Why isn't my flat selling?

[ratemyflatplease]

Not really an AIBU sorry.

I'm selling my flat at the moment and not getting much interest. I know that ultimately it'll come down to price. But that aside, is there anything in the description or photos that would put you off?

It's in SE London. 3 fair size bedrooms, one tiny box which is only big enough for a single but perfect as an office (which is how I currently have it).

Top floor, so no chance of outside space, which I think lots of people are looking for. Lease has been extended.

Taking a deep breath and posting Rightmove link: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/139866227#/?channel=RES_BUY

The photos are bad. Dull, awkward angles, not properly lit and I can't see what's outside the windows. This is a no-no in the business. Have a look at some other agent's websites to see what I mean.

For example:
https://www.stirlingackroyd.com/property-for-sale/croydon/davidson-road-croydon-3/#gallery-15

https://www.keatons.com/sales/cyprus-street-e2/

Also I'd remove some armchairs and bits of furniture to make it seem bigger, it's a bit crowded in some rooms.

Your agent has been known, in the past, to be bullish on price to get the sale and then beat the seller down in price when it doesn't sell. Did other agents give you lower valuations?

The photos aren't great
There is too much furniture in unusable positions
Bed heads under open velux windows

I would turn the master bedroom into a living room and the original living room as a dining area.

Which building is the flat in? Because I think the one on the left looks lovely and I thought it was that one. The brick one is not as nice at all.

Also, I'm from the US, so forgive my not knowing, but what is a leasehold?

I'd assumed it was the white townhouse-looking building, which is quite nice.

Haven't RTFT but many people totally hate Foxtons and don't trust anything advertised by them.

(See a pp has commented already)

I think you are asking East Dulwich / Dulwich prices, when really it's Gipsy Hill and Hamilton Road is a bit nothing. The flat is an awkward top floor shape with a tiny living area.

Drop the price and suddenly you've got a good sized flat that's 10/15 mins walk from some nice villagey bits.

@ratemyflatplease there are lots of helpful ideas and some not so helpful about the service charge, which you can't change, or knocking out walls, which would be a lengthy and very expensive process unlikely to bring you a return on the cost. The configuration may not be ideal, but you bought it, so someone else will too.

The lease has been extended, so that's good. The service charge doesn't seem bad at all to me given it's London, but, and it's a big but, that depends on how much work has been done on maintenance, what is scheduled to be done (or will need doing soon) and what there is in the reserve fund. How is the communal part of the property maintained? Is it clean and smart to give a good first impression when viewers arrive? Talking of first impressions, yes, do take stuff off the top of the kitchen cupboards. Never put ideas into people's minds that a room lacks storage.

I would seriously look at the marketing. My feeling is that Foxtons don't have the best reputation from a buyers' point of view. They need to push all the positives hard and market it as a 3-4 bedroom flat with very flexible space. Ideally if there is a healthy reserve fund of moneys, let prospective purchasers know that straight away.

Obviously if you're looking at reductions then you don't want to spend money on stuff you won't want where you move to, but if it were me, for the cost of a weekend's time, I would try moving the furniture around to address the imbalance of living space that so many posters have spoken about.

Dining room next to the kitchen stays a dining room but combines with either the study furniture or the chairs and small table and lamp from the existing study to replicate the reading and relaxing area.

Main bedroom moves into the room with wardrobes. Sofa, sideboard, coffee table and TV move into existing main bedroom, potentially also you could potentially set up your study in this room, depending on whether it looks better there or in the room below.

Argos have a folding camp bed for £52 at the moment, dress the study as an occasional bedroom and the other bedroom as a spare/guest room. You then have one spare double bed to dismantle and store, would the mattress go underneath one of the other double beds?

The marketing blurb then becomes 'we use it like this, but when we bought it, it was a three bedroom upstairs and a study, which could be a nursery or occasional bedroom. You could plot the space out before deciding by using some storage boxes.

If that doesn't look good to you, all you've lost is your time.

Ive only known 4 town house but 2 had kitchens on the ground floor and everything else above. I wouldn't say its strange.

Most people suggestions is to have the kitchen and a dining room downstairs though and then 2x bedroom, office, bathroom & living area upstairs.

I think its great flat. The living room and the master bedroom both have far too much furniture though. The photos are a bit weird too, all the photos of the seating area in the bedroom should be removed - imo it looks cluttered and its not the chairs that are for sale.

