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

And even if it were true, buyers had "the option" of ripping up the lawn and astroturfing / gravelling over the everything.... but they also would have had the option of keeping the garden. Now they've got some scruffy weedy wasteland that they will have to do something with.* *

The "after" photos look like "before" photos 😬 I can't imagine anyone buying it unless they were getting it for cheap.

As much as I think some of the comments are harsh, they are accurate,

I can’t get my head round why you ripped the garden out and left tarpaulin and weeds, surely you know that’s never ever done.

did you run out of money? Were planning to Astro it, ran out of money and are pretending it’s to prepare it?

you must know that a garden is better than weeds and tarpaulin.

as said, I think you will need to drop price or wait for the market ti catch up with you. And I’d dust myself off,

if you ever do this again, focus on making it a family home for the target demographic and keep control of the budget, spend the minimal money possible to max profit, onky doing what’s necessary,

I’m not going to add to the pain with my personal thoughts, and I’ve sold three houses in the first week, but everything everyone else says is valid and correct.

I would not consider buying this house.

Yeah now I’ve seen the house as it was previously I have a lot less sympathy.
There’s a reason not everyone tries the flipping thing - it requires actual skill and an “eye” as well, dare I say it, as some common sense.
I don’t believe that someone who knows anything about selling houses told you to rip up that garden. I think you just thought managing it was too much work. Which says everything.

Somehow it even looks bigger in the previous listing.

Log burner - bad
Log storage - jumbled
So grey and soulless
Garden - you should have left it, or actually redeveloped it, not this half way crap
Outside - Weed it
Get better photos
Way too much grey, worth mentioning it twice

Nice radiators though

Putting it bluntly the outside is ugly and I don’t think there is any way around that apart from weeding and adding a photo of the side to see the door. Also the kitchen is poor.

I would never view this as it isn't a functional family home. There are no photos of the garden, which would put me off. No grass and for me it would be too big a job to replace the grass. I probably wouldnt bother viewing without a garden photo anyway as it would say to me it was awful. Especially when the photos of what bits of garden you can see through windows are so bad. Why would you not include a garden photo on a Family home? Downstairs carpets are an awful colour choice. And i wouldnt want no option of sleeping on the same floor as my children. It rules out fostering too. The second photo looks stretched.

The only piece of furniture downstairs is one Ikea chair. Why in god’s name why?

I like the bathroom, what we can see of it, but the kitchen needs ripping out.

For those posters who think the OP ripped out the garden, I don't think they did. I think it was neglected whilst the interior was worked on - there's been block work and windows fitted, probably scaffolding to paint the exterior - and it was a combination of trashed and not maintained. Rather than put it right, they covered the lawn with polythene on the EA's advice. Or rather they asked should they have it re-turfed and the EA said it wouldn't affect the sale as some people will want astroturf or gravel.

It was also the most someone has paid for a house in that area and now you are asking way above that.

I've relooked and the slapdash details are bugging me. The dominant colours in the ktichen are pale green and beige (which don't really go but we'll leave that for now) but the kickboards are white. Why do that? Kickboards should match either the floor or the units to create a visually seamless join. Also wooden floor in a kitchen is a no for me.

Looking at the bathroom, the mirrored wall cupbaord not flush above the sink would irritate the shit out of me.

Finally what the fuck is up with the shower screen. Why is it broken up in to panels with (presumably) fake black frames. Who does that to a shower screen? It looks deranged (and difficult to keep clean).

The log burner will not have been cheap to install either. Several thousand pounds.

Oh and the single grey framed window in the living room when all the others are white... what th hell?

The drive-in/drive-out driveway is a real asset, but your photo doesn't show it in full.

To improve the kerb appeal, I would dig up the small black tarmac semi-circle area at the front and plant with shrubs/lavender etc.

Get rid of weeds at the front and side of the house. Place two well-shaped small trees in large pots/planters in front of the blank wall.

In the back garden, repair the fence, weed, trim any shrubs, mow the lawn.

Re-paint or replace kitchen cupboard doors. The fridge/freezer looks really over-sized in relation to the cupboard and worktop space.

The main bathroom looks a bit over-modernised and clinical. Every popular style of floor/wall tile and shower screen from B&Q in one room. Can you soften the look with towels or accessories?

There's an awful lot of grey and brown in the bedrooms. They don't look welcoming or that I'd want to spend time relaxing in them.

The photos seem taken at strange angles. Bedrooms all out of shape. If you re-take them. try for a sunny day and open the blinds.

Sorry if this sounds harsh...you've obviously spent time 'renovating', but it's all a bit generic and clinical at the moment. To be honest, it reminds me of a renovated HMO listing on Spare Room or a rental house ained at contractors. A bit more furniture might help. Or completely empty but better photos.

Good Luck!

What's the space next to the fridge for? There's a big gap between it and the cupboard. Try putting a wine rack in there to make it look like something useable

The street view keeps taking me to the middle of a council estate.

It's basically a developed bungalow. I think by making it 'instaworthy' you've greatly reduced the pool of people who would buy it. It's the type of property I could see appealing to retirees/downsizers, who would use it as it's original layout and just have the upstairs as guest/ occasional rooms. I don't think many of them would want to pay over the odds for the cosmetic changes you've done.

It's not the ideal layout for a family, as half of the bedrooms are downstairs and the upstairs ones look like they'd be difficult to fit sufficient clothes storage etc in (sloped roof). I think it would also have limited appeal as a HMO. I wouldn't especially want to rent a room with sloped ceilings or next to the bathroom/front door.

*aimed

The listing is awful - the street view doesn't show the house, angles of photos all wrong etc, I hate not being able to see the fromt door properly. And you can't tell what room is what, it all looks the same.

But more than that, with all the grey and the lack of garden I think you might be best off renting it out, possibly as a HMO or group of singles who want somewhere neutral and low maintenance with fairly equal bedroom/bathroom set ups, rather than selling it as a family home

Remember this post from yesterday, I think the OP’s comment was about the choice of language, which wasn’t great tbh 🙄

i haven’t read all of the replies but the front of the house would stop me from going to view in the first place. Very untidy and looks uncared for. The black is a no no for me. Going inside I would want a new kitchen. The upstairs bedrooms have absolutely nowhere to put decent wardrobes which again would be a huge no. The other 2 bedrooms look ok. Lounge is very bare. Maybe dressing the house would encourage a few more people. But, and I hate to say this, unless you do something with the front and back gardens it won’t sell for a price you want. I have bought many houses and if I get the feel that the owner doesn’t care about it, it makes me worry about shoddy works etc so I won’t make an offer. Good luck though - a few small changes and things will turn around for you

Kickboards (I assume you’re abroad as British call them skirting boards) are traditionally painted white, as is most wooden paintwork in the UK. The shower screen is a modern phenomenon, a take on crittall windows. It’s become a modern look now along with black taps etc🙂

In what world was that ever going to sell for nearly half a million.

Well that first photo doesn't do it any favours !

The photos are absolutely terrible; I dont think I've seen photos this bad except on those joke websites taking the mickey out of bad listings.
I can't get a sense of size or dimensions of any of the rooms, no photos of a garden, everything is grey and white and dull, furniture is placed in strange positions. It doesn't even look like there are photos of all 4 bedrooms.
As for the first photo of the listing- if I was actually looking to buy a house that photo would stop me looking any further at this listing.

I wouldn't pay 100k based on the photos, terrible photos and weird angles. Hate photos that just show a log burner or on other listings, things like table settings. It looks grim to me.