Imagine taking 5000 lbs in crisp cash, dropping it right into
your kitchen sink, and just simply setting it on fire.
Yeah, just watching it burn. Exactly.
You didn't invest it poorly. You didn't buy anything
extravagant. You just watched it go up in
smoke. And the crazy thing is, that is
exactly what thousands of property buyers do every single
year. It really is.
It's happening all the time. Right, because they commissioned
second, third or even like fourth professional surveys on
houses they absolutely never should have walked into in the
1st place. So if you are listening to this
right now and prepping to step onto the property ladder, or
maybe you're moving up it, we are doing a deep dive into a
fascinating set of notes today to stop you from making that
exact mistake. And it's a phenomenal amount of
wasted money. I mean, it's driven almost
entirely by human nature, you know?
Oh, for sure, we are visual creatures.
And when we walk into a beautifully staged home, the
emotional brain completely overrides the logical brain.
Just. Shuts down.
Basically, yeah, the financial stakes and property are
monumental, but the way most of us approach the actual viewing
process is, well, shockingly unscientific.
And that's what makes our source material today so incredibly
valuable. We have our hands on a
comprehensive guide. It's called Beyond the Viewing
by Tom Sikorsky. Right, he's a residential
surveyor. Yeah, practicing across London
and Kent for a firm called Survey All, the man has
inspected hundreds of properties, and his core
argument fundamentally shifts how you should think about
buying a house. It's a total reframe.
It is, he says. A successful purchase doesn't
start when you walk into a beautiful viewing.
It starts with a rigorous, like almost brutal understanding of
yourself long before you ever click on a property portal.
Because buying a property without a clear, mathematically
defined purpose is exactly what leads to all those wasted
surveys we were just talking about, right?
Your purpose radically changes your priorities.
I mean, if you do not define your why you cannot possibly
evaluate the what? OK, let's unpack this because
the way Sikorsky describes the early stages of property
hunting, it really reminds me of grocery shopping when you are
absolutely starving. Oh, that is a brilliant way to
frame it right. If you walk into a supermarket
on an empty stomach without a shopping list, you end up at the
checkout with a cart full of things you completely don't
need. You've got like three types of
expensive cheese, A massive bag of chips, and zero actual meals.
You just. Bought whatever looked good in
the moment. Exactly.
And that applies perfectly to property.
Yeah, consider a young professional buying their first
place. If they sit down and define
their purpose, their priority matrix is going to heavily
feature central city transport links and extremely low
maintenance. I just.
Want to get to work easily? Yeah, they are trading square
footage for sheer convenience because they want to lock the
door and go. But take someone planning for
retirement. Their priorities shift entirely.
Completely different list. Right.
They might need single story accessibility, immediate access
to a good hospital, quiet surroundings, manageable upkeep.
Yeah, so if that retiree walks into a viewing for the young
professionals, Dream Flat falls in love with the modern decor
and buys it. Oh, they are going to be
miserable dealing with three flights of stairs and a noisy
St. Exactly.
Or think about an investor looking for rental property.
They shouldn't care about the aesthetic charm of the
cornicing. You know that fancy decorative
plaster molding up near the ceiling?
Yeah, that's tough. They need to focus purely on
rental demand, local regeneration projects and long
term maintenance liabilities. The purpose creates the filter.
It stops you from being distracted by the shiny things
that don't serve your actual life.
Precisely. I hear that, but I I have to
push back just a little bit here.
Don't we all deep down basically want the same things?
You'd think so, yeah. Like.
We all want more space. We all want natural light, maybe
a nice big garden, a good neighborhood.
Isn't there just a universal standard for a good house?
It is so tempting to think so, but Sikorsky's material counters
this through what he calls a genuine priorities list.
Buyers often think they know what they want.
Like that large garden you just mentioned?
Sure, but a structured list forces you to separate emotional
wants from practical needs. Sometimes when you really look
at how you live your daily life, convenience and low maintenance
actually trump character in size.
Oh, interesting. Yeah, a massive garden sounds
wonderful in theory, until you realize you're spending every
single Sunday pulling weeds instead of enjoying your
weekend. It is about understanding what
genuinely improves your specific quality of life.
Wow, that is a huge aha moment. You have to be brutally honest
about who you are, not who you aspire to be in the like
brochure version of your life. Exactly.
So once we have mathematically defined why we are buying and
what our actual priorities are, how do we place that theoretical
dream into the real world? Like how do we know the house is
actually giving us what we need? Well, you start by realizing a
building does not exist in a vacuum, it is anchored to an
ecosystem. OK, an eco.