I dont no the area so i cant comment on the price but i think if you could sort out the two rooms above it could look a lot more appealing.

If it were my flat I’d use the big bedroom as a living room- it’s your narrow living area that would put me off. Also it’s really not four bed.

The decor and furniture is fine, but you can see from the contrast between the comfy armchairs and books in the main bedroom and the barren narrow living room that this property doesn't work. The living room is only 8' wide. Four bedrooms, yet you'd struggle to entertain six people for Christmas Day. Although advertised as a 4-bed, one would barely take a single bed and the other really only works as a single. The kitchen must be 15 years old. And only the one loo/ bathroom, which means that anyone planning to have lodgers or offer AirBnb would think twice. Plus your EPC is a D. And it's second and third floor. I don't know about the area: others will be able to comment.

This means you're unlikely to appeal to:
First-time buyers who plan to take a lodger/s to help pay the bills
Young families, because they won't want to climb all those stairs with pushchairs and there's no real living space for family life
Those over the age of around 55, because they'll be looking to the future and thinking of their knees and hips
People who would hope to have elderly relatives visit and stay with them but know they couldn't manage the stairs.
Anyone who's concerned about bills and future energy efficiency requirements.

As you say, many people want a bit of outdoor space or a balcony at least. And a lot of people aren't keen on sloping ceilings and fear a lack of insulation in loft conversions.

Also prices seem to have dropped by around 25-30% in the area in the last few years.

One final question: what's going on with the roofline? The roof and guttering don't seem to extend right to the corner of the building, which would certainly make me, as a prospective buyer looking online, wonder.

Sorry, but you did ask. I'm sure it suits you, and it will suit someone else, but for various reasons there will be a limited market.

What she said

It has a lot going for it and will appeal to someone who doesn't want outside space - maybe likes to travel and lock and leave - but it depends so much on what's happening in the local market for flats and where the price is set for comparable properties. Proximity to transport, especially tube, is a big determinant in premium pricing.

It would be child's play for a home stager to add to the appeal of the flat. I can see at once how the living room could be improved by having a wide mirror on the wall facing the sofa, mounting the tv on the wall or putting it in the far corner and having more bright pictures on the main walls, new cushions and a throw for the sofa and flowers and a table setting on the dining table.

A home stager who does telephone consultations or half-day or 1-day service would be cheaper than the full works. But perhaps even the full works could be money well spent, given the value of a flat in hundreds of thousands and the small percentage of a maximised sale price that it would cost.

Ref the estate agent, not a very good job of photographing and presentation and I am not a fan of that agent. When I was last selling, Dexter's had a very good booklet about presentation although I didn't in the end use Dexter's but went with another agent, which doesn't mean I wouldn't go for Dexter's. They do a lot of business in my locality.

Lots of people are hybrid atm. Young professionals might not want to move out and do a big commute three or four days a week - ideally they'd want to stay within a reasonable commute for office days and have a decent box room each for their WFH days.

It's a minority segment of the population obviously but not tiny, and that's where I'd expect to see the OP's eventual buyer coming from.

If I understand correct leaseholds are where you buy the 'home' but not the 'building/land'.

Its common in flats as you don't own the whole building. Someone owns that 'plot' its built on and you have just bought part of the building on that plot so you need a lease that is ground rental of the 'land' its on for x amount of years.

Its like rent but paid in one lump sum for a long period (minimally 20 years but can be say 100 years) of time instead of monthly.

Haven't read all the replies but thinks like "no outdoor space" and "leasehold" are pointless as they can't be changed.
I think it's well priced but as a PP said, it doesn't photograph well. So you should use a new agent once you're out of contract with your existing agent and have new pics done

Remember when you're selling your property, you're trying to "sell a lifestyle". Your buyers need to be able to picture themselves living there. (think of how apartment buildings market themselves)

