How to sell a good house which is stuck?

[dotnet]

Really nice 1930s 3 bed house with brick garage, back garden backing on to cricket ground, not overlooked. Well looked after, but we can't get sensible offers. I wonder if this is because it's a probate sale?

Drawback: bathroom is dated. My late aunt had the bath taken out; there's a shower though. Toilet and washbasin are light green, 1950s.

The kitchen is quite big and is in good condition. I think most people would probably leave the kitchen units as they are - they'd prioritise the bathroom - unless they had plenty of spare cash, in which case they'd probably update both.

Lots of houses in the street sell for about £140,000. The estate agent recommended £135,000 for ours. We got immediate offers of £110,000 and £110,500, but we turned them down as we'd had the idea we'd only go as 'low' as £125,000.

Since those early offers, though, the house has hung around for more than a year and just had 'joke' offers. The worst was £76,000! And more recently, from a speculator, £100,000.

This house deserves to do better than this - paintwork is fresh; mostly double glazed; good, oatmeal colour carpets downstairs.

I don't know if it's worth risking paying to get the bathroom redone.

Or can anyone suggest a way of pulling in more punters?

The house is in St Helens, Lancs., in a street of semis.

Thank you !

it is certainly a house you could move into and do nothing and be perfectly comfortable if you'd spent every last penny on buying it.

Really

I can't imagine anyone being perfectly comfortable in a 60 year old bathroom- particularly in an area where you can buy much more modern properties for the same/ lower price.

If it is a probate sale, isn't it the case that whatever you get for it is more than you'd have had otherwise? Is this an inheritance? Are you sure you're not being a little bit greedy here?

I'd just sell for the best offer in the Spring (not many buyers about 2 weeks before Christmas)

It's clearly a well maintained house.

However it looks dated. Some quick cheap things to do would be putting modern bedspreads on the beds, a few new pictures and ornaments, books on the bookcase.

It would also help massively to remove the gas fire and put something more modern in instead. This doesn't have to be expensive.

The kitchen and the bathroom won't really cut it unless in an area which is a complete sellers market. Time to talk to the estate agent about whether to do a simple upgrade or cut your losses.

OP, have you looked at sold prices on that street? You're not even in the right ball park at £125k.

There are recent sales of properties in much better condition that yours for not much over £100k- you should have bitten the hand off the £110k buyers.

A property which was pretty much immaculate only sold for £137.

There's only one reason a house won't sell - it's too expensive .

So either sell it cheaper or do the work yourselves and hope you get the extra .

I think you should it cheaper , as you don't have the knowledge or experience to do this at a distance ( you won't get it done in 2 weeks holiday) .

no fitted kitchen.
bathroom untouched in decades; it's not the colour, it's the maintenance.
what's in front of the radiators? Doesn't the heating work?
if that shocking EPC is true (if not, get it redone) then it shouts 'lots of work'

loads of potential, I agree, but needs lots doing.

It dies look like a lovely house OP, beautiful door.

I agree it doesn't look run down and you probably could move in and live straight away. But there is bound to be behind the scenes work- a rewire for example and that is a much bigger undertaking than putting in a bath and new cabinets. That is what people will be factoring in to their offers, it's no reflection on the care your aunt took over the house but simply a reflection of the fact that houses need rewiring eventually (or plumbing or whatever).

If I were you I'd take it off the market for a bit as suggested up thread. Not sure it's worth doing cosmetic work as surveys may still raise windows, wiring etc. But you may find that the process of changing things helps you disassociate memories of your aunt with the physical house.

We recently sold a home which had big emotional significance and had to update s few bits. That made it feel like a different place to me, and I think I was more.rational about it all.as a result

It's up for £117950 though?

Anyhow, I'd do the bathroom and kitchen.

Here's a link to another house in the street that's only 2.5k more but modernisedwww.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-34484244.html#_full-description

Here's one for 110 that's still more modern down the road too,
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-28030700.html

munchkin - you are right and being very conservative indeed.

Your estimates suggest a price of £100 - 110k (i.e. £140k minus £25k - 40k).

dotnet - I don't understand. It is on at £117,950 and you want at least £125k?.

The kitchen is non existent. Really. It needs an entire new kitchen, new bathroom, new carpets throughout, Double galzing throughout at a minimum.

Surely if you are putting it on at £117,950 you are expecting offers at £110k where you got them.

As another poster said people can buy similar in very good condition for £130k.

Spending time up in St helens will cost you a lot of time and effort that is not free of charge. I would just sell it for £110k if you can get that.

