Anyone know the current estate agent meaning of the following house descriptions: Mews - seems to describe any terraced house these days (originally converted stable blocks) - sounds better ! Through-terraced house - how different to just a "terraced house" ? Thanks, Simon.
Can't help with the former, round here there aren't any mewses but we have 'town houses'. In the city.
Not all terrace houses are through houses, with a front and back door, there are still lots round here which only have a front door - they're otherwise known as back-to-backs.
Mary
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Town-houses are interesting. They used to be large terraced houses (in towns !), usually with more than 2 storeys. The new "town houses" being built round here are so narrow, they look bizarre. A narrow front door with a narrow window next to it, and 3 storeys high. Apparently, the show houses are equipped with extra small furniture, and when people move in, their super-sofas almost fill the room.
Oh I see. Round here all terraced houses are "through" then. I guess they'd use the term in areas where there are also back-to-backs. Well, in my several years posting on here, this is the first post answered directly by Mary. I feel honoured ! Simon.
Those are the ones!
Usualy with a ground level garafe under the first floor.
I didn't know that!
It hasn't been deliberate - nothing personal! I've obviously had nothing to contribute :-)
Mary
Generally, estate agents will make up phrases and descriptions on a whim, if it make that run down damp rotten hovel seem like a palace.
Mews applies to a flat, which is in a terrace which looks like a terrace of houses. Also commonly applied to flats over garages
Through-terrace is a terrace with an alley between them leading to the rear garden
dg
I recall one reported in Which? "The house is one of a detached pair" which means it's semi-detached.
Mews, originally a row of stables/staff accom/garages in a road between the backs of large terraced town houses. These days could be a modern development having something of that character eg small, two stories, infill, closed courtyard, garage on ground floor.
There are some words that estate agents just cannot bring themselves to say.
"Terrace" conjures up images of dowdy working class people, mews sounds so much nicer, and more bohemian.
Other examples are "flat" which sounds a bit 1970s and must now be rebranded "apartment", preferrably with the adjective "luxury" or "executive" alongside. Bedsits (sounds like lino and gas ring in the corner) went out long ago of course, to be replaced with studios (arty, spacious). "Basement flat" is absolutely out of the question, sounds like a cellar, you must say "garden apartment" even if the garden belongs to the people upstairs. In fact suggesting that you're going to see a "house" at all is irredeemably vulgar, viewing a "property" makes you sound so much more astute.
One of the worst examples was an agent I saw who simply could not bring themselves to say a word so stark and common as "in", eg "a flat IN a victorian house". Everything on their list (sorry, brochure) was "set within the confines of", it was quite surreal.
Someone needs to write a piece of java code to translate this stuff.
They are used a lot near the river around here. Otherwise, new builds have to have the ground floor raised about a metre and a half above ground level, which might make buyers wonder and lead to the realisation that the river has been known to flow across the ground their house has been built on..
Colin Bignell
Worse is the expression 'home'.
I dread the thought of living in a home, I live in a house.
Mary
Through might refer to the larger front and back downstairs rooms having been knocked through.
I kept the blurb from the agent on a house I bought & did up - then compared it to the blurb when I sold it.
Three of the rooms had got about 10% bigger :-)
Round here that would be a 'through lounge'.
Mary
And "views". A house always has "views" of this, that and the other, even if you can only see one view of it, from one window. "Views towards countryside" is my favourite. You can't actually see the countryside for a wall or a tall hedge, but the "views" tend in that direction.
Regards Richard
In message , geraldthehamster writes
I think this says it all ...
Sometimes they catch themselves out with their own photographs - like the claimed "rural view to rear" that was straight into a steep embankment, topped by a line of highly interested cows.
Our award for ruthless honesty went to a DIY website claiming a "slight sea view".
When house-hunting, an Estate Agents sent us a property description which included the phrase, 'semi-rural aspect to rear' ..... the rear bedrooms overlooked the cemetery.
Currently; a near by property is advertised with the front lounge 'benefiting from a southerly aspect' ... the property faces due West. At noon the 'southerly aspect' needs sticking one's head out of the front door and looking hard left!
Estate agent house descriptions in the UK are crap. We wanted a house with a large garden and tried several estate agents and the on-line web sites but none were able to suggest any suitable properties. In France the total area (square metres) of the house and garden is standard information, but estate agents in the UK are too idle to do this extra bit of measuring work.
One agent in the UK said they had the perfect property and showed us a photo of the garden. It was huge. So we went around to view the property. However looking over the garden fence showed the garden to be small - the agent had taken the photo with a special lens to make it look much much bigger. We didn't even ring the doorbell.
In the end we moved to France. Much easier to find the right property here.
So dead accurate?
Every house with windows has a view of something, usually of other houses who have a view of yours :-)
But few people, I suggest, spend much time looking out. Unless they want to know what those opposite are doing :-)
My favourite view from any window is the sky, that's why we don't have obscured glass in any of our windows.
Mary
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