All articles · 6 min read

What should you ask the estate agent at a viewing?

Ask about what isn't in the paperwork: when was the home renovated and with what drawings, why the official area and the listing's area don't match, what has been replaced and when, and how long the home has been on the market. And ask permission to measure and scan before you do it.

Who the estate agent works for

The estate agent at a viewing is the seller's agent. That doesn't make them an opponent — an agent is required to give you the information they have, and most answer readily and honestly. But the agent isn't your adviser, and a spoken answer at a viewing isn't the same as a documented fact in the sale paperwork. If an answer is decisive for your purchase, ask for it in writing or documented — and bring in an adviser on your side of the deal, or a surveyor, to assess anything technical.

That changes how you should ask: pose open questions about facts and history, not closed questions that invite a reassuring "there's nothing wrong with that".

The five questions you should always ask

1. "What's been renovated, when — and are there drawings from it?" Renovations are the single piece of information that explains most oddities in a home: a crooked wall, a room that doesn't match the plan, a ceiling height that jumps. If drawings from the renovation exist — with the seller or in the authorities' archive — they're worth a great deal when you come to plan your own work later.
2. "Why do the official area and the listing's area differ?" There's almost always an explanation: the public building register generally measures externally, an extension may be registered incorrectly, or a converted attic floor was never remeasured. The answer tells you whether the mismatch is technical or real.
3. "When were the roof, windows, heating and bathroom last replaced?" Four years. They decide what the next ten years will cost you, and they're rarely gathered in one place in the paperwork.
4. "How long has the home been for sale, and has the price been reduced along the way?" You can dig much of this out of the listings yourself, but the agent can answer it on the spot — and the explanation for a long time on the market is often more interesting than the number itself.
5. "Why is the seller moving?" You won't always get a full answer, and you shouldn't read too much into it. But an answer like "they're moving closer to work" and one like "they've owned the house for seven months" point in very different directions.

Ask permission before you measure and scan

Say it at the door: "Is it all right if I measure a couple of rooms and do a scan with my phone?" Most agents say yes — it signals a serious buyer. But some sellers have asked for no indoor photos, and at a busy viewing you might be in other visitors' way. Ask first, respect the answer, and stick to the rooms: you're measuring walls, not the family's belongings. Don't open cupboards without asking, and don't film a child's bedroom with their things in it.

If you're told no to scanning, you can still take the five or six most important measurements with a tape and draw the plan up afterwards from your notes.

Questions about what you can see but not understand

• "What's behind that boxing-in?" Pipe boxing in corners hides soil stacks and ventilation. A soil stack can't simply be moved, and that decides where a bathroom can go.
• "Is this a load-bearing wall?" Feel free to ask, but treat the answer as information, not a verdict. No one can tell whether a wall is load-bearing just by looking at it, and no app can determine it either. If the wall needs to come out, that calls for a structural surveyor or an engineer who examines the construction.
• "What heats the home, and what has the usage been?" Heat source, the age of the system, and ideally the actual usage figures for the last two years.
• "What's the basement like in winter?" Damp in basements is seasonal, and a viewing in August won't tell you how it is in February.
• "Is there anything in the building survey report that you'd flag yourselves?" If a condition survey exists, an open question like this often yields more than flicking through it on the spot.
• "Is there a digital floor plan?" Ask for it. If it's dimensioned, you can check your own measurements against it — and if it isn't dimensioned, you'll know it's an illustration, not a measuring tool.

Questions about the surroundings only the agent can answer

The paperwork describes the property, not the place. Ask about: what's planned for the neighbouring plot and the area, what traffic is like in the morning and afternoon, how parking works in the evening, what use restrictions and easements sit on the property, and — if it's a flat with shared ownership of the building — what the maintenance plan says, and whether any service charges have been decided or are expected. If there's an owners' or residents' association, ask about fees and obligations.

What you shouldn't ask about, on the other hand, is sunlight. You can work that out yourself afterwards once you know which way the windows face — and a calculation is more precise than anyone's memory of how long the sun sits on the terrace in May.

How to keep track of the answers

Write down no more than ten questions before you leave home, and mark the three you won't leave without an answer to. Note the answers on the spot, or within two minutes of walking out the door — if you're viewing several homes the same day, the answers otherwise blur together between them.

And always write down who said what. "The agent thought the roof was from around 2009" is a different kind of information from "the survey report states the roof is from 2009", and the difference matters when you later decide what you dare rely on.

What HouseSense answers so you don't have to ask

Some of the questions at a viewing only get asked because you can't measure it yourself. Scan the home with your iPhone's LiDAR — after asking permission — and you get the answer yourself on the area per room, the ceiling height, clear passage widths and the rooms' actual shape. That frees up the agent's time for what only the agent knows: the history, the renovations, the years, and the surroundings.

HouseSense also calculates sunlight in 3D from the home's location and orientation, so "how much sun does the garden get in April?" becomes homework you can do yourself instead of a question you get a friendly guess on. Everything lives in your own iCloud; there's no account and no server — your measurements of a stranger's home don't end up in anyone's database.