Talking Property

It pays to pry before you buy, says ISABEL MORTON

PROPERTY MANTRAS abound: “location, location, location”; “the day you buy is the day you sell”; and “buy the worst house on the best street, rather than the best house on the worst street”. In most cases they are correct and act as a reminder to us all, when buying property, to give due consideration to all aspects of the purchase.

But there are exceptions to every rule and these well-known sayings concern themselves with buying property purely as a financial investment rather than as a place in which you will live.

And while most will automatically aim to buy the best property in the best area they can afford, many homeowners will admit they made the largest single purchase of their lives allowing their heart rule their head.

They will recount stories of how they “fell in love” with a property the moment they stepped across the threshold or how they just knew a property was “the right one” as soon as they set eyes on it.

Last week, I was reminded of these property mantras when, unable to arrange a viewing of a property on behalf of a client living abroad, I decided I would instead familiarise myself with the surrounding roads and the immediate area.

My mini-survey included parking outside the house for sale and observing the on-street activity, and chatting with neighbours, passersby and people in local shops.

As I gathered all sorts of interesting information, it struck me that, regardless of the internet and all it has to offer, including aerial views and streetscapes via Google Maps and similar sites, there is nothing to beat local knowledge, gossip and a thorough on-the-spot snoop.

Few prospective purchasers, however, give much thought to checking out the immediate and surrounding areas before they buy. They might go through their mortgage offer in detail, may even investigate local planning applications and are probably encyclopaedic in their knowledge of local property prices but unless they do a little groundwork and ask the correct questions they are unlikely to get a full picture of an area until it’s too late.

Knocking on doors, for example, told me a lot about how safe people felt in their homes, as one man shouted at me through his firmly closed door and another took ages with keys and locks before she opened her door a crack. I would have understood it a bit more if I were a man calling to their doors late at night but was surprised at this reaction on a bright Saturday afternoon.

Calling at doors also quickly informed me of the number of neighbouring houses which had been split into multiple units, as I negotiated overgrown front gardens and noted the array of doorbells and general air of neglect.

Chatting with people in a nearby corner store, an elderly woman complained about customers from the local pub who were prone to using one front garden to relieve themselves as they made their way home. Another told me how transient the neighbourhood was: he said he could hardly keep up with the changing tenants in the house where he rented his bedsit.

There was talk of a “party house” occupied by squatters but, as it was nowhere near the property for sale, it didn’t concern me much.

I was also told, however, of issues more relevant to potential buyers, such as a terrace of houses which had serious subsidence problems, and a stretch of the road which is prone to flooding. It was vital information for anyone buying one of these properties but was unlikely to pop up on the internet and will never be highlighted in sales brochures.

Nearby shops and restaurants also told their own story, about how the area was feeling the effects of the recession, or perhaps had been bypassed by the boom.

As a result of those heady days, when so much money was lavished on properties everywhere, regardless of whether they could make a return on the vast amounts invested, magnificent homes are coming on to the sales market isolated like gilded castles in the middle of a desert: lovely to live in, perhaps, as long as you never venture outside your front door.

By the time I had completed my research, I was almost relieved I hadn’t been able to view inside the property for sale as, most likely, I would have marched in and been bowled over by its magnificent interior and perhaps not given half enough consideration to its location and environs.

Later, as I e-mailed the report on my findings, I worried that I might be considered a “property snob” but decided there was far too much money at stake to be anything else.

I’d advise everyone else to be equally pernickety as, after all, there is a reason why those property mantras keep ringing in our ears.

Isabel Morton is a property consultant