No viewings and I don't know why, it must be the price right?

[Scruffydoggy1]

House has been on the market for just under a month now.

Before the pictures were taken I did a lot of maintenance, redecorating cleaning and made sure the house was as immaculate as I could get it.

We live on a desirable street and we are classed as a new build as we are just under 10years.

Most of the houses in the area are terraced Victorian. Apart from part ownership and our development there are no new builds. Houses that have previously gone up for sale in our development have sold within a week.

The market has boomed round here and we found the estate agents were having a problem valuing our house and they have valued it at the top end of the market and price wise we are on par with the terrace houses. This is due to a few improvements we have made as these houses were basic starter homes. So far we have: added a garage conversion, added conservatory totally redecorated and put a high spec kitchen in. Plus we have ample parking and for round here lots of land.

Our decor is quite bight however it's modern and in keeping with the house.

We have recently put in a big kitchen have extended it by knocking out the wall. It's very modern and clean with granite worktops inbuilt appliances and a breakfast bar.

I'm gutted, before our house went on the agents were bargaining with me over % they all loved the house and said it will sell in no time.

But nothing, I had someone knock on the door Boxing Day asking questions and they never arranged a viewing.

The problem we now face is we are buying a new build off barratt. The foundations will be in within the next month then we have 28days to complete. If the house isn't sold we will need to apply for a mortgage and then rent this house out.

However I have another rental property, very basic ex authority 2 bed house and the rental price is fantastic for it. If we compare my current house to it, it doesn't compare and yet the rental income we are looking at will be lower.

So I'm getting a bit anxious to sell it now. This week I need to submit a lower price to the agents and I have no idea how much lower it needs to go to spark interest well a viewing as over 6000 people have viewed it online. And with the stamp duty prices changing our buyers will be saving about £7,000.

Any ideas?

Ana - the photos are poor. For a start the lighting in the one of the kitchen is awful.

I would say you could soften it a little. A rug in the living room, maybe lighten up the kitchen.
Also the garden looks like it could do with a bit of love. Maybe some plants and a patio set. I know its the middle of winter but its all about getting people to imagine how they would use the space.
When my sister was selling her house she had similar problems. She has very minimal taste and goes with a quite muted colour palate.
She borrowed rugs and cushions from family. We tidied the garden up and got the furniture out and put some plants outside the front door to make it a little more welcoming. It sold a few weeks later. Just a few small tweeks that cost nothing :) some people just cant see past those things. Also if this is at the top of peoples budgets and they feel they would need to make changes then that may be effecting it. I would rather carpet in the bedrooms etc but that is a personal choice.

Thanks for opinions and advice, have taken the comments on board. I was originally quite deflated after reading the comments however have taken them as ways to now improve the house.

I was due to talk to the agent tomorrow and had decided I wanted to pull it off the internet over the weekend. Do some improvements. Had made arrangements to swap the tv bed and the high sleeper with normal beds and borrow them for the time being from my parents. Then having a reshoot on Monday and lower the price and put it back on.

The photos were not taken with a wide angle lense so I don't think that has helped.

Agent has just been in contact and we have 3 viewings on Saturday. We have decided to leave the bedroom furniture for now and get some feedback at the agents suggestion.

A house identical to ours got put online on Thursday with a different agent. They have marketed the property at 7k more than ours. The house in itself is identical however they do not have a conservatory and they have the original kitchen. The original kitchen is a kitchen dinner with all of 4 base units and 6 wall units compared to my (24 units). There's only has a oven and hob where as ours has full range of inbuilt appliances including microwave, washer, dryer, fridge freezer oven and a dishwasher.I know a lot of you have commented on my flooring, mine is tile effect but it is laminate and it is not cold in the slightest. The other house that is on for sale has throughout the downstairs porcelain tiles. They have matched up what was in the kitchen originally and they are so cold and a absolute git to take up. Plus there garden is tiny.

We will see how the viewings go and if we don't get any offers we will get to work next week, make some improvements and get the pictures re done.

Wow, sounds like that other house has made yours seem like a bargain and has piqued a lot of interest! Congrats getting the viewings and good luck with them. Also well done taking the advice you got on here so well. I thought it was pretty harsh in places and was hoping you weren't taking it too hard!

We have decided to leave the bedroom furniture for now

Just make sure you emphasise how much bigger than a standard bed is AND that you still have loads of wardrobe space.

Good luck!

Thank you, really hope it sells now. Been having major panics about having to rent this house out. Really don't want to go that route as the return won't be great plus the emotional attachment. Don't get me wrong my dream is to eventually have a property portfolio but with a smaller easier to maintain property than this closer to the city centre.

Our new build has been confirmed that building will take place in the next few weeks! Exciting!

Good luck Scruffydog. It can't be easy having your home torn to shreds on MN!

Pls add a link I can't see the pics with using the app ?? or could some kind person like this thread so it will appear in Safari?

Thanks Nancy, it's making me rethink the choices of decor in our new home if nothing else.