Here's what I would do.
Focus on living space.
Kitchen, I'd take everything off the counter top except the microwave. That gives the impression that you have more prep space than you do. Can you clean the grouting? It looks dirty. (youtube has some great hacks) No one wants to think of a kitchen as being dirty. If you could, I'd change the splashback but it depends on how much work you want to do.
Sitting room - most of your work is needed here. I'd actually repaint it a nice dark colour (think: de nimes by farrow and ball, Hague Blue is another good one. You can get imitations well made by Johnstones.
The furniture in there isn't great. It looks like a student house. No one aspires to cheap looking (sorry) pine furniture. Especially as your buyer demographic is probably a first time buying couple so they want it to look like a grown up home and not the student flats they left 3 years ago.
Get a handyman in to mount the TV on the wall. You then free up some space in your narrow sitting room. Take that pine dresser out and instead put your two comfy looking bedroom arm chairs in that space. You've now got a "seating zone" rather than a sofa looking at a TV. I'd put a low coffee table in front of them too.
If you can't change your table then put a nice table cloth on it and maybe set it. Or put some flowers or a bowl of fruit on it. But definitely cover it. And also, don't have the table at an angle. If you could get hold one of those big, wide standard mirrors to put behind the dining room table, it would give the illusion that the room isn't as narrow as it is
Your bedroom doesn't need those armchairs by the way. it makes the room smaller and no one is expecting a seating area in the bedroom in a flat of this side. They belong in the sitting room.

I don't think you need to drop the price just yet but spend, what, £300? on 1) cleaning your kitchen grouting 2) painting your sitting room, 3) rearranging the seating area 4) removing your pine dresser and 5) covering your table and you'll have it sold within the month.

I think the biggest issue for me, is that you currently have 3 double beds, so potentially 6 people living there, that's without sticking a single in the study, and only 2 people can sit in the living room at one time!

I think you need to get rid of the sideboard thingy and get the TV on the wall, and try to get some more seating in there. Nothing big, maybe some of those padded minimalist sort of look chairs with thin legs, obviously you don't want it to look over crowded by chunky armchairs. Something you can see under, to see the carpet meeting the wall, to stop it closing the room in too much.

I might turn the sofa 90 degrees so it has its back to the table end, if that would fit, and could the ottoman come down from the bedroom, as a sort of footstool / extra seating arrangement? (It might be too big and not work.)

At the moment it looks like you'd be using the living room on a timeshare basis!

Did you previously have the main bedroom set up as a sitting room but Foxtons suggested you make it look like a 4 bed? That would explain why the narrow reception room looks a bit like the tv and sofa were just hastily stuck into the dining room.

I bought my flat through Foxtons. The fact it was on with Foxtons was on my list of negatives about the flat. It had just been reduced by 7.2% so what others say about Foxtons pricing high to get the listing then getting the owner to reduce is true in my experience.

It's top heavy. The ideal buyer for you will be a busy professional couple who each want a home office and don't mind no outside space. They will want something that looks tidy on the outside. What does the £2,400 service charge get you as it doesn't seem to get weeding or painting the front wall. I would clean up the front.

There are loose wires leading up to a satellite dish and the black plastic thing dumped in front of the garage doors is in the same place on the street view ie it's been there a while as has the cone.

It currently has negative kerb appeal and this is going to be hard to change. But you should try though - can you ask the neighbors to tidy up the wires and get the wall / front painted.

You also need to inside to work really hard to overcome any misgivings about the kerb appeal. And the oven looks dirty. Altogether it doesn't wow and I imagine there are lots of other options for sale locally.

What is the service charge for it sounds quite high - also you say you have extended the lease but the estate agents details are saying 165 years given that some flat leases are 999 yrs it is still short. Is this the new lease or does the estate agent need to update his advert ?

When I saw West Dulwich I was really surprised you are having difficulty, it is a lovely area. Then my sympathy evaporated when I saw you were using Foxtons.

Make the living room look bigger - take down the picture over the radiator and hand the tv there or put it on a narrow shelf. Get rid of the glass table. Pop on a radiator shelf or better yet a cover and pop a few choice ornaments or plants on top.

Turn the dining table round, not at an angle.

Get rid of the big bureau under the window and put in a 2 seater sofa.

That will use the space better, make it look big enough for two adults and three children or 4-6 housemates.

Borrowing costs are the main problem, people were overpaying for property because the monthly payments were affordable, that has all changed as interest rates have gone really quickly back to normal, sales are down across London and the UK, you have to undercut the competition on price to sell now.

https://www.plumplot.co.uk/London-property-transactions.html

I suspect it is because it is the 'wrong' time of year.
Unless selling for urgent reasons, most people aim to start selling in the early spring to summer, etc.
Otherwise, the pics look OK to me, though I am not sure how the price compares to similar properties.