Estate agents photos highly deceptive

a relative recently sold a house and told me how photographer got on knees to get a long shot of a small kitchen! Looked so much bigger in photo!

A house advertised as 4 bed was advertised for £220.000.. a month later 210.000 then reduced again and again till auction sale at £140.000. this was nearby to me. was a terraced house and the photos made it look huge.

yes, we know you need to look if interested.

We are house hunting. The curse of the wide angled lens. So much time must be wasted because of this. A bog standard garden at the rear of a Victorian semi is easy to measure. But when looking at a wrap around one in a detached country property, it is impossible to assess.

We have actually found a fabulous sixteenth century former pub. On second visit, I found three more rooms and another loo, which I did not know were there!!!!

I do feel guilty about the garden, though. It is the pride and joy of the current owner (it is fabulous). Even with a gardener, we are never going to be able to maintain it as it is. Some of the flower beds are going to have to go and the areas laid to lawn. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Dammit. The vendor is lovely and I feel that I shall be letting her down!!! Silly, isn't it?

Estate agents generally don't give garden measurements as there is risk of misrepresenting the boundary.
Some gardens have been developed incorporating land that is outside the existing boundary. The boundary should be checked before purchase and confirmed by the purchaser's solicitor, estate agents don't do this.

I enjoy reading Rightmove and seeing the description of local houses. A Fantastic home with Generous double bedrooms and Delightful gardens is actually a run-down terrace with one double bedroom and a box room and a patch of gravel outside, photographed with a wide-view camera.

It's not only when you're buying and for me it worked in reverse. I rent, have moved a lot and always look for a flat with some outside space but I can't afford a place with a proper garden. This time I wanted to be above a town centre shop while I experimented with not having a car. Was shown a delightful flat with a patio at the back, perfect. I was aware that there were trees nearby but only when I moved in did I realise that a swathe of woodland accessed by hidden steps came with the flat. It's fairytale stuff. Lots of wildlife including owls. However, it's not on the lease so I'm not responsible for it, the landlord is, which works perfectly.

Getting back on subject, when I was a purchaser I drove 200 miles to view a pretty, detached Georgian house. It was cheap and I asked the agent why before I viewed and he came up with some excuse, can't remember what. It was slap bang in the middle of a heavy industrial estate, surrounded by big factories and with a barbed wire security fence around it. (This was before the days of Google Earth.)

I need to downsize and am always on rightmove but I have the best location so nothing can quite match.
I've looked over 4 recently.
Two were pretty on the outside but poky inside.
One was better inside than out but no garden and one was right on a busy road, double yellow line although very high spec.
It's hard isn't it.

We had a viewer yesterday who told us the photos of our house undersold it. It wasn't the internal photos, more the exterior photos and those of the large workshop at the end of our garden.

I was already not entirely happy with our photos. I will be out first thing tomorrow when the sun comes out to re photograph the garden and, what the French call, 'dependance' tomorrow to revise our profile unless, of course, yesterday's viewer puts in an offer!