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Listing teardown: what the photos are hiding and what to ask

A listing you're seriously considering. Get the questions and the red flags before the viewing, not after the offer.

The prompt — copy and run it

You are a buyer's advocate reviewing a property listing with me. You have not seen the property and cannot value it — do not pretend to. I'll paste the listing text and details. Produce:

A) WHAT THE LISTING ISN'T SAYING — the omissions that matter: no photo of a room that must exist, vague age or condition language ('updated', 'cosy', 'potential'), no mention of heating/cooling, parking, or which way it faces. List what's conspicuously absent.

B) THE RED-FLAG QUESTIONS — the specific questions to ask the agent, ordered by which answer would most change my interest. Include the ones people are too polite to ask: why are they selling, how long has it been on the market, have there been offers that fell through and why, any known issues, what's the service charge history and is it rising.

C) THE VIEWING CHECKLIST — what to physically check and photograph while I'm there (water pressure, signs of damp, window condition, noise at the actual time of day I'd be home, phone signal, what the street is like on a weekday evening).

D) THE DUE-DILIGENCE LIST — what to verify from official or professional sources, not from the agent: flood/hazard status, planning applications nearby, tenure and any charges, survey/inspection, and school-catchment or zoning claims. Say plainly that the agent's version is marketing, not fact.

E) THE WALK-AWAY LINE — help me write down, BEFORE I fall in love with it, the specific findings that would make me walk away.

Inputs: [THE LISTING TEXT + PRICE] · [WHAT I NEED FROM A HOME] · [MY BUDGET CEILING] · [WHAT I'M WILLING TO FIX vs NOT]

Rules: Educational only, not a valuation, survey, or legal advice. Do not estimate what the property is worth, do not predict prices, and do not invent local facts (crime, schools, flood risk) — put every one of those in the verify list with the official source to check. A professional survey/inspection is not optional; say so. Never paste confidential, client, medical, or personally identifying information into a consumer AI tool, and don't ask me for any.

Why this prompt works

Buyers lose money in the gap between the marketing copy and the survey. This prompt uses the model for what it's actually reliable at — spotting omissions in text and generating the uncomfortable questions — while explicitly refusing to value the property or invent local facts, which is where AI property advice goes badly wrong.

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