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

Agree with @ZerotoSixtySnail the gardens need some brightening up cyclamen and winter pansies are beautiful at the moment. Dark wood floor in downstairs room, can you get a rug to lighten it up, the dark blue wall is not everyone's cup of tea . Bedroom 4 - it's either an office or a bedroom

Good luck

Goodness.

Does this not rule out about 95% of the country?

You need new ones photo's these really aren't presenting property well.

For new photo's:

• Agree about lack of kerb appeal and neighbour's blue garage door. Photo needs to be from the other angle to cut that door out plus plants in pots under windows to add colour to the huge expanse of drive.
• Jet wash the driveway AND the dirty looking garden wall, patio & steps outside the lounge. It's not a pretty view and screams lack of upkeep.
• One lounge photo makes it look a good size, the other makes it look long and skinny. Either just have one or get another taken that doesn't distort the persoective.
• Bedroom 4 is too small for both bed and desk. Make up your mind and present as either study or baby's room with cot (and then put single bed in room where cot currently is)
• Take out the hanging clothes rail in photo 10, it says not enough storage. Make that room look like a proper bedroom
• Bathroom in photo 8 is presumably the ensuite. Can see the pipework under the sick, looks a bit shoddy, so retake from a different angle or even better hide the pipes.

Upper patio/terrace in garden needs to be jetwas cleaned and presented as a nice sitting area with a little table and chairs or bench. Move the black bin and BBQ(?) out of shot. It looks like the compost bin!

You can't do anything about no downstairs loo but that's a bit of an issue for a lot of buyers so the rest of the house & garden has to overcome that, along with price.

Some of the key points, thanks for the input:

-Drive isn’t shared, but appreciate the boundary isn’t overly clear.

-Main bedroom being upstairs - we did think that, generally do people prefer not to sleep on separate floor from their children? if really young

-estate agents are fairly new but have big online presence and selling a lot of properties (set up by people from one of biggest agencies in area)

-split garden can’t be rectified without extreme cost unfortunately, appreciate it divides opinion

Have a photo of the front of your property only done, they are not buying your neighbours house.
Remove the desk from the little bedroom, make the most of the floor space.
Put a properly fitting loo seat on the toilet!
Are you getting viewings? Is the house always immaculately presented for viewings? If you get people through the door don't put them off with musty odours etc, change beds, open windows and if it is cold put the heating on.
We sold our house to the first person that viewed (not a spectacular house by any stretch of the imagination!) but it was immaculate, my husband joked that even a forensics team wouldn't be able to find a speck of dust🤣

Powerhose the front so all the area is like the bit under the cars. Repaint front door. Not blue. Put a nice rug in lounge. It looks a bit cold especially with blue wall. Coffee table a bit functional - remove stuff from bedrooms .mow lawn

Agree that the outside lets the house down - it looks tatty and unloved. I would a) jet-wash your driveway so the brickwork is nice and clean b) get rid of the old, tired-looking planters with nothing in them and get some nice new ones or some trees in pots and c) get that exterior photo retaken WITHOUT your neighbour's property in the picture. You can't get them to repaint that tatty-looking blue door, so get a photo without that in it. While you've got the jet-wash guy there, get him to jet-wash the paved area out the back too. And then I would list it as a 3-bed with boxroom/office/study. That room is too small to be a bedroom and it's disingenuous to call it one. I'd also get rid of the bed in there, which looks messy and cramped. It's used as an office, so style it as an office.

Definitely needs some lovely colours in the gardens, maybe in the form of pots, baskets, painted fences
Am in SE; very slow here; I get the feeling that people sense something is going to happen soon with the economy/ house prices
Sense of uncertainty is maybe holding back people
You are also a fair way from the station; might deter commuters

Oh, spruce the garden up at the back if possible. Make it look like an outdoor entertaining space that buyers can imagine spending long summer evenings in with a glass of vino. Do this ASAP and have the pics retaken before winter sets in (try and get pics done on a bright sunny day).

Unfortunately I think PP nailed it - it's been extended beyond it's capability really (sorry) and has probably exceeded a realistic ceiling for that property in that street.

In reality it's a 3-bed with a study which is still really desirable, but there are innate features which means you're still not going to be hitting the max values even as a 3 bed semi.

Your kitchen and lounge are lovely, bright and nicely done, so is the master suite. I love the paper in the green bedroom.

You could swap the cot into the room with the bulkhead, get rid of the desk and put a queen/double in the green room with side tables (extra expense I know). Put middle child in current nursery & hide the clothes rail. Declutter the shower. Take the empty planters off the drive and garden.

But it's will come down to price & a tough market. Lovely houses are sitting on the market here because they all feel massively overpriced, while people see their disposable income dropping week on week. Stamp duty is wild. Rach Reeves hinting at dicking about with that helps nothing.

Good luck 🤞🏼

I would ask the EA to grey-out the side of the house that isn't yours in the photos showing the front. It's quite hard to determine where your property ends and the next begins.
The living room looks rather over crowded with furniture, if you can't temporarily remove a sofa then I'd remove the coffee table and at least one of the decorative tables/stands. The dark blue on the wall makes the room look smaller, which doesn't help when there's limited space.
The mattress on the bed in the bedroom/study won't lay flat so it's definitely not helping sell it as a bedroom. I'd remove the bed and have it just as a study.
Possibly the tiered garden layout isn't helping if people with young children are considering it.
Change the toilet seat so it actually fits the toilet.
Can you remove the hanging rail in the baby's room? The wardrobe and the rail gives the impression there's a real lack of space. Could the clothing go in boxes under the cot?
Remove the random hats hanging from the curtain pole.
Good luck, hope the right buyer comes along soon.

