Things that put you right off an house

[Cogcog]

As a serial but rather shallow viewer of houses on the net there are some features which put me right off looking further, some less obvious than others.

Let's start with bars in the house WTF? If I want a bar I'll pop to the pub. Chavvy beyond belief IMHO.

Conservatories with an opaque, corrugated, polycarbonmate roof. No amount of fancy blinds wil disguise the fact it is a plastic greenhouse.

And pool/snooker tables. Ok for an odd hour wuth your mates, but giving up a large room?

And today one had a 'baby lounge' which apparenmtly is where you feed and change the baby and keep all their stuff to prevent the rest of the house being cluttered. Ok in a 72 bed mansion with a nanny but this was in addition to the 'baby bedroom' and the 'nursery' in a 3 bed mid terrace in Mansfield.

I also click through swimming pools as an extrordinary expense (for a non swimmer)but I think that may just be me.

So what causes you to 'click through'.

[pano amo]

Bungalows. I fkin hate em with a passion. If you live one, thats your choice. I'd never ever buy one.

Any house that shouts new money is also out of bounds for me. One step away from a romanian gypsy palace imo.

Ultimately though its the road and indeed the area. I don't care how nice the house looks. If you are in the wrong side of town, your house is an oasis in a desert of st.

[russ_a]

Looking in Mansfield would put me off...

[joewilliams]

The bathroom being downstairs through the kitchen.

[Council Baby]

Cogcog said:

As a serial but rather shallow viewer of houses on the net there are some features which put me right off looking further, some less obvious than others.

Let's start with bars in the house WTF? If I want a bar I'll pop to the pub. Chavvy beyond belief IMHO.

Conservatories with an opaque, corrugated, polycarbonmate roof. No amount of fancy blinds wil disguise the fact it is a plastic greenhouse.

And pool/snooker tables. Ok for an odd hour wuth your mates, but giving up a large room?

And today one had a 'baby lounge' which apparenmtly is where you feed and change the baby and keep all their stuff to prevent the rest of the house being cluttered. Ok in a 72 bed mansion with a nanny but this was in addition to the 'baby bedroom' and the 'nursery' in a 3 bed mid terrace in Mansfield.

I also click through swimming pools as an extrordinary expense (for a non swimmer)but I think that may just be me.

So what causes you to 'click through'.

Hmmm I have a pool table and a table tennis table and did have a bar (hidden behind a false wall) in the last place, I have a seperate living room as well for relaxing... that said it's a batchelor pad and gets partied pretty hard - having the games area for people to congregate works quite well...

I might fit a bar in this one come to think of it, not a pub style one but one which disappears away into a large cupboard, there's never room in the fridge for the food as well as the drink so I'm not eating too well at the moment Oh, and this is in a 2 bedroom flat

[SeeFive]

any unbearable thing I would have to change asap. e.g., coloured bathroom suite, wallpaper, bumpy multi layer gloss paint, tiny skirting boards etc.

[Defcon5]

Must have adequate parking for me. The missus doesnt know it, but the only reason I bought my house is because I can park 4 cars on the drive and two on the road

[XDA]

Shared entrance/garden/driveway etc.

Anything that's shared ALWAYS ends up causing ball ache with your arsey neighbour.

I always avoid like the plague...

[Jonny_]

Just about anything at a sensible price level built in the last 20 years. Most modern houses for us commoners exhibit some or all of the following:

• Bugger all parking; room for 1 car if you're lucky
• Narrow streets to compound the above
• No garage; if there is one, it's built into the house and using up valuable indoor space
• Tiny little gardens
• "Open plan" front gardens - a few square feet of grass, no wall, no path, no fence, no flowerbeds, f**k-all
• Stud partition internal walls that feel as though they're made of matchsticks and rice paper
• At least one room per floor that is too small to be of any real practical use!

Of course, my spacious, all-brick-built 1920s semi with garage, shed, decent sized gardens and enough driveway for 5 or 6 cars has been a bloody nightmare from start to finish, needing 90 years worth of godawful bodgery correcting. Oh well. I suppose the biggest thing that would put me off a house would be my being able to afford it as anything that falls into this category is invariably utter and total toss!

[RobDickinson]

I once went to view a property on the Wirral that was the most hideous experience...