Right before you even look at the bricks, you have to map your
life onto the streets around the house.
How painful is the commute going to be on a rainy Tuesday in
November? Are there green spaces for your
dog? What really caught my attention
in the notes is how often buyers completely ignore environmental
risks during a quick 15 minute viewing.
Oh, constantly. They are so focused on the
kitchen island that they don't even look out the window.
Sikorsky urges you to look at the topography.
Like is the ground physically sloping toward the property?
What's fascinating here is that that's a critical observation.
Sloping ground means surface water runoff during a heavy
storm. Where is that water going?
Straight into your house. Straight into your air bricks
and under your floorboards. You also need to look at
exposure. Are you under a flight path
facing severe aircraft noise? Because that will drive you
crazy in the summer when the windows are open.
Definitely. Even checking the mobile signal
quality and Internet speed on your phone during the viewing
can literally make or break a work from home setup.
And it goes beyond just the physical environment, right?
There is a social ecosystem, too.
Sikorsky advises buyers to check deprivation maps and crime
statistics. Yeah.
The general upkeep of the neighborhood is a mirror for the
property you are considering. When you walk around, look for
the warning signs. Are there neglected neighboring
properties? Is there intense parking
pressure? Like where everyone is fighting
for a spot on the curb, parking half on the pavement.
Exactly. Areas with high deprivation
often experience poorer maintenance standards.
Generally, if the neighbor isn't taking care of their roof, it
might easily affect your party wall down the line.
Wait, let's define that really quickly for anyone new to this
the party wall. Right, my apologies.
The party wall is the shared structural wall dividing your
house from the house next door in a terraced or semi detached
layout. So if your neighbor has a
massive leak on their side of the party wall, that moisture is
eventually coming into your living room.
You are economically and physically tied to the people
next door. It is like the neighborhood is
dropping bread crumbs for you to follow.
So if we zoom out to look at that neighborhood and its risks,
it is time to zoom all the way. In to the house itself.
Yeah, we need to look at the physical reality of the building
itself, and here's where it gets really interesting.
One part of Sikorsky's notes really caught me off guard.
Here he divides houses by era, which makes sense, but he
assigns very specific, almost hidden diseases to each time
period. The architectural era dictates
the construction method, and every single construction method
has an Achilles heel. OK, let's start with the
classics. Victorian and Adorian
properties. These are the ones everyone
romanticizes. You know the high ceilings, the
beautiful brickwork, the big Bay windows.
What is the hidden disease here? The primary vulnerability of
Victorian homes is, well, dampness, and it really comes
down to basic physics. Because of how they were built.
Right. These houses were usually built
with solid brick walls. Imagine a brick as a very dense,
hard sponge. When rain hits a solid brick
wall, capillary action slowly draws that moisture straight
through the brick and into the internal plaster.
Oh wow. Yeah, today we build houses with
cavity walls, two separate walls with a gap of air in between to
stop the water from crossing over.
Victorians didn't do that. You are looking at a high risk
of penetrating damp, potential timber decay in the floorboards
and generally terrible insulation.
So you get those gorgeous high ceilings, but you are paying an
absolute fortune to heat the air up there and the walls are
actively soaking up the rain pretty much.
So if solid walls were just acting like sponges, builders
had to innovate. Which naturally brings us to the
1930s. These are super popular for
families. Those classic semi detached
houses. Did they fix the damp issue?
They did, yeah, by introducing the cavity wall on a mass scale.
1930s homes generally offer excellent proportions, and they
sit on good plots of land. But the innovation brought a new
disease cavity wall tie failure. Wait, how does that work?
Well, to keep the inner wall and the outer wall standing
together, builders use small metal ties to bridge the gap
between them. OK, that makes sense.
The problem is they used early mild steel for these ties and
they didn't galvanized them properly.
Decades of condensation inside that dark, damp cavity causes
the steel to rust. And Rust expands.
It expands up to seven times its original thickness, so these
little metal ties inside the wall rust, expand and literally
Jack the bricks apart. You will see horizontal cracking
running all the way along the mortar lines on the outside of
the house. That is terrifying.
It's happening completely out of sight until it literally breaks
the house apart. So the 30s gave us great
proportions but rusting metal inside the walls.
Then World War 2 happens, the country is completely broke.
How did that lack of money physically alter the houses
built in the 50s and 60s? Post war housing is fascinating
because the priority was just speed and cost.
Traditional materials were scarce, so builders turn to non
traditional cheaper construction methods.