It does look a bit scruffy from the outside. I don’t think it’s immediately clear that it’s a semi based on the pictures although it does say that in the listing. The smaller bedrooms could do with a good tidy, as could the bathroom. Basically, hide all your clutter and crap.

The bed under the stairs would look better if thr mattress wasn't squished up at the end - that draws attention to it being squashed in. Could you swap rooms so the cot goes in that room? Otherwise, I do think that the colour of the feature wall in the front room would look better if it was toned down. And I agree with the comments about the photo of the front - get one taken not showing next door's garage door and maybe highlight the route to the front (side) door with plants on both sides of the route to the door.

The main problem is that it was a perfectly fine 3 bed semi but it’s been converted to within an inch of its life, and it’s not going to appeal to anyone who wants a 4 bed at any price. No downstairs loo, a bedroom that’s been sacrificed for stairs to the dormer extension, and a garage conversion that’s done the exterior dirty by having a completely different sized window to the rest of the house isn’t very appealing.
Definitely spruce up the outside and get more photos taken, and market as a three bed plus storage room.

you'd pass out if you saw where I live! Two up two down inner city terrace, walk into the front room from the pavement, had a hanging basket for "kerb appeal" (not really, I had it because I like growing things) but it was torn down and thrown in the gutter! If you think the rooms in the OP's house are tiny and unusable you should see my bedroom, bathroom and spare room. I have no garden at all, just a back yard with tubs and hanging baskets and the wheelie bins that get in the way all the time but better than keeping them out in the pavement like 70% of the people who live on my street. I also have a lovely view a well used fly tipping hot spot that adds to the ambience. I think the OP's house is lovely, a bit overpriced but I can only dream of having a home like that and guess what I am grateful to have a roof over my head and proud that I paid for it by myself.

Always have a photo of the front as your first photo or an aerial shot.
agree to either greying out next door or redo it. So it’s yours that’s shown - maybe down the drive rather than up the drive?
some of the photos are really good, like your master bedroom. That’s lovely.
And some are not so great like others have said.

good luck

I’m not sure who the house would be marketed for. It’s not a family house, the layout isn’t suitable for a family as it’s got a tiny living space, no downstairs toilet, different levels of garden and master bedroom on a separate level from the other bedrooms. Not good for older people either as too many levels.

The shared garden and drive would put me off straight away, wouldn’t even view it if I realised there was no boundary / it was shared. The bed under the stairs makes it look like everything has been crushed in. Nothing gives an impression of private space.

1. Kerb Appeal!!

That needs to be the front picture first and foremost. Secondly jet washing the front, repainting the garage door and adding some greenery makes a massive difference.

2.The bed under the stairs, it looks (and is) extremely cramped. I’d try and move that bed, in fact it seems to me that the toddler room is significantly bigger than this one?

3.Change the description - you can write one yourself and ask the EA to amend.

Yes you need to sort out:

1. The front - it looks very ugly. Use a different picture if you can. Move the pots and junk that are at the front of the house. Maybe put a car or two on the drive as that would show the space. Pots, plants and sort the blue door out.
2. The garden - again the pictures are very unappealing, possibly taken on a rainy day, but you need to sort the garden out anyway. Move all rubbish (is that a barbecue?), mow the grass, plant some flowers. The people need to picture themselves in your garden, and they won't want to be there at the moment - it's funny because the blurb talks about how sunny the garden is, but it looks really uninviting at the moment.
3. I assume it's the same room with the 2 blue sofas? The second photo (which doesn't follow the first photo and has confused me) makes it look dark and small. You should paint the walls white and if can lighten the floor do that. You should put a large rug down and use a different coffee table. (maybe a lower glass one), plus plants. Take the toys away and the child's book case. Yu could put some prints on the walls.
4. I think the kitchen looks ok. I can't see where the fridge is, but it looks fine to me.
5. Bedrooms - take furniture out of all of them. They look too crowded. The main bedroom is too blue and fussy. Paint it white.
6. The lights are on in all the photos which would suggest the house is dark.
7. The use of the phrase "doesn't waste an inch" does suggest it's tight on space
8. Is the changing table and clothes rail on a landing? It looks like it is from the photos - which then suggests there isn't enough storage in the bedrooms. I would take the clothes rail away
9. Agree that in one bedroom it looks way too squashed. Take the desk away and put a double bed in instead.

Just name-changed to say that is the house I grew up in!!! Saw the street name and then the last 2 pics showed it is the specific house. We are going back a long way.

I have nothing useful to add other than to say it looks a damn sight better than it did when I lived there though 'my' bedroom has been made pretty small to accommodate the stairs to the loft.

Looks lovely to me

I would ask the neighbours if YOU could paint it at your own cost.

Sadly it appears to be yours and it looks quite shit. It will set you back a tin of paint and an afternoon.

I'd paint the fences, to make the outside look a bit more cared-for. And in picture 12, there is an oval toilet seat on a rectangular toilet. That's not great!
Overall, it looks like a really nice house, but the outside (and the loo seat!) let it down a bit.

I would say

1. Paint the garage door
2. Paint the fence to the left
3. Paint the gate next to the front door

4.Put plants/flowers in the planters and pots at the front

1. Faux wreath on the front door.

You have to get people to like the look of it from the outside. Good luck x

I do think people need to remember that not everyone has a downstairs loo! And that doesn’t mean it can’t be a family house (and OP can’t change that). We didn’t have a downstairs loo growing up.

I think once you’ve addressed the issues above and got the photos redone. If it still doesn’t shift then reduce price/ change estate agent.

Have you had any feedback from viewings? I’ve learnt the house needs to be pristine with zero clutter. It’s hard work and stressful but it does make a difference.