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

Weirdly I actually like the house, in that I could envisage it being really nicely done and mid-century modern in style. But I would not buy it at the price you’re asking because I would need to do so much work to get to that point!

OP it's really obvious the 'reno' you've done has been on the cheap.
The kitchen isn't a new kitchen you've just had cupboard doors painted a weird shade of pale green, the dark grey carpet you've put in bedrooms looks a cheap synthetic carpet not decent quality wool carpets. The exterior has been left tatty with weeds growing through and you've inexplicably ruined a couple of nicer features like the garden. It's also obvious that you have not done a 'heavy reno' like you described - there's no evidence of building works - /you've just done cosmetic stuff like repainted and carpeted (cheaply).
I can't see that you've spent anything like the money you are trying to add on to the purchase price. It's a cheap flip attempt and it shows. Is this your first foray into developing property?

Omg that shows the garden 😬

This was a massive mistake. I actually can’t believe someone has done that.

kitchen - get rid of the green colour

Yup.

It's not selling so it's pretty obvious no one wants what's been done to it.

I hope the previous owners have no idea.

When I sold my last house, an Edwardian cottage type semi, the new owners painted everything white, black or grey, and got rid of the garden.

When they sold it, they eventually knocked off over £200k from their original asking price.

The poor house looked like an institution inside.

I'm sorry, i instantly hated it form the outside photo.

A buyer, is at very least going to be thinking, Kitchen needs re-doing and garden needs doing, there is £30K of work just to get those things done.

The garden is the real own goal, it takes years for shrubs to mature as they were, putting in new mature ones costs a bomb, and will still take 10 years to start to look beded in - the garden alone has wiped tens of thousands off the price.

Anyone looking on Zoopla etc can see the historical images, and that means they will look and see how bad the op has made it.

Omg what agent told you gravel or astro are the preferred options these days, that's completely incorrect, fake grass tends to really put buyers off!!
An established mature garden is typically a real selling point. Come on OP admit it an estate agent can't have advised you that, it sounds like you and your husband have had some really poor advice?

I don’t like the first image, it looks only like the side of the house no doors or windows! You definitely need to see the front in photo to get full kerb appeal!
The photos inside are ok, It doesn’t look homely and welcoming to me! It kind of lacks abit of character! But that being said it could be nice!
The kitchen doesn’t look to have much work top space but perhaps we can’t see it all! I think the outside area needed weeding and afew better photos!
good luck!

To me it smacks of an agent getting it letting ready - hoping either the OP will sell it cheaply in the end to one of his landlord mates or rent it out themselves, get stressed out being a LL and jump at his generous offer to take it with sitting Tennant.

The only reason to mutilate the garden is to make it low maintenance for letting purposes.

I can’t believe what you’ve done to the back garden. It was so much better in 2023. Although dated the photos from 2023 were way better than your current ones.

Plus I don’t mean this unkindly but I’m not a big fan of the grey and the black garage! Although I know these can be changed, as just personal taste!

Bland and ugly. No personality. Cold.

I doubt anyone has advised anyone, OP and hubby probably done it all themselves to get it 'insta' ready

What had you done to it since buying to make it worth £135k more than you paid?

No en suite, no garden, kitchen is tiny, all the rooms look very dark, why is there a desk and weird solo chair in the living room?

The outside looks horrid. Very unwelcoming and uncared for. No photos of the garage? No photos of all the bedrooms? Implies there's something to hide and I'd scroll past.

Same estate agent ?

They must have used a different photographer though

It’s a nice house but it has eaves (I don’t like these, a lot of people don’t - it feels claustrophobic and you can’t put furniture in), ground floor bedrooms (another no from me), it’s a little bit unfriendly/severe looking, and tbh it’s Swindon. I would say £350k would be more appropriate

For me I couldn’t live with the tile pattern/choice in the bathroom, it doesn’t look particularly homely and are the ceilings quite low?
Maybe popping in some more furniture and changing the angle of the pictures?
Is there a garden, as there don’t seem to be to be any pictures of it?
What are the properties in the road priced at roughly? It’s tricky to say why it might not be selling as I don’t know the area, but if there are a lot for sale at a similar price I would pick one with a garden and one I could affordably put my own stamp on.

I would resent buying a house from obvious flippers. Parts do look nicely done, but the fact that the outside looks so very uncared for, immediately makes me distrust the interior and wonder what shortcuts have been taken. I think you need to make it look like a family home. Put some proper furniture in, and finish the ‘Reno’ by making the outside look complete.

They must have used a different photographer though

Maybe the husband took these ones?

Firm in his belief he could do justice to his amazing handiwork!

Still reading the thread but bloody hell OP, you've destroyed this house 😯

Oh OP this isn't good, I'm sorry to take a kick at you but honestly it lacks any warmth, imagination of living there, look of comfort and that hug feel that folks want when they view a house.
I cannot believe you have ripped the garden out, what family doesn't want REAL grass and somewhere to add colour from flowers, living things? I know we all have different tastes but the majority these days are not laying gravel or the abomination that is astro turf...
I'm confused with your presenting of it, what sort of market are you aiming this at?
We have a similar estate close by where I live, it is either retired or families with young children and to be honest your house wouldn't appeal to either of those here, sorry. I'm a rightmove addict and I would genuinely skip past this. Hopefully you'll take on board some of the great suggestions from other posters and make some serious changes to add appeal to get the footfall viewing followed by a potential offer sometime soon.

Oof, you haven't?

oh dear. I doubt you’ll get what you paid for it.

Change EA or give your current one a good talking to. The photos of your house should start with an attractive selling feature. Not the hallway with open bathroom doors. A brief look shows the pin for the house is in the wrong place on the map and the garden is a "blank canvas" not a black one.

They've already painted the cupboards themselves - this is what they bought..

It even has the same appliances, taps and blinds - they've changed the tiles, floor, painted the cupboard doors, filled in the 'hatch' and removed two units worth of worktop so reducing the working space in the kitchen.

Once you see what they’ve done to the back garden you see why there are no photos!