Having seen the photos, the kitchen is not big and it's very dated and the bathroom looks tiny. Would there be space for a bath at all? The boiler looks ancient too.

I agree that you should look at sold prices for the area for similar houses in similar conditions.
I'd bet most have double glazing, modern bathrooms and kitchens.
The living room is dated as well and it all looks very empty and clinical. It doesn't give the feel of a family home.
Not having checked prices in the area, I'd suspect other pps are right about taking the maximum price you were offered.
Or invest a lot of money and time on it.

also it's way cheaper than my first one bed flat in London, 15 years ago. These differences keep surprising me

I agree; the bathroom and the kitchen need ripping out and starting again. Add in the fact that it's been on the market for a year and I think my starting bid would be £95k

I would ask the estate agent for new photos, the ones of the front of the house make it look very dingy and I can tell it would look lovely if the lift was better.

OP, we moved into a similar condition home two years ago and we have spent over £25k on it so far, doing almost all the work ourselves. We haven't got to the kitchen yet and threw a crappy £1k bathroom in to replace the pink 1970s suite. We haven't finished a single room and are in a continual state of upheaval.

The house was a good deal and will be a lovely family home in the end. But it has been a huge amount of work (double glazing, wood burning stove, bathrooms, stripping wallpaper from every wall, replastering, fixing damage from taking out secondary glazing, new doors, needs new flooring and new kitchen etc). It needed to be a whole lot cheaper than neighbouring properties even to consider it!

I agree with others - the price is too high. If you can renovate some rooms, maybe take it off the market over quieter winter months, you may just be lucky enough to get simultaneous interest which could drive the price up a bit. But some of your offers have been fair.

It certainly has the bones of a gorgeous family home.

The bathroom is off-putting. I'm sure most people want a bath, and the colour is bad.
The kitchen is actually much worse - not many people would put up with that.
The fire in the sitting room is off-putting.
It has a bit of a granny feel to it, though the granny has relatively good taste in wallpaper and carpet.

Houses are only worth what people will pay for them. I find it amazing that people don't seem to get this.

Buyers are not emotionally invested

Of course someone could move in & live there without doing anything. It is a lovely house with original features, garden etc

However, the majority of people do not want the; expense, time, mess, money of putting in a new bathroom, kitchen, wiring, heating. Which is probably what they are looking for.

People will have looked at other properties in the local area and compared

I know someone who put in a brand new kitchen to sell their house. The house sold quickly. The new people immediately put in a new kitchen that was to their own taste !

I would reduce the price

It would be great if a family moved in. However I expect that an investor or developer would buy it.

Have you thought about putting it up at a local auction, with a reserve price on it ?

It's a nice house, but the kitchen and bathroom are awful.
How come it's on at £117k?

Off putting things for me: fire in front room, decor v old through out, kitchen looks almost non-existent from photos, no bath and not double glazed through out. Would assume boiler, wiring and plumbing terrible.

Pluses: doors and stained glass.

As it's inheritance then drop the price. It's pure profit to you - no mortgage etc to pay.

It standing there empty is making the risk of break in more, costing basics in heating.

£100k would be the very top I'd expect, I'd take £95k gladly. Not sure £76 was so bad...

Have a survey done if you want a good estimate of the damage for a buyer.

When we were house hunting we saw lots of houses where the previous owners had passed on. Keeping bits and bobs of old fashioned furniture in the house is a stark reminder of the previous owner and will stop many young buyers from seeing its potential as a house that can be modernised.

I know that technically you could probably live in it while doing it up, but personally I wouldn't have chosen a house without a fully functioning kitchen and a green bathroom suite.

I would say it is better for the house to be completely empty with new carpets and a lick of paint, so remove the furniture, spruce it up and get new pictures.

The price does seem to be the main problem. Also, at that price range I'm guessing the target market is young couples/families. They simply won't have the spare cash to do all the work that's needed - leaving you with developers who can afford to do it up but will demand a profit too.

You can either pay to do it up and try for a higher price, or try to present it as best you can and accept that the price will need to reflect the work that needs doing.

Interesting thread. You don't put a house on the market in the NW for £117k expecting to get £125. It does look well looked after but there is work required to bring it up to modern standards. I could bear the shower room if it were clean, but the kitchen is woeful by today standards.

One thing stands out to me from the details - no floor plan. We're looking to move and I hate property details with no floor plan.

In common with other posters, I think you have unrealistic expectations on price given the work needed.

