Why won't my house sell

[StopSearching]

My house has been on the market for nearly two years. Recently we took it off and remarketed with new agents. No viewings. We've been so patient for two years but it's getting me down now.

I just want to move on. Nothing wrong with where we live, it's a lovely little town but we have plans and this is all that stopping us. I've stopped looking for houses to buy as they are sold before we even get viewings.

Anyone else having similar problems? It's so frustrating.

Also I’d borrow a power washer and clean up the outside. I did mine last weekend snd it makes a huge difference, it’s quite nice stone out there, snd it’s just really dirty, so unpleasant to sit out on. Also, on the video tour it does indeed look like a mini patio in the centre of the lawn, but it also looks black, which is why people think it’s a trampoline, or man hole cover, due to size and colour, suspect it will come up pale grey on a clean and the stones round the house creamy coloured.

You can also cut the grass now.

I think you and your husband need to take a serious discussion, it’s not going to sell in the next five years for that price in that condition, if ever.

So it’s either spend two or three grand and clean it up and replace the hall carpets etc, fix the ceilings, give it a lick of paint in the worst places, then sell for 300 as a three bed, or market it as is, for 275 as a doer upper, but legally that’s a three bed house. You really shouldn’t be marketing it as four.

I think it is a lovely house with a lot of potential. It is clean and tidy but it lacks colour and soul. As other people have said, the photos do not do it justice . Take it off the market . Take advice given by other posters and do the "house staging" . Find another agent who is prepared to do a better job marketing , if it means you take the pictures then so be it. Good luck , difficult time to be selling.

For me, the price is too high, and it's soooo close to next door also

I wouldn’t turn the 4th bed into an en suite, I’d just market it is an office space. Probably something that’s more desirable to people now than it used to be.

@CassandraCross

*I prefer this one which is under offer in the same street, and cheaper. www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/71884494#/*

Yes me too, it actually looks like a home that is lived in and cared for.

Ahhhh, OP having seen this, I think you're more likely to sell for £300-310k. This house is much better maintained, better layout, bigger garden, and more modern inside. And it's sold at £335k. There's no way in hell you're getting £350k for yours in that case, I'm afraid!

The property itself is far too close to others and would immediately put me off. The rooms themselves, in particular the kitchen seem very cramped.
Given the fields outside, I would have expected much more space in a property. Your house setup is what I’d expect from a more densely populated property you’d see in more urban areas.

Ah the other one has a shed too. So lack of garage wouldn’t be an issue.

I'm a Londoner too but have family who live rurally. Garages aren't used for anything other than storage & when other storage is available are converted.

Oh you are the people with the great sunsets - I am your target market and was looking at your house on Rightmove this morning in anticipation of putting ours up for sale as agent who came to do valuation said to think about what comes next 😀

It’s on the edge of our search area but I looked at it thinking It is the kind of thing that could work for us . We are looking to downsize as DD at Uni and only comes to visit , DS will be following. I was thinking that we could look at knocking kitchen and dining room together, DS could have upstairs and the 4th bedroom would make a good office, leaving the other bedroom for guests with us in bed 1.

Things that put me off are how close the houses are together and I was thinking about the dining room being open to conservatory and wondering how that works with building regs. The garden is probably too small for me as a keen gardener. I do like the fields but would worry about being built on and rape fields wouldn’t work as would be sneezing and wheezing.

The work aspect wouldn’t put me off as I love nothing more than a project. I do like the fact you can access the garage from the house. That probably doesn’t help much but there might be something helpful in my ramblings in some small way !

And it's sold at £335k.

might even be less as buyers could have offered under.

Lots of good suggestions. I think you either need to drop by at least 30k or be prepared to spend quite a bit - first job should be finding out about viability/cost of opening up the dining room/kitchen.

The photos are shocking. The first one should be the front of the house. All those aerial photos just give people the jitters that the land will be built on.

They make the downstairs rooms in particular look all long and narrow. I would want them done again.

The garden looks too small for the size of the house, and yes, having lived in one, I would never live in a cul de sac again.

There is little you can do about the garden size, cul de sac or open fields begging to be built upon so I would concentrate on getting better photos done that present the house as having less narrow, long rooms.

