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

I'm beginning to wonder if OP and some other younger people see plants/grass/greenery as 'old fashioned'? It's utterly bizarre that they've ripped out all those beautiful shrubs.

This is not a market to flip property in, the OP obviously overpaid in 2023 and will probably make a loss on this IMO. The large price reductions just scream No clue about the market and general demand (which is down in most areas I believe) the OP needs to sack the EA as a first move.

Thats terrible advice. Gravel and Astroturf are hideous and environmentally destructive. I would be so put off by your dead, ugly, weedy garden.

The worst bit is the tarmac-filled flowerbed. What on Earth were you thinking? It doesn’t even match the paved drive, it’s just a horrid semi circle of black that will be really hard to get rid of.

The people who like dead gardens like them because they have no plants and are exceptionally tidy. You’ve got the worst of all worlds with an untidy dead garden that will appeal to no one. You must get rid of the weeds and fix your fence. From the ugly front and lack of back garden photos, people will assume (correctly it sounds) that the back is a hellscape. You ought to replace the lawn and put some cheap bulbs around the edges and in pots.

The inside is nice, but grey is outdated now. If you paint the fireplace, bannisters and feature wall upstairs a different colour, it will look less “millennial grey”. Unless you’re going to replace the carpets it will have to compliment the existing grey, so maybe a soft mid-blue tone or plum would work.

If you fix all those issues then have new photos taken, it should be more attractive.

Showing weeds in the photos? You might as well just stand in the doorway and flash the V sign at potential buyers, the internal shots look like the set of an 80"s movie, Manhunter springs to mind, that thought alone would put me off straight away, there is no way this can sell for 400k IMO.

I would scroll past that first photo. Can’t you at least weed the front wall and put a couple of potted plants out there?

To be blunt: the front view looks more like a commercial property than a home. As others have said, it needs to be softened with nice colourful.flowerpots, flowers and shrubs. It lacks life and warmth.

Parts of the inside are stunning but overall it is lifeless. Add colourful furnishings / art and some plants to every room.

I have just read all of OP’s posts; it absolutely blows my mind that this was supposed to be a renovation for profit! She has wrecked the lovely mature garden in a way that’s hard to fix, and the outdated millennial grey has not actually been there since the late 2010’s, but done recently specifically to appeal to buyers!

Don’t give up the day job, @Houseadvice26 !

This unsellable burden is karma for your environmentally damaging choices.

I detest herring bone flooring so maybe some rugs to cover it up. The flooring doesn't go with the grey stairs or the kitchen either. Bathrooms are very fussy again heavy flooring and that black isn't good.

Plain walls are bland

Outside is unkempt and exaggerates the lack of kerb appeal

The rooms look small and the layout is very odd.

I can't believe someone advised you to put it on for half a million and there's no way I'd pay 300 for it never mind 400. It needs everything and I mean everything done to it. Also looks like there's no door on the washroom.

It's unrecognisable! It looked ok there. What a disaster it's become 🫣

It's such a shame you changed the outside from warm and welcoming to cold and bare. That wouldn't put me off as a potential buyer though. That's something I can sort out as I know how to decorate and build a garden. So I'd look past that. When my children were younger and I didn't have as much time, it would bother me more, but not a deal breaker.

The inside is more of a deal breaker for me. It's tidy but it's so gray. To make it warmer I'd need to do huge renovations and that would be the deal breaker for me.

Oh, that 2023 listing! It's such a gorgeous space, and you can see it's been well-loved and cared for. So much potential. The blue bathroom 😍.

You've destroyed it, OP, obliterated all the character and joy of lives lived there, and turned it into a clinical, soulless, waiting room to nowhere. You don't understand what makes a building a graceful, welcoming, liveable home with personality and warmth.

That you wanted others to pay you £140K profit in 2 years for your vandalism and shitty personal design choices speaks volumes about your motivation. Find another way to get rich quick before you destroy any more of our precious housing stock.

Inside just really needs some furniture
Outside the weeds definitely need to go and prune back the shrubbery as well. Get your driveway cleaned/remanded. What colour are the houses similar to yours? Good luck 👍

Repaint the trim and door white/off white. Plant a little flower garden out the front or do a basic landscaping job with that little front bit, some cactus maybe. That will lift it a lot and help with the street appeal.

What a horrible comment.

Omg the old listings

Why did you wreck the outside it was the best thing about the property!

Mistakes you've made

• ruined a mature garden
• painted the garage/window/exterior panelling black which looks vile
• ruined the semi circle driveway
• done a cheap flip reno - it looks like a bloke who does a bit of everything himself has just done cheap cosmetic jobs (replacing flooring, painting, swapping out tiling) rather than adding real value with quality work
• The kitchen needed redoing properly, not just painting over old cabinetry. Anyone can see you've not even replaced the oven/hob etc.
• to add value on that house it would need a proper upstairs adding instead of the rubbish dormer & the room that slopes on both sides
• you've overpaid a lot in 2023 and were mad to list it at £495k! Its in Swindon and property prices have fallen loads since then as the covid bubble has burst & interest rates rose.

Flipping heck, you spent money to turn it from something that was alright as it was to something that I wouldn't even go and view.

The front before was so much better, I wouldn't even gop view the place now as I could never imagine coming home and wanting to like somewhere that gooded so depressing.

Put it back as it was and you'll sell it no problem.

Can I recommend redoing the front so it is something like this? I think it is really the street appeal aspect. The inside renovation is lovely.

You've wasted money on things that have made it less appealing. Put the garden/plants/grass back in! Furnish it, and dampen down the grey. Grey really is not in anymore.

I can see now that one of the reasons the photos are so dark is that one living room window has been bricked up and the other halved in size. It looks as though the staircase has been completely replaced. Then the door from the hall to the living room has been blocked up and a door from the kitchen into the living room created. The radiators have been replaced and it looks as though a new boiler and hot water system has been installed. This is not cheap work, but some of the choices are odd and seem not to have been made with living in the house in mind.

Oh and I was wrong about the skip on the semicircular flower bed at the street side: you can see where the skip was on the block paving, which needs cleaning.

This is very nice but I think that big blank wall also needs something. There are a few options. Garden art, hanging baskets (I like mosaics myself).

Yes, in the original listing it seemed so much lighter. Why would you reduce windows size and number? Strange choice.

OMG - that beautiful garden is ruined. I think you've knocked around £30K off the price by ruining the garden. I'm in the Midlands so different area, but around here people certainly don't want astro or gravel - that would be a travesty. A lovely mature garden however, people pay a premium.

Sorry to add to the pile on OP but I think you've ruined a lovely charming house with what you've done to the front and back - that initial photograph with all the weeds speaks to a house that hasn't been loved.

To put a radiator under the large window that's been reduced in size it would seem.

They lied.

Kitchen and bathrooms are awful. That horizontal tiling is too much in one of the bathrooms, the toilet and shower are too close together in the other. Badly done revamp.