Any suggestions on why house isn’t selling (with listing)

[Sheepcountryside78]

Posting for traffic. Reduced a couple of times previously - would welcome any opinions, brutal or otherwise!

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/161097428#/?channel=RES_BUY

Add a porch roof above the door.
Take that bed out from under the stairs.
How does price compare to a 3 bed cos that is what you have. 3 beds and a study/home office. You might be missing out on people who are looking for a good size 3 bed.

• kerb appeal - get the stains off the driveway and repaint the garage door, sort out the ugly pots out the front.

I think the inside is actually ok but the desk / bed under the stairs.. ! It’s not really big enough for a bedroom so get rid of the bed and set it up as a home office.

my only other suggestions which I would do is: accessorize in the kitchen to make it more aspirational - some pot plants, something up high maybe to give illusion of space eg shelf or hanging plants in nice pots grouped in one corner; and I’d change the layout of the living room. The coffee table is too big; there’s not enough width. You also can’t watch tv as the orientation is wrong..

i think we’ve seen much much much worse here so fingers crossed for you! X

Realized the garage etc isn’t yours!! Get rid of those photos in that case.. just confusing x

For me I would be out off by no downstairs loo, also you can't really tell where your property starts and the neighbours ends.. I don't like the look of the shared front area

The living room put me off because of the two sofas facing each other yet neither actually faces the TV. If you did want to face the TV with a sofa, you wouldn't be able to cross the room as it would stretch wall-to-wall. I'm not sure how to fix this apart from removing the TV, putting a prettily-laid out bookcase covering most of the blue and pretending you are a no-screen family?

Get rid of the bed under the stairs and the giant black chair next to it and style that room as a relaxing, modern, minimalist study ideal for a wfh office (invest £100 at IKEA for desk accessories, a windowsill plant, a non-wheely chair to put at the desk and maybe a small rug, put everything else in the hall while you take the photos).

Get rid of the planters and two pots at the front and jet-wash the drive. Replace with more striking pots containing large, healthy, decorative plants.

I disagree completely. People always want to see a picture of the front of the house and will smell a rat if there is not one. I expect the front of the house to be the first picture. I agree with the others who say it lacks kerb appeal.

It’s just very small for a 4 bed. It starred
out as a small 3 bed and extended into the roof space but you’re still left with a tiny downstairs and now small bedroom on the first floor.

You also believe it has appreciated £80k, 30% in 7 years. I doubt it.

Exterior needs TLC. Mowing, plants, flowers, bistro set top and bottom of garden, put the kids stuff away, new photos

Haven’t read the whole thread btw but I love your kitchen and bathrooms -which is great as those can be a huge pain for buyers to change. Less keen on the dark blue/dark grey feature walls (as I’m more of a neutrals or pastels person for decor) or the stepped back garden, but they aren’t the end of the world and wouldn’t put me off viewing, assuming the price is fair.

To me the main issues with the listing (which are relatively easy to change) are:

Your first photo needs to be of the front of the house not the interior - it’s standard practice and otherwise people often assume the house is ugly. Photo preferably should be taken on a sunny/bright day and focused straight on your half of the house (at the moment it focuses too much on your neighbour as well and is confusing - people might think the garage is yours). I’d also put some colourful pots and plants out front too as at the moment it lacks a bit of curb appeal.

The bedrooms apart from the upstairs master look very small. If people take the time to look at the measurements they aren’t that bad, but in the photos they look very cramped and I suspect that’s the main reason why you haven’t got many buyers through the door. Some people might want to be on the same level as their kids - so you really need to dress one of the 12ft/small double bedrooms with a double bed to make it obvious that parents could choose to sleep on that level. Make the current study/single smallest room into your nursery instead (move the desk upstairs into the bigger master bedroom if you need to). I understand it’s a pain to buy a new bed and move stuff around, but it’s just while you are waiting to sell and I think it will make a big difference. Good luck!

Maybe these

Thus making the plan inaccurate

The EA is not great at this. There is an art and a science to getting it right and this is a masterclass in not.

