Is anyone else having a misreable time trying to sell their house?

[Roseflower]

Our house has been on the market since June and trying to sell it - it's so depressing. Our one offer fell through and since then it just been no more offers.

Buyers (this month we have only had FTB) seem to be getting more and more unrealistic in what they expect for their money around here.

I hate everything about selling a house- the horrible estate agents, the constant calls from rival estate agents touting, the time waster people, rushing around like mad tidying up after dd for hours, giving up our plans to get ready for viewings, people saying nasty things about our family home... but worse in the uncertainity of it all.

Be good to know other people feel as down as me for some support. Or even better people who did feel like me but now things have turned out well!

i.e. that was meant to agree with everyone else that Silver's house looks a bit grim on the outside in the pics. How about window boxes on the downstairs windows, and a bay tree in a Versailles tub either side of the door? What you do if you're worried about theft is to discretely chain the bottom of the tub to something eitherside the door. You shouldn't be able to see the chain, but it will be immovable.

Midnight - Re the kids room - clutter can make a small room smaller but your room looks big so I don't think it will put people off tbh. Are you getting viewers?

Midnight - maybe a picture of the garden would be good, because tbh I look at pictures rather than the blurb and it wasn't until I did read it that I realised you have a back garden as well as the cobbled area....

As for the kids room, I think it looks fine - you can see it is obviously a large room.

No, we've had two in a month, and one of them was, I suspect, a time-waster (nosy lady who lives down the road). See my post yesterday for details as to why we're not desperate to sell now, but we'll probably have to go at some point, so it would be good to get it really as sellable as possible over the next few months while we have some breathing space.

fimbo the reason that we don't have a picture of the garden is that it still needs a lot of work doing on it - when we bought the flat it was covered in brambles. We've knocked half of it into shape but the rest is still waiting to be done. It is big (about 80' x 40') and has amazing views of the city and the hills, so definitely has great potential but I thought it might be more offputting to include a picture?

Midnight - it looks fab all round. Are you having problems selling it? The only thing that I can see being a problem at all is that the third room is quite small, so if I actually needed three bedrooms it would be a bit of a squeeze. Having said that, my second bedroom isn't that much bigger! Is it priced accordingly ie a bit lower than other smart three beds with three big doubles?

Very jealous, if only you could bring it with you to the SE!

120 it's a bit of a funny one, because there aren't that many comparable flats in the immediate area - most places here are either houses or purpose-built flats, not many conversions. But from looking at what places in the area are asking it doesn't look overpriced.

...and yes, the third bedroom (which I use as an office) is small. DS1 used it as a bedroom when we first moved in and it was just about doable, but it's 2.5 beds, really.

It's funny really as for London it would be described as a double! How long have you had it on the market for?

It's been on for about a month. Because the schools go back in August here, it's not usually as quiet as it is in England in Aug, but this is not 'usually' of course, i guess.

Midnight -- I would take up the big red rug in the hallway and put it in the sittingroom in front of the fire, try to emphasise the cosy fireplace area, swap the position of the chair and the cabinet in the sittingroom and take up the red rug that's in front of the window there. I would leave the hallway floor bare or put a narrow, bright runner down the middle. I would remove a lot of the things on the shelves in the sittingroom, just leave a suggestion of books. Also, remove the things that are visible on the kitchen counter and put a little lamp if you can on the table in the kitchen. I would take off all your fridge magnets too, and also add a mirror to the bathrooms. It's a gorgeous house and looks very spacious and comfortable.

Thanks mathanxity. The fireplace isn't actually a real fireplace, it's a dummy, so actually atm I don't want to draw too much attention to it. I also - personally- think the mantlepiece is hideous. We're thinking about putting in a living flame gas fire there with a new, much plainer fire surround, as it would be nice for us and a definite selling point, I think. If we do that, then yes, I could think about reconfiguring a bit in there.

Thanks for the decluttering ideas too - we've hired some storage space so it could all go in there. A lamp on the kitchen table's a great idea, and also a runner in the hall. I think it might be a wee bit bare/cold with nothing at all, especially in the winter, when it gets dark (it's a basement so need to emphasise 'cosy' in winter I think).

Oh, and bathroom mirrors - to the side of the one inthe shower room there's a full-length mirrored cupboard, and the other bathroom has a small one, but agree that proper mirrors would be good.

It's so interesting seeing the place through other people's eyes. Thanks so much for the ideas everyone.

to the side of the basin, I mean.

Silver - if your camera doesn't have a wide angle setting, can you borrow one? Also when the agent took photos of my rooms, she had the camera on a really low tripod - about 3 ft off the ground, so it may be worth experimenting with a lower level shot? Or try another agent!

I put loads of planters in my garden/out the front when I was selling it - if they are quite heavy then I think they're less likely to walk. Do you really think people would nick them? You can screw brackets onto the walls and screw them onto those which might look a little less scary than chains?

Midnight - your place looks gorgeous! If you've done the bit of the garden nearest the house, could you take a photo from the end towards the house? I think no photo might make people think it's a totally overgrown mess.

...which wouldn't be sooo very far from the truth ladybiscuit. Half of it is fine though. It's not immediately adjacent to the house. We have the courtyard (which is in the pics) which wraps round two sides of the house and then to get to our garden you go up a path between the neighbours' gardens. It sounds a bit , but it's actually fine, though I suppose that it might put off some people with children that it isn't immediately adjacent. I think we'll carry on trying to get the other half done with just grass for now and then get some more pics done once we've done that. Should be able to get grass seed down this autumn with luck.

Or turf it? Much faster and it's a good time of year to do it :)

When you take pictures, turn on every light in every room.

Oh and my friends had a garden down a path - it was lovely and their DD loved riding her trike down it to get there so it wouldn't put me off :)

Yes. We used seed on the other half and it worked quite well and grew fairly quickly - in spring, so obv grew quicker than it would over winter. As we're anticipating (and not too worried) about being here over the winter we thought seed would be the cheaper option. But yes, if we can find some good value turf.

I think the problem, potentially, is that you can't see the garden from the house, so you'd have to be with the children when they're small. I'd always be up there with ours anyway, so it's not a problem for us, but I guess if they were a bit bigger, but not quite big enough to be completely unsupervised, iyswim, it might be an issue. Anyway, it's what it is, so we'll have to work with that.

I'd repaint the walls from yellow to a Farrow and Ball colour. And I'd declutter.

It's lovely, by the way!

I wondered about the yellow too. I love it (and only painted it a few months ago...) - it's a very warm colour in RL (Fired Earth), as it's a north facing room (the sitting room), but I know everyone always says to use neutral colours, so have hummed and ha-ed about it.

You might want to repaint the lilac too if you're going to decorate. My flat is painted very boring colours now (my bedroom used to be raspberry sorbet!). That photo of the bathroom is a bit odd too, makes it look like a corridor and I'd ditch it off the website because I don't think it does the room any favours. And not sure that the courtyard pic does favours either - makes it look v narrow. Could you get a shorter shot where you can see the table and chairs more as they are v hard to see in that shot (sorry got distracted by DS and didn't look at all the pics before).

Agree re the bathroom. It was exactly the same on the schedule when we bought the flat and we were amazed to see that it's actually a lovely room. In fact, in Glasgow, people sort of expect long thin bathrooms in flats (almost all tenement flats have long skinny bathrooms), so it's not quite as offputting as it would be in some places I think. But we could probably live without the crappy picture. Will also see if I can get something done about the coutryard pics.

Will also think about repainting everything in good old String or something when we get desperate. Thanks for your ideas.