Two couples, same street, same week. One walked into a viewing with a printed checklist and left after 25 minutes, calling it "lovely, could work." The other spent nearly two hours in a house half the size and walked away knowing exactly where the damp came from, why the price sat £15,000 above the neighbouring sale, and what the seller actually needed. Guess which one ended up overpaying?
The difference wasn't luck, and it wasn't experience. It was what they asked.
Key Takeaways
- The seller's motivation matters more than any cosmetic feature. Ask why they're moving and how long the property has been listed.
- Budget for the boring stuff: roof age, boiler service history, drainage, and any work done without permits.
- The 3-3-3 rule—three viewings, three neighbourhood visits, three financing checks—is a useful discipline, not a formula.
- Spring commands the highest prices; the slowest months are the ones you want to negotiate in.
- Never make an offer using only what you saw during a 30-minute tour. Get everything in writing.
Why the question matters more than the answer
Most buyers walk into a viewing already sold. The staging did its job, the light was gorgeous, and the whole visit becomes an exercise in confirmation bias. I know because I did exactly that on the first house I tried to buy—spent the entire viewing imagining my furniture in the living room and never once asked about the roof. Six weeks later the survey came back and the roof was a £12,000 problem. I walked away, having wasted two months.
Here's the thing: a viewing isn't a performance you attend. It's an interrogation, and the seller's agent has heard every version of "it's beautiful." What they haven't heard is a buyer who asks the questions that reveal risk.
Do that, and two things happen. You get information nobody else got, and you signal to the agent that you're serious. Both of those translate into negotiating power later.
The three categories that actually matter
Every question you ask should fall into one of these buckets:
- Motivation — why now, why this price, how urgent
- Condition — what's broken, what's old, what's hidden, what was done without paperwork
- Money — taxes, insurance, running costs, anything that isn't in the listing
Ignore questions about the seller's taste in curtains. They don't move the needle.
What are the best questions to ask when viewing a house?
Start with the seller's story. "How long have you owned it, and what made you decide to sell now?" sounds casual, but it exposes urgency. A seller relocating for a job in six weeks is a very different counterparty from one testing the water at an optimistic price.
Then go straight for the mechanical facts. Age of the roof, age of the boiler, when the wiring was last checked, whether the windows are double-glazed and when they were installed. Write the answers down in the moment—you will not remember them three houses later, and I learned that the hard way after confusing two nearly identical terraces.
What is the 3-3-3 rule for buying a house?
The 3-3-3 rule is a simple discipline: view the property at least three times—once in daylight, once in the evening, once on a weekend—visit the neighbourhood on three separate occasions at different times of day, and run three financing checks: your mortgage pre-approval, your deposit position, and your post-purchase cash reserve.
It's not a law, and nobody enforces it. But it's a useful counterweight to the emotional rush of a first viewing, which is precisely when buyers make their worst decisions. On the house I eventually bought, the second viewing—on a rainy Tuesday evening—revealed a drainage issue at the back of the garden that the sunny Saturday version had completely hidden.
Questions about the seller and the listing
- How long has the property been on the market, and has the price changed?
- Have you had any offers, and why did they fall through?
- Is there a chain on your side?
- What's included in the sale—appliances, fixtures, that garden shed?
- Are you willing to leave certain items, or would you prefer to take them?
That last pair matters more than people expect. Fixtures and fittings disputes have sunk more deals than structural surveys. Get it clear before you offer, not after.
What are the key questions to ask before making an offer?
This is where most buyers go quiet and just send a number. Don't. Before you commit, you need answers on condition, paperwork, and running costs—in writing where possible.
Permission and paperwork
Ask whether any structural work, extensions, or conversions were done, and whether the necessary approvals were granted. Unpermitted work is common, and it becomes your problem the moment you own the place. On one property I looked at, a converted loft had no sign-off at all—the seller had done it himself seven years earlier and assumed nobody would notice. The surveyor noticed in about four minutes.
The costs nobody mentions in the listing
Property taxes, insurance premiums, service charges if there's a shared building, and any ongoing maintenance obligations. Ask for the current annual figures. A house that looks affordable on the asking price can be a different proposition once you add the yearly running costs—and most buyers only discover this after they've exchanged.
Compare the property properly
Once you've seen a handful of houses, your memory blurs. Build a simple table. Here's the structure I use:
| What to check | Why it matters | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Roof and boiler age | Biggest single repair costs | Ask the agent, verify with surveyor |
| Recent comparable sales | Tells you if the price is realistic | Public land registry records |
| Permits for any work | Unpermitted work becomes your liability | Local planning office |
| Annual running costs | Affects what you can actually afford | Ask for utility and tax figures |
| Flood and drainage history | Insurance and resale risk | Local environmental records |
Fill this in for every property you seriously consider. It takes twenty minutes per house and it will save you from the single most expensive mistake in the process: falling for one house and forgetting to compare it to anything else.
What is the hardest month to sell a house?
December. Consistently. Buyers are distracted, budgets are committed elsewhere, and the pool of people actively looking shrinks to almost nothing. January and February aren't much better in cold climates—viewings get cancelled, gardens look dead, and photography suffers.
The market generally peaks in spring, when stock is highest and competition among buyers is strongest. That's great if you're selling. If you're buying, the slow months are your friend: fewer competing offers, more room to negotiate, and sellers who have been sitting on the market since autumn are considerably more flexible than they were in May.
On my second purchase, I made an offer in late January on a house that had been listed since September. The seller accepted 6% below asking within 48 hours. In spring, with three other buyers circling, that conversation would have gone very differently.
If you're renting instead, the questions change
Renters should ask about deposit protection, notice periods, who handles repairs, and whether the landlord intends to sell during the tenancy. The condition questions stay the same—damp, heating, water pressure—but your leverage is different and your timeline is shorter.
The questions worth asking yourself
Everything above is about the property. But the questions that decide whether you'll be happy in eighteen months are the ones you ask in the car afterwards.
Can you afford this if the mortgage rate moves? Would you still want it if the boiler failed in the first year? Does the commute work on the worst day, not the best one? And honestly—are you buying this house, or are you buying the version of your life you've imagined inside it?
That last one is the question nobody puts on a checklist. It's also the one that matters most. Ask it before you pick up the phone, not after you've signed.