It might be one of those houses on estates where you can't put a boundary between the houses up in the front garden because of covenants and they have to be open plan

It's one of the weirdest houses to look at because your mind wants to see a front door at the actual front so you assume it is all one home when it's not. The door to next door is too big to be a front door but not big enough to be a garage door and going up into the loft was the wrong thing for this house. The inside is far nicer than the outside so the outside is selling it short. It's a three bed not a four. Making a room in the loft has taken away so much from that bedroom and the look of the house generally that I can't see it as financially ever worth it.

I thought the inside looked ok though the position of the TV and sofas was a bit strange but I imagine you could set it out differently but the first thing I looked for was a picture of what the actual house looked like which should have been first to set the scene. When I found it my first thought was that big detached house is cheap but then the details said semi detached.

The rooms looks small inside. Can you get rid of one of those sofas and that bed in the office?

The photo makes it look like that’s all your house. I didn’t realise it was a semi.

That’s why it should be marketed as a 3 bed.

The floorplan has the room dimensions, it's just that visually the ground floor should be a bigger rectangle that the first floor.

Whoever did the loft conversion put the stairs in the wrong place or should have used a more space-saving stair design (I don't mean those weird loft access stairs with alternating side treads) because they have absolutely butchered that small bedroom. You don't add value if you lose an existing room/make the use of an existing room so limited.

OP I've just checked the sold prices info on Rightmove and the previous listing from when you bought the house shows. Usually, the EA will make sure the current listing information links to that. The previous listing makes it easy for a buyer to see what you have done in the time you've lived there and it has better photos of the garden.

Change agent ! Use Richard James or House , plus their staging / photography services

sort out front of house as others have said .

Kerb appeal for sure, and make sure the front door photo is first. Bathrooms should be minimal, not showing bath mats. Hide bin in kitchen. Definitely remove that bed from under the sloping ceiling and style is as an office. Some greenery as styling in each room. Try and style the garden so you can clearly see although small there’s an area to sit and relax. Pots for sure at front of house.

Show the entrance to your home. What's the hall like, can you store shoes and coats somewhere?

If the blue door isn't yours then the front needs to be photographed again from a different angle. Cutting that side of the pic off and another of the front door with nice plants in tubs by it, and a couple under your front window.

Hey @Sheepcountryside78 maybe you won’t come back to this thread. But still, my thoughts.

This is a lovely house with some good space and nice rooms. But the listing is letting it down. You don’t say if you are getting no viewings, or getting viewings but no offers. If the latter, then it’s either the price or something you can do nothing about (such as location, no hallway, no loo downstairs) – except cut the price until the compromise is acceptable to a buyer.

But if the former, the listing could be so much better. The photos are not helpful and in many cases downright confusing as PPs show.

Pic 1 – front of the house, a new pic as others say, delineating the edge of your drive with a row of planters maybe
Pic 2 – Front door and maybe make it clear where it is a lot of ppl are confused
Pic 3-4 kitchen – this is lovely, show the kitchen in one pic and the dining area in another
Pic 5-6 living room – another nice room, maybe only one pic but make sure it doesn’t use the distorting lenses that make the sofas look radically different sizes as now.
Then I would unusually jump to the top of the house as the master suite is impressive. The first pic looks better IMO plus a nicer pic of the shower room including the loo
Then pix of the other bedrooms – take the bed out of the stairs room and dress as a baby’s room with cot or simply a study. Watch out for the mirror as that is confusing people into thinking there is a door up the stairs there
Put a double or queen size bed in the room with the leaf wallpaper
The pic taken inside (!) the cot makes it look like it’s actually on the landing so redo this pic – maybe this could be the teen room
Get some better pix of the garden – the ones on the previous listing were nicer I think.

All of this is only for the pix and to get you viewings. I wouldn’t bother with anything like repainting blue walls etc. All these suggestions would cost barely anything and just be a lot of work for a weekend.

Also – the description! Peachy right? Aaarghh the writer in me cringes. Get that rewritten without the ick and including room sizes and detail of fixtures and fittings. Also remove the lies – the bedrooms are not on the two floors below the master (just one floor) and they are not great-sized.

HTH and you do have a lovely home, but this advert is not showing that which may be why people are not viewing.