The Rotherham Bugle

Estate agents particulars can be confusing at times, but fear not. Using this easy reference as your guide, you’ll soon be deciphering their shit like a pro. Here are five favourites to get you started.

Viewing Recommended

A puzzling one to start out with. The implication here is there must be other properties where viewing is not recommended, and so we have to wonder why? Is it that they are so obviously brilliant that we should simply buy then unseen from the brochure, without bothering to look? Or are they so crap that it’s not worth wasting time dragging our sorry ass round there on a Saturday afternoon?

The reality is that it’s neither of these things. ‘Viewing recommended’ is agent-speak for ‘This is not nearly so bad as it looks on Rightmove’. But it probably is.

Architect Designed

Another puzzler. I mean, as opposed to what? A fishmonger, a photocopier salesman or a radio juggler perhaps? This is agent shorthand for ‘Horrendous 1960s monstrosity’. These properties will need gutting and perhaps even demolition. Best to view as a building plot then.

First Time On The Open Market In Over 50 years

Meant to give a sense that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, which in some ways, it is. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy something that a 93 year old widow has just died in, having not made a single home improvement since 1974.

Convenient For All Local Amenities

Intended to give the impression that everything is on your doorstep, which indeed it will be – other peoples cars, vomit from late night drunks, discarded takeaway food wrappers…that kind of thing.

Opportunity To Put Your Own Stamp On It

There is nothing salvageable here. Don’t kid yourself for one minute that there is. Some loosely cobbled together bricks and a rudimentary roof is the best you can hope for. On no account think you can move in and do the work as you go. Unless you want to live in the style of a 1980s striking miner but without the sense of community spirit.