In the past seven years we had to sell two family properties that were deceased estates/family members moved into a nursing home. These were both on the south coast and in both cases the family member(s) had owned the house for 45+ years.

One (my uncle's) was fairly similar in its state of repair to the OP's relative's - other than that it had been newly rewired, replumbed and had new (UPVC - yuck!) DG and basic kitchen prior to his passing away. The bathroom was from the 1960s and it still had a fairly primitive outside loo. Decoration and carpet-wise it was awful. We had several EAs round and also discussed putting it up for auction, but the advice was that priced correctly (ie, significantly lower than similar renovated houses) it would sell quickly. We de-cluttered, but left all furniture in situ and marketed it at around 40k less than a couple of sold prices in the same road and it achieved plenty of interest and an acceptable offer (from a young family upsizing from a two to a three bed) within about a month.

The other was my parents' house - a 1920s semi in a road very popular with young couples/families. We needed to get top dollar as they both had dementia and were self-funding in a nursing home. The house had been well maintained as my dad was keen and able DIYer but it was very 1980s (pine Magnet kitchen) with a couple of 1960s touches (primrose yellow upstairs loo, turquoise downstairs!) and some extremely good quality but horridly florid carpets. They too had removed the bath and had a wet room installed in about 2007 and the house had (brown UPVC) DG. Again we depersonalised but left their (very large and dark) furniture in place. The EA suggested marketing it at 235k - refurbed houses were selling for 280k+ - and after a slow start (school summer hols) we had an open day that resulted in several offers including one from a young FTB couple at asking price that we accepted.

Going back to the house in question - the condition/lack of proper kitchen wouldn't deter me. Our last house was unmortgageable as it had no kitchen. We lived in it while refurbing (mainly DIY) and whilst it took best part of three years the results were well worth it. That's not for everyone though and we have no small DC. It has to be the price......it's always the price in these situations. Anything will sell if priced correctly - it's just hard to stomach it sometimes when the EA has bigged it up so you expect to get more. Anything between 100k and 115k and I'd be biting their hand off.

Oh and I couldn't see a floor plan so it's hard to see how you could rework the layout to suit your requirements.

Gosh. How sad. It looks amazing. It would go for more than £500, 000 and sell within a week on my street

I was coming on to say a couple of things that have all been said...so I'll just repeat them! We have bought recently, so feel that we're rightmove experts!

1. My husband used to look at the floorplan before looking at anything else. Yeah, you need to get one. It's really difficult to gauge the size.
2. Get rid of the fire in the living room. Just rip it out and leave the open fire behind- even if you don't sweep the chimney. That'll take you about five minutes, but honestly would make a difference.
3. Electrics would be a concern for me in a house looking like that. Could you get an electrician in and just get a quick electrical safety certificate? It costs about £150 and, if there are no problems, then it'll be money well-spent...or not. Brace yourself for having to reduce the price if things are bad. I'm afraid we just moved into a house very similar to this. We asked for the safety certificate, but the house failed. We asked for a reduction in price accordingly.
4. Tile paint in the bathroom: ronseal.co.uk/home/kitchen-and-bathroom/one-coat-tile-paint/?gclid=Cj0KEQiAqK-zBRC2zaXc8MOiwfIBEiQAXPHrXgMUm0BQ6Dp83_z8h1QBSg5cXcu7I27Xu9kMpQxdb80aAi878P8HAQ It's an afternoon's work and would do the job for disguising the colour of the toilet and sink too. We did ours in our old house and it lasted a couple of years.
5. The kitchen and the EPC would be an issue for me though.

I'd buy your aunt's home over the hideously modernised upvc paradise in Exasperated's first link but I would want a decent chunk of money off to do the bathroom and kitchen as an absolute priority. Like someone up thread said, that is barely a kitchen. The front door/ porch with stained glass is beautiful. And yes yes re a floor plan, we moved earlier this year and lack of floor plans (or plans without dimensions) pissed me right off.

There is a large plot of cordoned-off overgrown land next to the house. This may be putting people off - can you find out if there are any plans for this land?

Definitely needs a floor plan - the layout and shape of rooms is hard to visualise.
Some new photos of inside might help, with the rooms redressed with different bedspreads or colourful cushions to brighten it up. Rearrange furniture to make it look more cosy.
When my house was sticking the thing that got it moving was finding the right agent (first one was rubbish though from highly respected company) who was prepared to work at selling.
It will be a great house when done up; it has lovely features but it needs work