House Viewing Checklist: What to Check, What to Ask

A house viewing is twenty minutes to judge the largest purchase most people ever make. This house viewing checklist covers what to bring, what to look at room by room, what to ask before you leave, and what a second viewing is for. Work through it with the listing open, and search available properties to book a viewing across East Anglia.

What should you do before the house viewing?

Fifteen minutes of preparation changes what you notice when you are there.

• Check what similar properties on the street actually sold for on HM Land Registry sold prices. Asking prices tell you what sellers hope for. Sold prices tell you what buyers paid.
• Look up the property’s rating with find an Energy Performance Certificate. The certificate names the wall type, the glazing, the heating and the recommended improvements, which is a condition summary written before you arrive.
• Run the postcode through check the long-term flood risk.
• Look at the area on Police.uk rather than relying on impressions.
• Get a mortgage in principle. It costs nothing, and it decides whether a seller takes your offer seriously.
• Visit the street at a different time of day from your viewing slot. A road that is quiet at eleven on a Tuesday can be a different place at half past eight.

Choosing the right area in the first place is a separate job, and it is covered in choosing where to buy and, for families, top primary schools in Cambridge.

What should you bring to a house viewing?

• A tape measure. Floorplans round, and your sofa does not.
• Your must-haves and your deal-breakers, written down. You will forget one of them otherwise.
• Your mortgage in principle or proof of funds.
• Your phone, for photographs or a video walk-through, with the seller’s permission asked first.
• A torch, for the loft, the cellar and the back of the boiler cupboard.
• Someone else. A second pair of eyes sees what you miss when you are imagining your furniture in a room.

What should you check inside the property?

Damp, movement and the things that cost real money

• Damp. Look at the bottom of external walls, behind furniture, inside built-in cupboards and around window reveals. Tide marks, blown plaster, peeling paint and a musty smell are all signals. A freshly painted patch on one wall in an otherwise tired room is worth asking about.
• Cracks. Hairline cracking in plaster is normal. Diagonal cracks wider than a pound coin’s thickness, cracks running through brickwork, or doors and windows that no longer close squarely, are worth a survey.
• Ceilings, for staining that indicates a leak above.
• Windows. Misted double glazing means failed units, and replacing a houseful is a significant cost.
• The boiler. Ask its age, when it was last serviced, and whether the service record exists. Ask the same about the electrical installation.

Space, light and layout

• Storage. Count it. Lofts, cupboards, under-stairs, outbuildings. It is the thing buyers most often discover they do not have.
• Natural light, and which way the main rooms face.
• Room proportions against your own furniture, which is what the tape measure is for.
• Whether the layout works for how you live, rather than how the room is staged.
• Water pressure. Run a tap.
• Mobile signal, tested in the rooms you would actually use it in. Coverage varies street by street across rural East Anglia, and a bar in the kitchen does not mean a bar upstairs. Ask what broadband speed the seller gets.

What should you check outside?

• The roof, from the pavement and from the garden. Slipped, cracked or missing tiles, sagging ridge lines, and the state of the flashing around chimneys.
• Gutters and downpipes, and the wall below them. A stained strip of brickwork means water has been running down it.
• The garden’s orientation, because it decides when it gets sun.
• Boundaries, and who owns which fence. Ask, and check it is in the paperwork.
• Large trees close to the building, particularly on clay soil.
• Parking, and whether it is yours, shared or on-street.
• Any shared access, driveway or side passage, which is a common source of later disputes.

What questions should you ask the agent or seller?

Ask these out loud, at the viewing, while the answers are easy to give.

1. Why is the property being sold, and how long has it been on the market? This is the single most useful question a buyer can ask. A seller who has already found somewhere and needs to move by a date, and a property that has sat unsold for five months, are two very different negotiating positions.
2. Is the seller in a chain, and how long is it?
3. What is included in the sale? Carpets, curtains, white goods, garden structures. Get it in writing later, but ask now.
4. Have there been extensions or structural alterations, and does the planning permission and building regulations paperwork exist?
5. Is it freehold or leasehold? If leasehold, how many years remain, and what are the ground rent and service charges?
6. What are the running costs? Council tax band, heating type, and whether the property is on mains gas and mains drainage, which is not a given in rural East Anglia.
7. Has the property been surveyed recently, or has a previous sale fallen through? If so, why?
8. What is happening nearby? Planned developments, road schemes and live planning applications are all a matter of public record.

What is a second viewing for?

The first house viewing decides whether you are interested. The second decides whether you offer, and it is a different exercise.

• Go at a different time of day, and if you can, in different weather.
• Take longer in fewer rooms. Open cupboards, look under sinks, go into the loft.
• Bring anyone who will live there and has not seen it.
• Walk the street and the surrounding roads rather than driving straight off.
• Ask the questions you thought of afterwards the first time.

Nothing you see at a house viewing replaces a survey. A viewing tells you whether to offer. A survey by a chartered surveyor regulated by RICS tells you what you are buying, and it happens after your offer is accepted. The wider process is set out in the GOV.UK guide to buying and selling a home.

What should you do after the house viewing?

9. Write your notes down the same day, before three properties merge into one memory.
10. Compare what you saw against the sold prices you looked up beforehand.
11. Decide your maximum before you make an offer, and decide it away from the house.
12. Make the offer through the agent, with your mortgage in principle or proof of funds ready.
13. Expect to negotiate, and expect the survey to raise something.

What happens between an accepted offer and the keys is covered in the step-by-step guide to buying, the tax in stamp duty in East Anglia, and the last part in moving day. If you want the shorter version of this page before a first viewing, there is a short viewing primer.

Viewing a property in East Anglia

Morris Armitage arranges viewings across Newmarket, Cambridge, Burwell and Downham Market, and the agent who shows you round is based in the town. That matters for the questions a portal cannot answer: which roads are quiet, which developments carry restrictive covenants, and what is coming up nearby. Local guides are in living in Burwell and detached houses in Newmarket, and the branches are at Newmarket, Cambridge, Burwell and Downham Market. We are a member of The Property Ombudsman.

If you are selling as well as buying, start with a book a valuation and see selling your home and what your property is worth.

Found something worth a closer look? Contact Morris Armitage and we will arrange the viewing.