Walk up to the place, end 3 story very large terrace, good area too.

Old windows had been ripped out -5pts
New cheap white PVC windows chocked in and expanded foam all over the place -10pts
Door opens, woman breathes fag smoke straight in our faces -10pts
Shown into the front lounge, absolute tip, windows terrible, fireplace ripped out carpet stinks -5pts
Go upstairs, stairs almost fall down, can see daylight through many places you realy shouldnt, -10pts
Shower in second bedroom just stood there middle of nowhere? -5pts
3rd floor bedrooms like some 3rd world state, damp everywhere, a hole. -10pts
Garden, decent size but why is the gable end subsiding? -20pts
The Roof needs complety redoing - 10pts

Ok some things could have been put down to being a fixer uper (not priced like it tho!). Dont answer the door with a ciggie...

[oldbanger]

We once viewed a 5 bed extended semi with one bathroom, with the owner's family doing the viewing. The large and portly family were very overbearing, the interior decor hideous. The new build detatched home next door was built extremely close, was set mmuch further back and completely overlooked the postage stamp sized back garden. What really did it, though, was the parents telling us that they had built the house next door and were intending to move into it. If we hadn't been told that, we'd have considered it, as a fixer upper, as it was in our price range, in a semi rural location and walkable to the nearest station with trains into Birmingham where I was working at the time.

[Mobile Chicane]

uPVC windows / doors
Laminate flooring
Storage heaters / wall-mounted electric heaters
Living / dining / kitchen area in one

...ie. 99.99999% of new builds.

[steve_bmw]

the last owners
uPVC windows
no off road parking
location

[ShadownINja]

Cogcog said:

And pool/snooker tables. Ok for an odd hour wuth your mates, but giving up a large room?

And today one had a 'baby lounge' which apparenmtly is where you feed and change the baby and keep all their stuff to prevent the rest of the house being cluttered. Ok in a 72 bed mansion with a nanny but this was in addition to the 'baby bedroom' and the 'nursery' in a 3 bed mid terrace in Mansfield.

Yeah, good point. I mean, when they move out they normally leave the table there. And as for the baby lounge, I hope you have good parenting skills...

That's why when I put my previous house on the market, I converted my home gym back into the dining room that it was in case any idiots thought, "But I have gym membership, why do I need a gym at home; I'd like a dining room but this house doesn't have one..."

[Wacky Racer]

pano amo said:

Bungalows. I fkin hate em with a passion. If you live one, thats your choice. I'd never ever buy one.

Off topic but do you know why they are called Bungalows?


Because when the first one was being constructed the builder was running out of money so he said "Bung a low roof on it"

[ShadownINja]

Oh, I remember one house - they converted half the single garage into utility and shower room! "Yeah but you can store a motorbike in here." Slightly more tricky to remove a shower room.

[dudleybloke]

stupid L shaped living rooms where only 1 sofa can view the telly.

no upstairs toilet.

[doodles19]

joewilliams said:

The bathroom being downstairs through the kitchen.

Yeah its a right pain in my student gaff.

[Cogcog]

ShadownINja said:

Cogcog said:

And pool/snooker tables. Ok for an odd hour wuth your mates, but giving up a large room?

And today one had a 'baby lounge' which apparenmtly is where you feed and change the baby and keep all their stuff to prevent the rest of the house being cluttered. Ok in a 72 bed mansion with a nanny but this was in addition to the 'baby bedroom' and the 'nursery' in a 3 bed mid terrace in Mansfield.

Yeah, good point. I mean, when they move out they normally leave the table there. And as for the baby lounge, I hope you have good parenting skills...

That's why when I put my previous house on the market, I converted my home gym back into the dining room that it was in case any idiots thought, "But I have gym membership, why do I need a gym at home; I'd like a dining room but this house doesn't have one..."

I think anything that is idiosyncratic is so hit and miss it is bound to reduce your market. I saw a very nice period house in West Yorks which was fabulous but had languished on the market ( I think) for being what the agent call 'oppulent' (read 'like a tarts bedroom'). Every surface was in pink or gold or veined marble. Kids bedrooms also put me off altrhough consciously I know a gallon of emulsion will put paid to the Princess or foorball themes ( see very poor parenting skills again)/

[Kudos]

corner baths