Like what? Often involving system build
concrete panels. The hidden disease here is
concrete deterioration, sometimes called concrete
cancer. Concrete Cancer.
Yeah, the steel rebar inside the cheap concrete panels begins to
rust, expanding and blowing the face off the concrete.
We also see terrible thermal inefficiency, structural
movement and the very real danger of asbestos.
Oh, asbestos. Which was used extensively in
flooring ceilings and insulation during this period.
OK, I'm going to stop you there because my intuition is
screaming that if all these old houses have damp, rusting wall
ties and asbestos, then a brand new 2025 modern flat should be
the absolute safest thing on the market.
You would think so, I mean. It's a brand new it's shiny,
it's energy efficient. How can a modern flat possibly
be a trap? Well, buying a modern flat is
somewhat like buying a brand new luxury car on a strict lease.
It looks beautiful and the heated seats are great, but you
don't actually own the software, you are not legally allowed to
fix the engine yourself, and the dealership can suddenly hit you
with a massive mandatory service.
Fee. Oh, I see where this is going.
Modern flats are produced some of the most financially ruinous
traps for buyers in recent years.
Are we talking about cladding? Yes, hidden cladding liabilities
are a major one. Following recent changes in fire
safety regulations, thousands of modern apartment buildings were
found to have unsafe cladding materials on their exteriors.
Which is incredibly dangerous. And expensive.
If you buy a flat in one of these buildings, you might find
yourself legally liable to pay 10s of thousands of pounds to
replace the outside of the building.
Wait 10s of. Thousands easily.
Lenders often refuse to offer a mortgage on these flats until a
Clean Fire Safety certificate known as an EWS One form is
provided. And beyond cladding, you were
dealing with unpredictable, skyrocketing service charges
dictated by management companies, strict lease
restrictions and you have 0 control over repairs to the
wider building. It is incredibly eye opening
when you lay the physics and the legalities out like that.
It really emphasizes a massive rule from Sikorsky's notes.
View smart, not just beautiful. When you walk into a viewing you
have to actively ignore the sellers fancy furniture, the
fresh coat of paint, the smell of baking bread or coffee they
put on to distract you. You have to look for the story
the building is trying to hide. Because the exterior of a
property is the ultimate truth teller, Sikorsky makes a
brilliant point here. The way a property is maintained
on the outside tells you exactly how the hidden systems were
treated on the inside. Yeah, if you look up and the
gutters are completely blocked with weeds, the pointing between
the bricks is crumbling and the fences are leaning over, that
tells you everything. It really does.
If they couldn't be bothered to clear the gutters to stop water
pouring down the walls, they definitely haven't been paying
for annual boiler services or upgrading the electrics.
Deferred maintenance is simply a compounding debt that the next
buyer inevitably pays. OK, I get the bricks.
I understand how to look for rusting wall ties and blocked
gutters, but there is a whole section in this guide about
investigating the sellers themselves.
Yes, the human element. And I have to admit I'm a bit
confused by this. Why should I care who is selling
the house or how long they've lived there?
I'm buying the building, not the person.
If the house is good, who cares if they are moving to Spain or
getting a divorce? Ignoring the seller means
ignoring vital psychological clues hidden in the ownership
history. Why a person is selling often
tells you what you are actually buying.
OK, give me an example. Let's look at repeated short
ownership periods. Say you check the property
portal history and this house has changed hands three times in
the last five years. Like a game of hot potato.
Precisely like a hot potato. Yeah, that often indicates an
unresolved issue that isn't obvious during a viewing.
Like what kind of issue? Perhaps there's a severe noise
problem from the neighbors that only becomes apparent at night,
or a hidden structural defect that is simply too expensive to
fix, so each owner discovers it, panics, and just passes the
problem on to the next buyer. Oh wow, what about properties
that have just been completely renovated?
A property that has been bought, renovated and put back on the
market in six months. A flipped property requires
extreme caution. Because they did it fast.
Fast and cheap, those cosmetic improvements are often skin
deep. A flippers profit margins rely
on speed and cheap materials. They might have put in a
beautiful Gray kitchen, but they likely plastered straight over
the damp issues rather than fixing the roof.
That makes total sense. You are looking for long term
occupants who are simply downsizing.
That usually reflects consistent loving care of the building.
So you are basically buying their history with the house.
Exactly. And Speaking of uncovering
history, Sikorsky reveals what I think is the absolute best, most
underused due diligence tactic of all time.
The secret weapon? Talking to the neighbors.