*tonytiy

Would you be ok with no garage? Where do you keep all your crap?'
I live in London, garages are not really important to many people. It would certainly not be a selling feature for me, neither would parking for 3 cars.*

I also live in London, we use a garage and parking. Some people have converted the garages so the extra space it gives is very much in demand. Some London homes do not have space for a garage so people buy them knowing this. If it is important you buy a house that has outside space/garage, according to budget. Our semi rural house had a double garage, a barn for more parking if needed plus a drive that fitted several cars. Space matters to us.

OP I’m sorry for calling your bedroom mould cupboard stanky but you are another planet if you think most people would consider that bedroom habitable like that. One of the walls is a some nailed on panel, cracks everywhere, the GRIM shower room—you can’t hope to sell that as anything other than massive work needed. I wouldn’t consider that move-in while you wait for work to be done condition.

I’m really not a precious person but you couldn’t pay me to sleep in that they way it is.

It's not missing a wall. And the shower is just like an ensuite except there's no loo in it. Does your ensuite generally stink, mine doesn't?

Most en-suites have a window. That just looks like a cupboard with a shower shoved inside it. It wouldn't be a selling point to me - I'd want to rip it out.

We are currently looking at similar sized properties in the same price range. My first thought was, for that price, It would need a hell of a lot of modernisation. The kitchen is dated. I wouldn't offer you more than £285,000.

And, I agree with others saying change it to 3 bedroom plus office.

@teentipans

And it's sold at £335k.

might even be less as buyers could have offered under.

True. I'm wondering if OP hasn't seen this house, if she thinks hers is 'reasonably priced' at 350k?

Cos...kindly speaking...if she has seen it, then she's living in fantasy land. The first thing I do when looking at houses is look at recently sold properties/others up for sale in that area, if I saw the nearby house at 335k at that standard and then OP's house, I would dismiss them immediately.

Change the lino on the downstairs toilet floor to something much lighter too. It looks like something out of Only Fools and Horses.

Sorry OP but I too think the house linked on the same street for less is much nicer and more inviting.

Yours needs work doing to get it to the same standard, imo the main being the kitchen needs opening up into the dining room to make a nice big family kitchen / diner.

Carpet in the hallway needs going, general decorating throughout and a bit of decor too to make it more homely, it just looks very... Bland (sorry).

I understand your point about not wanting to spend lots of money on this house when it could be saved for a new one but I think you then need to reflect the work needed in the price, clearly people do think this overpriced otherwise it wouldn't have been 2 years on the market.

You need to present the room you are using as an office as a bedroom we have a really small room and when we viewed the house It was presented as an office and difficult to imagine as a bedroom it looked far to small but luckily we knew someone who had the same style house and the room was used as a bedroom and I made a huge difference.

@dapsnotplimsolls

Lots of good suggestions. I think you either need to drop by at least 30k or be prepared to spend quite a bit - first job should be finding out about viability/cost of opening up the dining room/kitchen.

Just reduce the price. Why go through the hassle of getting £30k of work done when you could just reduce the price by £30k.

I prefer this one which is under offer in the same street, and cheaper. www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/71884494#/

Yes, although a different layout the equivalent fourth bedroom from thr ops is marketed as a dressing room in this one.

I think you need a price reduction on account 9f the random shower but no toilet

@StopSearching I think you’ve jumped on people’s ‘easy’ suggestions but a few throw pillows aren’t going to help much at that price.

It’s too expensive. There’s too much to be done to it.

You’re putting too much emphasis on location - it’s not a forgive-all!

It looks damp, musty, unloved and old. The kitchen is no good for a family. And there really is no 4th bedroom!

Most any house will sell if the price is right. Yours needs thousands of pounds of work to come up to scratch against some of the ones posted here and the sale price should reflect that.

Anyone else seriously concerned that OP seems to have taken away a message of “girly up the house” when she’s actually being told “sort out the holes in the walls and huge damp patches”

I think it's a perfectly nice house of it's type OP so it must be down to price in your area?

I am in the SE and you wouldn't get a 4 bed detached house with a view at the back for 350K here so price seems reasonable to me!