Selling home: Tips to attract viewers?

[Tau]

We want to sell our house. It's been on the market for about a month now, and we've only had one viewing. I guess we should drop the price, but we can't go to low or we won't be able to afford another decent home!
There is another house for sale around the corner, very similar to ours and a bit nicer inside, but not on such a nice spot, but it's on for less than ours and hasn't sold in a year! Soooo.. I'm a tad worried there.
Our house is lovely (in my opinion) as is the location. It's advertised on rightmove.
Any ideas how we can get more viewers?
First, of course, is to lower the price. But what else?

I would have a boring bathroom photo anyway just to show you have one.

Feature points would really help as the decription is very wordy/dense.

...on a quiet close overlooking a green. The large green between this house and those opposite makes for a quiet position on the most ...

This pretty much says the same thing twice.

....from lovely country- and coastal walks.

There's an unwanted dash there...

You're right - there are no 'grammar' errors - I put that badly - sorry - I meant there's way too many words and description particularly at the beginning and at the end in the OUTSIDE section - really, I don't think people read that much stuff.

If you look at what other agents do, there's often very little narrative - because people won't read it.

The pictures are much better now. Well done. Hopefully they will spurr on some more interest.

I agree with you about the word density, marina. It is too much. I've changed it along with adding the bullet points, and even before I read your explanation I took out that double mention of the green!
I suspect the unwanted dash is still there though; didn't notice that.
Anyway, it's off to the agent.
I think the full description is still too long, but I'm fed up with doing the job of an estate agent! Hopefully the bullet list will make up for too much rambling, and new pics will attract many many viewers... or just one, as long as they buy the house!

Okay looking at the link I agree it looks a lovely house, with great gardens.
However:

1. Get the pictures of the road removed, lord know why they have put so many on there!
2. Get them to re-do the picture of the front of the house as a portrait shot from the perspective of where the cars are parked on the road so you get the green in front the the house, try a few shots yourself so you can describe what you want.
3. There are a lot of plants on your pics. You clearly love plants (as do I) however they do date a house and make it look old fashioned.
4. Speak to you EA every week, be a pain in the backside. There are 133 properties for sale in FY8 between £130k and £160k, that is a lot of competition. If the EA is going to recommend your property you need to make them remember it.
5. Check when it appears in the paper or advertised in the EA's window.

Good luck!

re the doing the work of the estate agent be prepared to do a lot more, they in my experience do very little for there fees! If you want to sell you need to put the effort in.

Interesting thread.

Look at the local market.

There are seventeen 3 bed properties available at your price point or slightly above in your immediate area. The only ones which have sold is a detached bungalow, and one with spacious rooms which is practically on the seafront.

One other 3 bed end of terrace has sold for (we can assume) less than £147,950. It looks a bit bigger than yours, with scope to extend and a larger garden.

There are probably less than a handful of buyers in that area looking at property in your price range.

There is one 4 bed, at £149,950 (same price as yours) on which an offer has been made.

There are six 3 beds for sale under £140,000 - two of which are sold stc.

If you want to sell, you're going to have to go down to the next price range.

If I were you I'd take it off the market now and put it back on in 3 months time for £145,000.

He, olgaga.. I know all these houses except the bungalow. I also know my area quite well... and taking these houses into consideration, I'd say our price is very reasonable!

Soo.. since I am getting all carried away here, I'll jsut type down something that probably no one will read. About the houses you mentioned:

The first one is the only one comparable to ours - and I can see it from our front window.
It was on the market for the same price as ours is now, so I assume it has been sold for the price that is now mentioned. (Which would be an offer we might well accept, too...)
The house is not bigger than ours - check the room sizes.
The back garden is not bigger than ours either - only tidier, so they have more of it on the pic. Their front garden is almost non existent, whereas ours is massive. I consider their decoration to be very outdated... but that may be a matter of taste. The only thing they have that we don't is parking on site... and that may be their big selling point.
But they sold very quickly, so that makes me more hopeful for ours.

The other houses you showed: The 4 bed is a mid-terrace, it is in Newlyn, which is not Penzance, and it has no real garden. (courtyard garden is more like a path!) And it 'needs updating'. It is very close to the sea, but has no view of it, while still being at risk of flooding when the weather is wild, and it's on a noisy busy road.