I want to have huge porcelain tiles throughout the ones with no grout that just look like a huge floor not individual tiles, the ones that are quite shiney. They look amazing in the show houses but I'm starting to have second thoughts now. Makes life easier due to my stupidly fluffy malting dog.

Scruffy, I hope the viewings go well and you get useful feedback.

The decor does look quite old-fashioned. I would do the boring "paint everything magnolia".

You also need to "dress" the house for the pictures. The kitchen looks sterile - perhaps some strategically placed flowers, or an artful arrangement of fancy oil bottles. Anything to make it look like you haven't just shoved everything in a box.

The bedrooms also need sorting - the main bedroom is quite dark and the bed placement is odd. I would put it parallel with the window, even if it won't actually fit there, and then move it back once the pictures are taken. The child's bedroom needs to be painted in magnolia too - your potential buyer may have a young boy. Also hide the toys when you get the picture taken.

Remember you are not selling a house, you are selling a lifestyle. If you remember that motto you won't go far wrong.

As for price reduction, it may be worth reducing the price enough to get interest and then let the interested parties talk themselves back up again. We used this method, cutting the price to make the house a bargain, and we had so much interest that we ended up almost back at the original price. The trick is to get viewers into the property so that you can sell them a lifestyle.

OP, I honestly wouldn't panic too much. Your house hasn't been on for that long at all.

I think that many people who bought in the days of the great booms expect houses to fly off the shelf, because that's how it was in their experience. I shared an office with a woman in that position: she had sold her previous house in a matter of hours after putting it on sale at the height of a boom, and was absolutely convinced that because she hadn't had more than 3 viewings in 6 weeks her second house wasn't going to sell. This was in the middle of the recession when house prices in her area were flatlining. I kept trying to reassure her, but she just couldn't understand that economic circumstances were simply different and that this would change the whole experience of selling.

By all means, make some minor alterations - and get those photos redone!- but don't spend £££. You will get interest in your place.

Excellent. Before Sat I would buy some flowers, put a bowl of those lovely clementines with leaves on the kitchen breakfast bar, maybe borrow a couple of throws etc. The trick is to spend on things you would like to take, or can eat

Oh that's positive OP - fingers crossed for you!

Absolutely impossible to price a house without knowing full details and a pretty exact area.

Round where I live a modern 3 bed end townhouse (or terrace) -like I have - will go for £290-325k. However I know that bunbaker has also sad she lives in South Yorkshire, but a different area to me, and that £280k would be horrendously expensive. It is just impossible to say without knowing exactly where the house is located.

Even if you have artex there is little you can do about it when selling - its not a quick fix and not worth doing before a sale. Lots of houses this age have artex. We have it - our house is 8.5 years old. We are gradually removing it as we have odd bits of work done. It was still very common in new builds 7-10 years ago.

I agree with decluttering your DD's room and putting one or two bits in rooms to make them look "arty" or dressed, for the photos. Put some pots with plants in the garden, front and back, to give it curb appeal.

And most importantly get new photos. A good photographer will make a huge difference - you need them using a wide angle or fish eye lens, and them brightening up the photographs.

Hopefully the more expensive house that has just been marketed will have a positive effect on your sale.

Oh I bet ron will be very disappointed if you get close to the asking price OP . I have a vision of a 50 year old man, living in the box room of his Mum's house. Desperate for the housing market to crash to 1950s prices so he can move out and finally get laid.

@ sebsmummy

Good luck for Saturday. Make sure you press the agent hard on money for full feedback.

Can I just ask what people think a first time buyers house is? I'm 40 and I used to think of a FTB house as a v small terrace or a 2 bed new build. However that was an era when a) FTBs were much younger than they are today and so not needing a family home because they had a few years left before they'd start a family and b) prices were much cheaper. The 2 are connected I suppose.

Couples that buy for the first time nowadays are generally older having had to save much more for a deposit and so will be having to consider space for a family sooner than they may have years ago (even 12 or so years ago). So may go straight into buying somewhere that is a family home. Somewhere like the OP's house.

So who has all these tiny terraces and small 2 bed new builds? Or is it that people are forced to start families in cramped homes and then move 2 years later when they find out it's nowhere near big enough? CAN they even move?

Who is in the small 2 bed terraces? Easy, all those would be FTBs, paying out rent while trying to save for a deposit.

My first house was a two bed Victorian terrace. I bought almost at the very top end of my budget at the time and lived there for a long time. Actually it wasn't small - the rooms were big, bigger than the equivalent rooms in our current house, but we have more room overall.

I think expectations are higher now - people want lots of space and rooms for their money. They are perhaps more likely to be looking for potential from the off these days.

When I was growing up we lived in a three bed semi and my sister had the box room for her bedroom. A lot of people now want a box room for an office/hobbies/spare room and bigger room dimensions for their children.

My first house sold to another ftb.

Our first house was a two bed terrace that we bought 11 years ago.
When we sold it 18 months ago most of the viewers were either people looking for BTL or recently divorced men.