It is astonishing how few buyers ever knocked in the door.
Next door neighbors hold the unwritten history of the street.
They know everything. The guide lists exactly what
they can reveal. They know about the parking
disputes that happen at 8:00 PM when everyone gets home from
work and the agent isn't around. You can just ask them like, hey,
what's it like living here? And they will say, oh, didn't
the agent tell you that whole ground floor flooded in 2014?
They love sharing that stuff. They know about antisocial
behavior from the house 2 doors down.
They even know if someone on the street has the dreaded Japanese
knotweed creeping through their garden, destroying foundations.
None of that is going to be printed in a glossy sales
brochure. Never.
The estate agent's job is to market the property in its best
possible light. And that brings us to a crucial
dynamic you must navigate sales pressure.
Right. Estate agents work for the
seller, that is their legal and financial obligation.
Many are highly professional but you have to understand the
psychology of sales they employed to get the highest
price. Oh, the pressure techniques are
relentless. They claim there is incredibly
strong interest from other buyers.
They suggest offers are imminent to force you into a rush
decision. Yes, and more dangerously, they
will downplay defects. If you do notice a crack, an
agent might try to minimize the concern, insisting it's just
character or, you know, settlement standard for a House
of this age. Yeah, they brush it off.
The absolute golden rule here is never confuse urgency with
opportunity. A rush decision driven by an
agent's artificial timeline can lead to years of financial
strain. So what does this all mean?
We have vetted the area, we have decoded the physical breaks and
the physics of how they fail. We have investigated the
psychology of the humans involved and we haven't given in
to the agent's pressure. Now, before you sign away your
life savings, we arrive at the ultimate climax of the property
journey, the professional survey.
This is your final safety net. Despite all of the brilliant
personal due diligence we've discussed, commissioning a Level
2 or Level 3 RICS home survey is entirely non negotiable.
That's the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Correct. You need a qualified
professional to crawl into the loft, lift the inspection
hatches and provide an independent assessment of the
financial liabilities you simply cannot see.
The stuff behind the walls. Yeah, we are talking about
hidden dampness behind the plaster, failing plumbing
beneath the floorboards, unsafe electrics or structural movement
in the roof Timbers. If we connect this to the bigger
picture, the survey isn't just a depressing list of flaws, it is
a vital financial tool. It takes the emotion out and
replaces it with financial reality.
It empowers you to renegotiate the purchase price to account
for the repairs or to request further specialized checks, but
eventually you hit the point of no return, the exchange of
contracts. What exactly does exchanging
mean for a buyer? In the legal process of buying a
property, the exchange of contracts is the moment the
transaction becomes legally binding.
Before this moment, either party can pull out without legal
penalty. Just walk away.
Exactly, but the moment contracts are exchanged you are
legally committed to buying that building with all its flaws, or
you lose your massive deposit and face being sued.
Which highlights the most empowering take away from this
entire guide? The ultimate power move.
Until those contracts are legally exchanged, you have
options. You have total control.
You can renegotiate the price based on the survey.
You can ask for more time to investigate the damp or, and
this is the hardest but sometimes the most necessary
choice, you can walk away. Walking away from the wrong
property, even if you lose 1000 lbs on a survey, is often the
smartest financial decision you can possibly make.
It takes immense courage to walk away when you have mentally
already placed your furniture in the living room, but preventing
a 30 year financial mistake is well worth a brief period of
disappointment. So let's rapidly summarize the
golden rules of this deep dive. One, plan before you search.
Define your purpose mathematically so you don't end
up grocery shopping while hungry. 2 inspect before you
invest, understand the physics of the architectural era, map
the neighborhood and uncover the hidden history from the
neighbors. And three, negotiate before you
exchange. Use the professional survey to
protect your future self. And remember, a successful
property purchase is rarely about finding a flawless
building. Perfection does not exist in
bricks and mortar. It just doesn't.
It is about knowing exactly what compromises make sense for your
specific lifestyle and your specific financial resilience.
It is about buying with absolute clarity rather than blind
excitement. Such a powerful reframe.
I want to leave you, our listener, with a final thought
to Mull over the next time you walk down your own street, or
maybe when you are walking up to visit a friend's house.
I want you to practice this. Look past the fresh paint on the
front door. Ignore the beautiful flowers in
the garden. Look up at the roof lines and
the gutters. Look at the bricks to see if you
spot horizontal cracking from old metal ties.
Check to see if the fences are leaning.
And ask yourself, if this house went on the market tomorrow,
what secrets would it be trying to hide from you?