Parc Wartha crescent requires updating and has lots of road noise.

The three cheaper houses are all mid terrace and they are tiny, with no gardens.

The Gwavas house has such lovely views because it is on a VERY steep hill. It is also in Newlyn, so not in Penzance, it's on a very rough estate (although in their defence they have been improving), and it needs updating.

That sold house on the seafront is smaller than ours, with mini garden, and has sold for 'offers over' 150000, which was apparently 'priced to sell'.
That bungalow is the only one I have not ever seen... but it says needs updating, it is again in Newlyn and can apparently only be reached via a foot path?

You missed this house: www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-15535983.html?premiumA=true
Is around the corner of ours, admittedly nicer than ours, and not selling. But I had a look at it the other day, and, well... I think their neighbours may be the problem...

I've done my market research, really, I have!

Possibly a personal or regional thing, but we place no value at all on having a massive front garden - in fact I tend to view it as a negative because the chances are I'm being charged for something I won't use. As long as the front door doesn't open directly on to the street, a la Corrie, anything over a couple of feet is wasted on me. I'm entirely happy with houses where there's just half a dozen or so steps between door and street.

I know lots of people round here who feel the same. It's an area here where lots of houses have a bigger front garden than back and they're hard to sell. The ones with a good back garden sell much faster and for a lot more money. I'm only interested in enclosed back gardens the kids can play in so, as a family home, you may be investing the front garden with a value that your potential buyers aren't. Just a thought.

If you really want to sell, you've got to accept you're competing with those other sellers for the few buyers there are. The best way to do that is on price. It's as simple as that, really. Price it to sell, and it'll sell.

And if you can't afford to do that, then you can't afford to move.

Olgaga... It is priced well - at least 6k under the lowest valuation, and as I explained, the houses you found only confirm that!
Mind you, we have only been trying to sell since January; it's not as if we've been on the market for ages... and we now do have another viewer coming, too. :-) Although they are not likely to buy; they actually wanted a house in Truro, I think. But you never know...

I understand your point about the front garden, Kindlemum - I feel the same about driveways- as a non driver I don't like paying tons of money for an ugly patch to park a car we don't have; that has indeed put me off considering two houses... 10 k extra for something we won't be using did seem a bit ridiculous.
But we don't just have a big front garden; we have that in addition to a big back garden!

Sherbertpips, I seem to have missed your comments. What pictures of the road do you mean? And what is FY8? Is it some forum expression that I am unfamiliar with, or is it a postcode? It certainly isn't our postcode...
I know about the plants... they are my weakness. I tried taking pics without them but then it looked really bleak and horrible. At least that's what I thought... Anyway, I hope it doesn't have too much of a negative impact, because we want to leave it as it is for now. I can't face doing more estate agents work!
They are an online agent, and I must say I regret going for them! The worst to me was that they got the measurements totally wrong at first, and also the shape of rooms on the floor plan - HOW can they possibly get that wrong?? We had to correct it. And the description, And the photos.

And worse: The viewer we have coming this evening is not even through them... it is somebody we kind of know, and who has made all sorts of admiring comments when she has visited our home in the past. So when she saw it was for sale she really wanted to have a look... even though she actually needs to be in Truro.
Never mind, she is a nice person and we are always in anyway.

Now we've been contacted by an estate agent who seem really keen on marketing our house... so we will have a talk next week.

If the woman you know does want to buy your house, take it off the market and give it a couple of weeks before she makes her offer. Do not let her involve the agency!

If she or you ring them and they do any work, no matter how minor they will still get their comission.

Since you have done all of their work so far, and they have not introduced this 'viewer' then I really don't see why you should pay them a % of your sale price.

You don't need an agent if she chooses to but the house, just a solicitor each.

If she wants to buy, I'll do that.
She now saw the house and got all dreamy and enthusiastic. However, her partner was more practical and really doesn't want to live in this town - and he is right; he'd have to travel one and a half hour to and from work every day....
So I reckon they won't buy it - still nice to get such a positive reaction though.