related to buying a house but when looking for a childminder for our 2 year old daughter, went into this house, looked OK from teh outside, walked into the hall, paper had been stripped from the walls, bare floor boards with holes that you could see into the floor space, then went into the living room and there was a cosy coal fire unguarded with a really freindly labrador. While talking about the usual do you believe in corporal punishment etc. looking around and noticed the sofa was real brown leather in that good old cracked and chewed by the dog urine smelling style. Also noticed more bare floorboards but with a rug for that homely effect and also the building site style construction of a new starcase in a corner of the living room.
We politely made our excuses and left.
Just when we thought it was safe to sit in our own home and relax my wife spotted a little black thing moving on our daughters forehead, unfortunately we had acquired some of the labradors little friends.

And somehow they had got a licence to look after children.

We viewed a house once in Hindhead, and heard the most amazing bit of estate agent's spin ever. The house had tall trees all around the garden, and whilst lovely this stopped much light getting through. The windows were also small.

When standing in the lounge, we commented on how dark it was - to which the agent replied "Ah, yes - but that's mainly down to the decoration".

The walls were painted white. :o ;) :D

Pete your NOT moving away from the area are you ????????????, Zena will miss the chats with Leslie.

Jon

We saw a few!

One house we went around the owners said "sorry, you can't go in that room, my brothers asleep" :confused::rolleyes:

One house looked quite nice until we went in the garden and there was abotu 6ftX3ft of mould up the back wall! :eek: Even more suprised that my other half didn't notice...all the fences in the garden had fallen down as well...

There was another nice one - it was full of snakes spiders and scorpians in tanks - that's fine if you like them but I was terrified! :( ...they'd also tryed to "do a groundforce" and had the entire garden covered in shingle and a muddy pool in the middle which was meant to be a pond

Needless to say we didn't buy any of the above!!

Interesting comment about your daughters bedroom though - the one we did buy had the smaller bedroom (only 2 bed) decorated dark blue with glow in the dark spacemen, moons and stars all around it! That and the spiral staircase (oh, and the fact the owner was cool and was building his own kit car in the garage!) sold it for me :D:cool:

Jen

Pete if you are 72, you'll be lucky to get a £220k mortgage :p

We've been looking for a holiday/retirement home in France for ages.
Every year, while on holiday we look at a few. Unfortunately, they're in a tourist type area and priced accordingly.
When we've told the agents our budget, and that we're looking for something to do up, but MUST be habitable. We then go to look and find the property has no toilet!
When we ask the agent how it's habitable w/o a crapper, he says "Well, it's got a garden hasn't it?" LOL

The house next door to mine USED to have the most incredible family in it, absolute pheasants! They moved out a few weeks ago and a really nice young couple have bought it. I got chatting with them and they said come and look at the house, so in I went... oh my God! They had been living in total squalor (sp?). Filthy, absolutely filthy with, get this, bolts and locks on the outside of the kids bedroom and the downstairs cupboards - makes you wonder doesn't it? The kitchen was inch deep in grease and grime and as to the loo, don't go there!

Whilst at school many moons ago, as part of "work experience" I spent a couple of weeks with a firm of local surveyors. Accompanied the surveyors on various residential and industrial surveys, which for the most part was pretty good fun (anything beats school :))

My "offical" duties ;) included holding the other end of the tape measure, and sticking the damp tester in various walls :rolleyes::)

Funny part was the lonely housewifes who were only too pleased by a visit from a couple of well dressed young men :D Not so funny part was discovering some suspicious damp patches in the upstairs bedroom of a house. It was the kids bedroom (both about 7-9 years old) - we discovered that they had been peeing on the wall :( And over such a period of time that damp rot had set in (and this was an interior partition wall). Gross....

Jon - no, staying in the area so Zana and Les can still gossip!! ;)

And I need to stay near the Atomic Base, can't afford to run the Scooby to work as well as on pleasure!! :D

Of course you can get a £220k mortgage at 72 - my pension is £78,000 a year, so whats the problem?? when I die there is enough to clear the debt - or they can have the house and give the estate the change - either way they get their money and thats all they care about!!

Pete

Once went to view a house where the owner was a cat lover. She had 20+ cats running round the house. The all used litter trays, but the smell of cats piss and crap was completely overpowering. We left after about 10 seconds and mentioned it to the estate agent. He said he had pointed it out to her so she said she would empty the trays every couple of days instead of when they were full

No one can be bothered tidying up in Edinburgh - they sell it as is.

One we bid on last week had a vets surgery in the front room, complete with operating table :eek: instruments and drills etc!

Do mind the dog sh1t (in the garden) he said - my mothers dog is somewhat incontinent. Oh and they hacked out the victorian fireplaces and had put in blown fibreglass stone effect stuff, which was far more shocking than the operating table.
Still went for 110k over valuation. Cnuts. I hope the folks that bought it are haunted by the eerie howling of ghost dogs, and the sqeaking of ghost guinea pigs :D

fast bloke, excellent ! LOL

on similar vain to father_jack we went to see a house that was like a proverbial rabbit warren inside, lots of rooms leading of others, anyway, in one of the downstairs rooms was a massage table complete with fresh clean towels on shelves as well as oils and scents in bottles on teh numerous shelves.

OK we thought the lady is a masseur(if that's how you spell it) nothing wrong with that.

We went on up stairs and this is a general list of what you would find in each of the 4 bedrooms, couches, TVs, videos, towels, oils, some had disco lighting.
I couldn't actually tell where people would sleep.
But I am sure that it was very clean and every visitor got a free shower, clean towel and executive VIP treatment.

LOL Plug - was it sold as a going concern? :D

Visited one with the front door at the side, no gate to the back garden, just walk through.

Rang on the doorbell at the appointed hour, no answer. Looked in the back garden to find him and her vaguely looking in my direction. Said I'd come to look at the house. "Yeah, sure, go ahead, whatever." They continued to float around the garden.

Looked around the house, pretty squalid as those above. Almost fell over a guest who I hadn't noticed was watching TV from a beanbag. I think of him as Floyd from True Romance (one of Brad Pitt's finer acting moments!). It was sold as a 3-bed house - it had been 2-bed, but one of the rooms had a partition wall put in, making one of the bedrooms 5 feet wide. Another had mirrors, candles, black cloth, dark wallpaper and lots of funny looking cigarettes.

Didn't buy that one. I bought the one with a 50x20ft garden, south-facing, with 8x30ft-plus trees in it, two of them 10ft from the back of the house :eek: - untrimmed leylandii. A week later there was one pretty willow left at the back of the garden and I had the biggest garden in the street, and the neighbour had sun on his lawn for the first time in 10 years. The Victorian 2-bed terraced house had nasty pine cladding all over the walls and ceilings, a bright orange 1972 kitchen (bright orange doors, worktop, psycho splashback tiles…), and an avocado bathroom. It was so comical, or outrageous, I videoed it when I moved in. My friends, and at times I, thought I was mad. 18 months later I was really upset to sell it, it was transformed, and I made 15k profit - should have been 25k but last Sept there was a dip in the market and that's when I sold. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Now looking for a place in Lisbon, thank heavens there is a real financial crisis here as stuff is stupidly overpriced ATM - going down in the last 6 mths though, and looks like it will continue to do so.

BJH

Christ Pete,
If your 72 and you 've got a teenage son that means you were still at it when you were 53. Thats means I've at least 14 left in me then.

Chip.

chip, is that 14 years or do you mean 14 in total, I hope you pace yourself.