How can I sell my house?

[challacombe]

I am very frustrated as I have a lovely large family home which I need to sell quickly due to my husbands business. It has everything going for it including 4 reception rooms and 4 bedrooms 2 of which are masters with lounges dressing rooms and with ensuites. The reason I mention this is that it would be suitable for so many potential owners as offers dual living so grannys, teenagers or business use would be great for someone. What I can't get my head around is that the agents just do not know how to market my house. As it is unique and doesn't hit the tick box way they work it is being disguarded. So many times I have had to return the details as being wrong and as for some of the photos...! We are close to the beach and being just one hour from London I decided today to phone agents closer to London who may have applicants wishing to move out slightly. Honestly you would think i had asked them to transport their applicants to the moon! The answer was that if they had anyone they would look on Rightmove. My argument is how will they find me if they don't know Thorpe Bay exists? They won't and therefore they are not being offered a good all round service by agents or Rightmove. I just wondered if anyone has any has any suggestions how to get around this. I find that if something doesn't fit a tick box then it stands no chance. How would someone know to look in an area if they don't know that area exists?

No whybehappy it wasn't directed at your post

I agree with losing the artist's impression as I would assume it was under construction. If you are being forced to sell quickly then psychologically it will still very much feel like yours. Perhaps a lick of white paint throughout and dressing the house for potential buyers will help you get into the right psychological space and also help it sell?

It's a really interesting house. I like quirky! I'd probably gut it and run with a retro theme, strong lines with bifolding doors for that indoor outdoor feel. Would also need to rejig the layout and open up the kitchen to make open plan living.

Your second or third photo should be photo number 1

its ive apologised for being rude.

We're talking about someone deciding to spend half a million pounds here- not buying a bottle of wine.

The Rightmove photos have to draw people in- even you've agreed- these don't.

The more 'stuff' there is to look at in a photo, the less people can see the potential in a property.

You live about a mile and a half from me - I'd live in Challacombe if I was looking to move right now :-) Good luck, hope it sells soon.

I distrust estate agents slightly less than I distrust lawyers.

It sounds naff but when the estate agent photographed ours he asked for for a bottle of wine and two glasses to put on the table, then he opened the patio doors to the garden next to it. He said you're selling a lifestyle, not a house.

I thought he was mad but actually the resulting photo worked really well. Think like a hotel or a show house. Vases of flowers, bottles of wine, glass jars of multi-coloured pasta, glossy magazines, that sort of shit.

I do think if you have an unusual layout of rooms it's sometimes harder to sell. Because you've got things to suit your setup and nobody else will exactly match that.

My sister and BIL built a lovely house for themselves, it didn't fit 'typical', they were shocked when nobody wanted to snatch it up when they had to move. But others often have trouble visualising things set up another way, different to the way it is, for their own family.

They decided to depersonalise it a lot, dress rooms much more sparsely, so people could picture different room uses, it seemed to help. Might be an idea if you've got the money to put stuff into storage?

I'm looking for a similar type of property at the moment, unfortunately an hour from London in a completely different direction though.

I see why you've done the 3D floorplan but I would probably skip past the details of your house as the floorplan makes it look too busy.
As a potential buyer I would prefer a bog standard floorplan so I could decide how to use the rooms myself.

Quite often when someone is initially house hunting they'll flick through quickly so the first couple of pictures have to draw them in.

The Sims house pics on yours will put people off. They make it look very small.

The photos aren't great, I agree. You definitely need to look into getting them redone or go with someone else.

The room where the fireplace is to the side of the sofas and there's a doorway into another room? That's the one that'd have me clicking off and moving on. I think it's the layout of your furniture making it look disjointed, like there's not a definite purpose to the room.

^sorry that was very negative. There's tons of good points but at the moment the photos and description really isn't putting them across.

Don't understand people who can't see past furniture and decor. I only ever really look at floorplan and location. Everything else is easily changed, even kitchens and bathrooms can be sorted pretty easily if the issues are cosmetic. OP I agree agents can be useless. We sacked one who admitted they didn't have any ideas how to market our old house - its their sodding job! I guess "light, bright and versatile" are the concepts to get across but seriously, focusing on your sofas is crazy!

I think you need much much better photos - a good real estate photographer will make your rooms look better than they are. The lighting and angles in these photos are all wrong.

I'm another who'd ditch the artist's impression and the floor plans with furniture pics in. My first impression is 'what's wrong with the exterior that they can't show a photo?', and I think the floor plan pics actually reduce people's ability to imagine how they would use the space.

Also, your actual floor plan should have room dimensions on it, it's a real pain when they're not on the floor plan.

I think your pics are also making the garden look much smaller than it is - but still, it isn't huge. If people are looking to move out of London and near surrounds and still spend half a million, they generally want more outside space.

