What should I check when viewing a property?
What to look for beyond the decoration, and the questions that reveal what the photographs do not.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 45 min
- Read
- 2 min
Short answer
Look at the things that cost money to fix rather than the things that are easy to change — damp, the roof, the windows, water pressure and where the sun falls. Decoration is cheap; damp is not.
Viewings are short and designed to show a property well. Having a specific list turns twenty minutes of being shown round into twenty minutes of finding out what you actually need to know.
Step by step
- Look for damp deliberately.Behind furniture, in corners, around windows, in built-in cupboards, and low on external walls. A musty smell, fresh paint on one patch, or furniture pushed against a wall all deserve a closer look.
- Check the windows and their frames.Open a few — do they work? Condensation between the panes means failed units. Rotten frames or single glazing throughout is a significant future cost.
- Run the taps and flush the toilet.Water pressure, how long the hot water takes, whether the toilet refills. Nobody minds and it tells you something the photographs cannot.
- Look at the boiler and ask its age.Check when it was last serviced and ask for the gas safety record. Replacement is expensive and it is a reasonable thing to ask about.
- Look up outside.The roofline, gutters, any sagging, vegetation growing out of gutters, and the state of the pointing. From the ground with the naked eye you can see a lot.
- Note which way it faces and where the sun falls.It affects how the rooms feel every day and it cannot be changed. Ask which rooms get sun and when.
- Check the storage, the sockets and the mobile signal.Small practical things that shape daily life. Count the sockets in the rooms you will use most, and check your phone works.
- Go back at a different time.Evening and a weekend. Traffic, noise, parking and the neighbourhood are all different, and viewings are rarely arranged when a property is at its worst.
Tips
- Ask why they are selling or why the last tenant left. The answer, and the way it is given, is often informative.
- Take photographs and notes. After three viewings properties blur together and you will not remember which had the damp patch.
- A survey is not optional for a purchase. Nothing you spot on a viewing replaces one, and the cost is trivial against the purchase.
Questions people ask
What should I look for when viewing a house?
Things that are expensive to fix — damp, the roof, windows, the boiler, water pressure — rather than decoration, which is cheap to change.
Is it rude to open cupboards and run taps?
No, and it is expected. Anyone who objects to you checking the water pressure or looking in a cupboard is telling you something.