Have you/ know someone who has bought a home sight unseen?

[kanerf]

Dumb, dumb, dumb. Today with all of the virtualization available, I would never buy a house that I could not look at either by walking through myself or with a virtual walk-through. Also, get the home inspectors report. The one for my house was quite detailed.

 

[RedAngie]

Supposedly my cousin did a few years ago, based on Zillow photos, but never actually having seen the house in person.

 

[Micca]

My wife picked out a house for us and was sight unseen to me. We were relocating to a different city/state and while I was working out my notice she went apartment hunting in our new destination. She reported back the apartments in our price range were all terrible and we should consider buying a house instead of renting, and so we did.

This was late 70s so no instant photo technology, she thought the house would work for us and it did.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

My niece in the military has done that twice. She loved the first house, but isn't crazy about the second. Mostly, she doesn't like the neighborhood.

I also had a neighbor buy a house site unseen, but he bought it for the land only. The home was demolished. This is fairly common in parts Florida.

 

[RoseGold]

A friend did this and was hanging out with us. We told him to go get on a (two hour) plane, that it was crazy to put in an offer on a house you haven't even seen. He had a friend walk through with Facetime or something. We thought it was crazy.

He's still in it five years later, so I guess it worked.

To be fair, it was a condo in a big city building, so a lot of the other concerns in this thread wouldn't really make sense.

 

[AnnaS]

When we bought our current home, I put a deposit without my DH seeing it......different.

I could never buy a house based on pictures alone. Usually everything looks "good/great". My friend did look for her sister when she bought a condo in Florida. I might trust a family member if they knew exactly what I wanted/liked.

 

[kyton]

We bought a house that we had never been inside of - we knew it well enough from the outside (it was next door to my husband’s grandparents home). We didn’t care what it was like because in reality it would be a rental property then we would bulldoze it to build a new property on. A little while later our Grandfather passed away so we bought his property as well and built our forever home on it as it was larger. The rental property has had a new kitchen and bathroom put in but other then that it’s still going strong.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

We had a neighbor buy a house sight unseen. They were from another part of the country and took a job here, found the house online and bought it. They probably paid too much for it, but it is a nice house. It has worked out well for them as far as I know.

 

[Southernmiss]

Our son in December 2020 and it worked out very well..

 

[barkley]

we have a house near us that has been purchased that way more than once. it has changed owners multiple times and i know there's been a concerted effort with each sale to market it to overseas stationed military families (not active-soon to be retirees who tend to rank high enough to have the income to pour more into what is a money pit). it appears well on-line but when you walk the house and property you realize the short comings.

 

[Turn the Page]

Not personally, but there is a youtube travel vlogger I like who bought a house sight unseen.

Apparently her husband was transferred to the new city and they had been working with a realtor who found a property that had just fallen out of escrow and told them it was the house for them. They trusted their realtor and bought the house. Apparently it worked out well for them.

 

[SueInBoston]

there's been 2 in my building, one was about 6 years ago, 2 sisters from DC, one for her medical residency and the younger sister was here for grad school. They knew they wanted the area and just trusted their realtor. They just moved back to DC this year.
2nd one is a different unit, family from Cali, purchased the unit "as is" unseen, we don't even think they did a home inspection. (previous owner has lived there for over 40 years, but moved to assisted living)

 

[footballmouse]

My son sorta did this last year. Him and his wife were trying to buy a house for a year and kept getting out-bid on every one they liked. She went through one while he was at work, she liked it and he told her to put a bid in. They got the house but a year later he's regretting it.

 

[sheilafri]

My SIL got three offers on her house, none of the offerers had toured the house. It was a tear down. Nicest tear down I’ve ever seen.

 

[china mom]

I sold my beach condo, sight unseen, full price no contingencies, 24 hours after listing. The first time the buyers saw it was after closing.

Not the same but I bought two houses that I had not been inside of in years. My childhood home was occupied by renters when Mom passed and I bought it in 2020. I haven't been inside of it since probably 2015. She also had another rental that I purchased that I had not entered in probably 15 years. I did finally get to see that one last year after the renters moved out. Not the same situation though since I knew all of the repair history of both houses and they get annual inspections by the property manager.

I almost bought my Florida townhouse sight unseen because I was doing a 1031 exchange and was running out of time to designate my replacement property. But Florida has a very friendly purchaser law. You can back out of the purchase for almost no reason if you have an inspection contingency - even if they offer to fix all issues found.

 

[Minnesota!]

Yep, our closest friends did it almost 2 years ago. They moved from MN to TX and, once in TX, HATED it. So, jumped on Realtor.com, saw a house they liked the looks of about an hour north of where they had lived in MN. Made an offer, showed up in town the day before closing and went through with it.

Turned out very well. Great house, unique at every corner.