House not selling (with listing)

[Houseadvice26]

Posted here for traffic. Thoughts welcome please!

Purchased for £360k in 2023
Heavily renovated
Reduced gradually from £495k last year
Now on with a new EA for £400k

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/165327158#/?channel=RES_BUY

Was that the original plan? Strip out anything that could grow to reduce maintenance for the future landlord, and sell on as an HMO.

Yes, that's what the first estate agent wanted us to do. We refused.

@Houseadvice26 Don't subdivide the house as you'll lose even more money. Keep it as it is but listen to what people have said:

• change the kitchen- buy a good quality 2nd hand modern kitchen from ebay
• paint the walls warm white
• put a lawn in and add greenery front and back
• stage the rooms with furniture so people can see the purpose of each room

@Houseadvice26 Don't subdivide the house as you'll lose even more money. Keep it as it is but listen to what people have said:

• change the kitchen- buy a good quality 2nd hand modern kitchen from ebay
• paint the walls warm white
• put a lawn in and add greenery front and back
• stage the rooms with furniture so people can see the purpose of each room

I don’t really comment on property posts as I don’t know enough. However, it was the mature garden that ‘sold’ my late parents’ home, so I find this odd.
So I had good pictures of the garden plus decent photos of a tired, old fashioned but a bit dressed/welcoming style inside.
I would feel I had to do a lot of stuff here to make it a home, so maybe make a thing of what you have done eg/ plastering or new roof or whatever to improve perception and let folk know it’s just a paint job - but obviously a lot of that is just personal preference- why I don’t comment though like looking!
I do wonder when houses are sold quickly and/or not being lived in - why that would be.
Mainly perhaps a bit of love to the front and ‘life’ inside and new photos would help increase interest - maybe that’s the EA so you’d need to change, ask for different ones or do your own possibly.

Go to a different EA, not Captain Astroturf with his appalling photos. Take it off the market for now, aim to have it back on around May.
The front is actually quite easy to improve. Repaint the black bits with something less 'in your face', a more rustic colour to complement the yellow stone. A willow/olive green would be nice. Tidy the flower bed, put up some willow trellises (cheap) and put a few climbers in, fast growers like passiflora and clematis, this will break up the wall. Tidy up everything else outside, fence, returf lawn etc. Plant a few things, some roses, buddleias and similar. Maybe a couple of small fruit trees and lots of cheap perennials - lupins, hollyhocks etc. Pansies and primulas are great for gaps, cheap and easy to look after.
Many PPs have given great advice for the interior, I will just say this; for the love of God sort the kitchen and the so-called utility area. Oh and reinstate the door from the hall to the living room. Make it a pocket door to save space.
Good luck.

We had similar. Turned out that he was trying to sell it cheaply to his buy-to-let mates.

No but friends who have done similar have given the idea. They just say that planning can be lengthy due to the NIMBY effect.

zero kerb appeal

Not sure better photos would help - I suspect there are no photos of the ‘garden’ for a reason!
in all seriousness I agree - the house needs staging with furniture, a bloody good weeding of the front area, some plants out front and better photos.

What’s been done to the outside of this house and the garden is a crime. OP you can’t actually think it looks good?

A small mercy.

Bedrooms like lovely and good sizes. I don't mind the bathroom though the tiles are very love it or hate it so you're losing interest from 50% of you market because of that. Lovely big hallway which appeals to me. Kitchen doesn't look like there is a lot of worktop space? Lounge looks very unloved and I'm not sure how I would make it work - definitely needs dressing properly. I dislike stairs in the lounge area so that would be a deal breaker for me. Garden would also be an issue for me - gardens are very expensive to landscape so this would put a lot of people off I would imagine. Kerb appeal is not for me. I'm not mad keen on black which is kind of harsh looking. Obviously the weeds need to come up - add some plants and colour which would improve it. Someone out there will buy it but it might not be for the price you want. That's the big problem when you make a house quite specific in style, you are putting off a big section of your potential market. I think you've had some poor advice from EAs tbh. I hope you get some interest and a sale soon.

Quite, it could possibly be let out as an industrial unit, but maybe is too ugly for that use!

Definitely tidy the outside areas. Seeing the garden through the window, it looks even worse than the front.

The photography overall is terrible. Can't work out the size and shape of any of the rooms

It's a cliché, but with ours I just painted everything white.

I was advised that there was no point in changing the 1980s kitchen and pink bathroom, since so many people rip out even brand new kitchens and bathrooms.

I just made sure that I scrubbed absolutely everything as well as painting all the walls. Also got someone to put new vinyl down on the bathroom floor for me and I used a carpet cleaning machine on all the carpets.

I recall that I put up new, neutral curtains.

it doesn’t appeal as a family house at all. The kerb appeal is none existent. It’s too grey everywhere. The lounge looks small with the stairs in it and that chair at a funny angle makes it look like the layout is weird. No picture of a back garden. Is there one?
it looks cold and soulless.

Oh dear.
I've done a couple of flippers and always had a good result but I've looked at the area, the potential sale price and what would attract the potential buyer - not what someone thinks is 'Insta worthy'.

What made you think that was 'insta - worthy' OP? There must be some reasoning behind that.

The before would have had much more appeal because with the garden alone, you gave people something to work with. Most people don't actually want a blank canvas from the off. They want something that looks nice whilst they decide how to put their own stamp on it.

The black is not a selling point. The wood work isn't in good enough nick for that. It looks like you have tried to cover something up.

The interior is not welcoming at all. Either stage it to look like a lived in house or clear it out completely.

You need some colour inside and outside.

If he has overseen this fiasco, you really need to have a serious think whether him leading things is a good idea.

"Captain Astroturf" 😁

Honestly I feel like any financial loss you make on this is punishment for the awful taste of taking out the garden and putting Astro turf in … I mean seriously. It’s clear that the buyers of this if there’s a downstairs bedroom are probably going to be older and won’t give a hoot about the 50 shades of grey front yard and interior decor.

Outside looks drab and neglected, get rid of the weeds on the front and i think weeds you can see at the back too.
For me the kitchen lets the house down ,or could it be that the pics don't show it clearly ?
The rooms look like they get decent sun but there are a lot of the pics that make the house look drab , as a pp said it needs to be staged .

Hubby is leading things??? First bit of advice…STOP letting him lead things.

I haven’t read the thread so apologies if this has been covered. But you bought at the top of the market and have done ugly things to the front and the back. The rest of the house does look nicer (not sure about the kitchen as it looks considerably smaller now that it did but I expect that’s the pictures). You need to put back the kerb appeal and make the garden green again!

I think it looked like a proper home before - it’s like the life has been sucked out of the place. I hate the anthracite grey/black paint, it’s really jarring and doesn’t work with the brick.

The kitchen needs replacing - I believe you’ve just painted or wrapped the previous doors?

Ripping up the back garden was criminal though, OP. We bought our house with young DCs because of how nice the (mature!) back garden was. I fear you’ve been ill advised by the EAs.

You need to inject some life in to the place - particularly in the living room where if looks like you are got a chair and a desk?

I like the bathrooms though! I hope you sold the old blue one because that was delightful!