House not selling (with listing)

There is a downstairs toilet on the floor plan, it’s just not photographed for some reason.

I honestly think people are being a bit picky. It’s lovely op. I think your decor is nice. Maybe I’m not keen on the fireplace but it’s cosmetic and easily sorted and wouldn’t put me off. Your bathrooms are lovely! Good luck

That grey fireplace is hideous. Aware it can be changed, but it's a real eyesore as it is currently.

I haven’t read every comment so this may have been asked; why are there 2 bathrooms upstairs without one being an en-suite?

I could look past peoples stuff when looking at houses. I would be looking at size of the rooms/layout

Absolutely nothing is selling around here. People are very nervous about moving due to world events and spiralling costs.

Your house is lovely @Housesale2 .

There aren't enough kitchen cupboards to be honest. Where do you actually put crockery / pans / cereal etc?

The photos are pretty bad eg the 'snug' patio doors and curtain rail look incredibly wonky.

Having just sold a property, I would advise a huge clear out. Remove the toys, animal cage, most of the items in the office, definitely put a rug down in the lounge, cut the grass and tidy the front and back gardens. I would make it clear that the garage doesn't belong to your property.

I don't like the teal / turquoise blue but that's pretty minor.

The bathrooms are lovely but don't fit with the rest of the property ie they're new, fresh, clean and modern. However, I don't think that the bathrooms and kitchen are sufficient to get you a sale.

Overall, I think it has potential but needs a huge declutter, possibly reducing in price and then some staging.

This is a really nice house OP. When I look at a house I look past animal cages and how a bed is. So don't worry about that. The only thing I don't like about the house is the fact you walk through the reception room to get to anywhere downstairs. However it's really lovely and the layout is nice. It's going to be the price which is why it isn't selling.

Windows would be turn off for me and the fact it feels "built" out from original house of that makes sense with the garage conversion and room at back
Also lack of garage and storage

This looks much better. The back garden is really off putting. Needs to get thoroughly landscaped etc. The windows are ugly.
Sort the front out and delete the clutter.

I think that first pic could be better if you tidied some of the weeds at the side

Which is exactly how it should have stayed. Classic example of trying to bump up the price of the house by adding an arbitrary "bedroom" which is a little more than a closet space.
The price of the house may be reasonable but for that money in the area, I'd expect nice large bedrooms.

That house sold for £268k in 2017 but you now want £375k for it?

When was the extension/garage conversion done? If since 2017, that would account for the increase.

Pictures 10-12 are chaotic. As a pp says, remove green furniture in picture 10 to left and anything you can from 11 and 12. What kind of animals are in the cage? I was put off by pet rats whose cage was overflowing with bedding onto the bathroom floor.

I’m about to put mine on the market, bloody terrified given the global situation. I’ve decluttered in a serious way, the resulting space is amazing. I’ll be removing all signs of dogs before viewings. I’m lucky not to be in a hurry, but it’s still a very anxious time and I want people to like my house! If I could pick it up and move it, I would.

Bedrooms look tiny with so much stuff crammed in them, other rooms have stuff in front of other stuff like it can’t actually fit furniture.

Regarding the blue living room and kitchen. Imo, if a property is presented 'aspirationally' I believe you can get away with quirkier design/colour choices - but that needs to be carried throughout the whole property.

It's worked for us in the past (with the caveat we're admittedly not trying to sell in the current difficult time, although we did sell extremely quickly during the financial crash of 2007/8).

In the case of @Housesale2's house, I think the kitchen and bathrooms are fairly aspirational for that type/size property, but the other rooms/areas including the garden less so and subsequently let it down. Where the blue works in the kitchen, I'd say coupling it with the old-fashioned fireplace in the living room it's less successful and a bit random.

I appreciate it's hard to keep on top of kids' clutter, but for the EA photos, maximum effort should be made - after all it's not every day you put your most valuable asset up for sale/mass scrutiny and there's no excuses for it not looking its absolute best! This is particularly true in a stagnant/falling market.

As for the rear garden, sadly the 2017 pics from the historic listing show a lovely established space which appears to no longer exist.

Nothing to add really except to say I really like your kitchen!

Where I live (naice south east) house prices rose around covid, then have fallen right back since 2022/2023, to a point where things are selling for maybe 10% more than they did in 2017.

That house sold for £268k in 2017 but you now want £375k for it? Remember buyers wages might have risen but that's more than offset by the interest rate rises.

Who's your target buyer? When you bought the house, what was affordable for you at rates then? Did you have a big deposit from gains on earlier properties? The typical buyer today doesn't, and they've got higher childcare bills, higher food & utility costs, and huge fuel/transport costs. Imagine someone in a job similar to what you had in 2017, can they afford to borrow enough at 5% interest rates with a smaller deposit, to pay 40% more than you did then?

You have a lovely home but the pictures don’t show the back garden very well. I would want to see looking out the patio doors into the garden. You’re also on a bend so where do you park? I can’t see a dropped kerb so not sure if the front is supposed to be a drive.

And me if I were moving to Swindon. Hope it sells soon OP.

I've genuinely seen a lot worse. There is very little 'wrong' with the house as such. It could be show room white, but honestly it's minor in relative terms and I don't think there's really enough in this particular example to put off a serious buyer.

It's not even cosmetic really.

You could spend weeks stressing over getting it perfect to sell, spending time and money in the process - but ultimately there's no enough wrong with how it is, to really make the difference to a sale.

The problem is 100% the lack of people looking.

I know two people looking to move. One does have a buyer but there's nothing to move to that works for her. And another who has a property he wants but no one is viewing at all. They've just got stuck because no one wants to sell / buy.

Without enough people as a minimum to oil the market it just grinds completely to a halt. And that's where it is.

Haven't RTFT, but if this was near us we'd snap it up!

Some suggestions:

• the fireplace/ brick feature looks dated. Not sure how to remedy this, but maybe paint and possibly plaster?
• Get the EA to label the pictures with the room names
• Get the EA to mention there is parking!!!
• Get the EA to retake the pic of the grey double bedroom from a different angle
• Turn the bed in the trees room so the head is under the window and get rid of the light green furniture on the left. Then get EA to retake pictures
• Get the EA to take better pictures of the garden/ include an aerial shot.
• sack the EA

I think you've nailed it @RedToothBrush

Serious buyers will look past unimportant things such as wall colour. They'll be looking at size and space and proportion of the rooms, aspect (where does the sun land, south facing etc), general state of repair of the external structures and fixtures (roof, windows, boiler etc).

Don't listen to this.

The blue is fine. It's clean and a colour that's none offensive.

You'd be wasting time and money and wouldn't improve much.

There's simply no one buying...

Good point about the windows. I wonder if they are uPVC or wood.

Nothing is shifting ATM. No one is buying.

I've not seen the market near me this dead in 8 years of stalking it weekly.

If there's no buyers it doesn't matter how well presented or how reasonably priced you are, you can't sell because there's absolutely no one looking.