We got lucky when we were buying our place, it was the bottom of the market in Netherlands (we didn't find it like that!) and the seller's agent went bankrupt (so we were the only people who saw it) and they had already bought a place in France and were desperate to sell!

However, I remember looking at quite a few places. And the agent's advice which I remember clearly was : If you step in and it gives you a bad impression, don't even bother looking further to see if you might like it...