I don't think it's too cluttered at all. It just looks like a very normal but slightly tired house in need of a bit of updating.

I think the main issue is the weird floorplan of the upstairs. These two large bedrooms each with their own huge sitting room is not reflective of how people live. People don't buy houses which don't easily help them to imagine their lifestyle there, and most people wouldn't want two upstairs sitting rooms. I would put up some stud walls to take a slice off one to extend the landing corridor, and turn those two rooms into separate rooms.

As a recent buyer, the first thing I would do is go to the floor plan and check the floor space. Therefore flat plans with room measurements is a must (if the 3rd bedroom wasn't big enough for a double bed then it was out).

3D just got on my nerves and illustrations are pointless. You need a proper description with details of each room with measurements especially if they're not on the floor plan.

Label the room how you use them i.e. Family /TV room rather than dining room.

Better pictures are a must, I feel
Like they've photographed your furniture rather than the room, the angles don't give me good idea of the space I.e. The 1st image of the room with grey sofas.

There's a wall of pine furniture in one of the upstairs rooms that looks a bit dated and cluttered. Could you remove the smaller pieces?

How is the house positioned? If it's fairly private then the outside angle needs to be pulled back to highlight this as at the minute it just looks a bit unimpressive.

Where does your house sit in terms of price with others on your agents books? If it's the most expensive then they probably don't know how to sell it

We just sold our house with an internet estate agent (house network) and we have no complaints. The photos that were taken look amazing and definitely brought lots of people in to view.

I'd love a house like yours, OP but it's completely out of my price range. I agree that it has lots of potential but the photos and artist impressions are letting it down. Get rid of the artist impressions and stick with the floor plan. The blurb/description also needs editing.

I would also de clutter the suite with the blue bedding - move the bed to the bigger area and put some of the wardrobes and sofa into where the bed is currently and call it a dressing area. It's a bit cluttered and messy - is it your son's room?

Good luck OP.

Your kichen is lovely and the upstairs space in your house is great too. I think these are really good selling points and should be your earlier photos. Also its a bit weird to have a plan as the first picture, makes me think there is something wrong with the outside - which there isnt. Is there any way you could make the garden look a bit less 'blank' - hard at this time of year i know. definitely declutter and remove the dinky pictures - they are quite old fashioned. Also - not meaning to offend - but I find the prominent crosses quite off-putting, Im sure Im not the only one - I think they make a bit of a strong statement.

I've got that coffee table......wanders off the point completely

Good luck selling the house OP

I think it is not selling as it has a very odd layout. It may scream flexible to you - but to me it screams "odd" and "hassle for how it would work for us". It is also rather dated (sorry) the carpets, the furniture.

In addition the outside pictures give me no idea of the kerb appeal. Yes I am shallow. I would rather not live in an ugly house. But I can either see an odd photo of the sky and a porch or a weird artist picture.

And there is a funny outside picture of a shed? Black shuttered thing. Which shows some of the garden...but then it looks like it is a semi as there is a brick wall across the lawn. An ugly dated brick wall.

I cannot see immediately the sizes of the rooms or the size of the garden. I would have to click on the brochure. There are too many "not sures" for me to bother. Especially for half a million pounds.

It takes, what an hour to get into the city from there. People with £500,000 have a huge area to search for houses. They will find one with similar size in a ready-to-move in state. I am really sorry but yours is not in a ready-to-move in state. Yours says "Needs a fair bit of work". In many ways I know that probably is a bit unfair and not totally the case. But on flick through (and then another look) that is what the photos say.

So, you need to change your photos desperately. The furniture/deco would be OK as long as the photos are telling a better story. Am not sure what you could do about the layout - depends if you want to spend money to sell and could sort something out to give a more traditional/useful set up rather than the room-off-a-room-off-a-room thing you have going on. And get rid of the is it/isn't it a semi photo of the brick wall. Get a better one of the garden.

Challacombe. I don't live far from you (Shoebury) First off, why did you choose this EA? I have sold 3 properties through Hair & son in the past 10 years. Each time the price was spot on and we had viewers in the first couple of days of them going on the market.
I dealt with Richard Hair himself. The is nothing that man doesn't know about the housing market ( he is at the London Road office )
And this is to the person who commented that you wouldn't get £1,000,000 for a house in Southend. Have a look at properties on The Garrison in Shoeburyness. Challacombes house is in a lovely position.
Southend is more than the 1/4 mile of tat along the sea front.

OP, from the photos it looks like there are at least 2 bedrooms with massive walk through lounges.

To me (apologies in advance if I'm being rude again) it looks like some kind of care home.

If you studded over the walk throughs and made it a 5 or 6 bedroom property it would have way more appeal.