Prospective homebuyers focus more on beds than boilers

A fifth of homebuyers spend less than 20 minutes looking at a home before deciding to make an offer, with viewers more likely to focus on artworks and furniture than structural features, research suggests.

- Mahika Ravi Shankar

The average time looking around a property before settling on buying it was about 49 minutes, according to a survey of people who have attended viewings in the past five years.

With the latest data from Halifax released yesterday putting the average UK property price tag at £291,268, that equates to just under £6,000 a minute of deciding time.

Of the 2,000 people polled, 28% had only visited a property once before putting in an offer, with the number of viewings averaging 2.1.

Impermanent, cosmetic features appear to draw just as much - if not more attention than home essentials. A quarter of people admitted to looking at pictures of the family who were living in the property, while a similar proportion (24%) check out their home tech.