Honest advice on this house

[vulpeslagopus]

Have name changed for this:

This is my parents' house.....i lived there for many years and it was a wonderful family home and still is when I visit with my own dcs.....

However, me and my siblings have all left home so they are looking to downsize. House been on market for almost 3yrs and not sold, they have already reduced asking price.

They want honest opinions on what they could do......

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52303834.html

I think they need to drop the price considerably, and hope a developer buys it with a view to converting it into flats. Have they looked into getting provisional planning permission to do so?

Being on the market that long indicates it's overpriced. The kitchen is too small compared to the other rooms, the rest of the house need updating. It looks like part of the roof is flat so in a buyers mind that's extra maintenance. It's very niche, but lovely, mind you. I'd hate to see it converted to flats but I think that would be the way to go.

Ok, I'm not in the market to buy something at all, will never be able to afford a house of that price, but a few things scream out at me as to why it might not be selling.

1. the garden is extremely untidy. Lawn looks like someone has done a bad job mowing it and the planted area has no pattern to it.

2. all the carpets look old. And carpet in the bathroom? Why?

3. furniture is a mix of classic and cheap ikea style. Basically it's a complete mish mash.

4. same with decoration. No theme to the house

5. kitchen is very dated

6. billiard room is red, making the room look tiny. It would probably be better on the ground floor.

7. the colour of the render outside probably needs lightening.

And that's even before I think about things like glazing, wiring etc

It is lovely. I don't mind the general decor but it would be very expensive to maintain and heat.

Agree re the front that the garden and front door don't look very tidy or inviting.
I wonder when you would use the fire place area in the middle of the hallway.
One of the bedrooms shows a desk with an extension lead that suggests to me not enough plug points. I presume p13 is a bell board. It's an interesting feature but where is it - strange photo. Are all the bathrooms/ensuites shown on the photos? I can see two but it says there are three - something you could miss on the write up leaving the impression of four doubles with one bathroom.

The write up could be improved. It could be more detailed for such a big house.

The house doesn't flow in terms of decor or style - the kitchen looks out of place, there's a fairly outdated bathroom and then a modern bathroom and that's before looking at the decor of the rest of the house. The billiards room is awful, paint it neutral and market it as a bedroom.

Get the exterior photos re-taken on a sunny day.
It's fairly obvious that the outside photos have been doctored, so get them to re-take them. Dress the house better - get rid of the plastic childs easel - it doesn't fit with the rest of the room, the bedroom with the rocking chair - you can see the curtain has been positioned to hide stuff and the ottoman isn't closed. Get the room de-cluttered for photos. At the moment it gives the impression that there isn't enough storage. Blue bathroom is carpeted, right? Get it replaced with lino at least and paint the walls white. The red bedroom with the desk is cluttered and the curtains are the first thing that catch your eye. Tidy the dead leaves off the lawn.

Sorry if all that sounds harsh. I sold my house last year and for the photos, we went in a room ahead of the photographer, moved out the clutter and then he took the photo. We moved it back in and moved on to the next room. Took a while but the photos were stunning. I also used it as a great reason to de-clutter anyway!

It's a gorgeous house.

Is it top of the market? I had a look at the 'most expensive properties to sell in January' in my city yesterday (monthly column in local rag) and the top one was half a million and the tenth was 300 and something.

There are quite a few properties on the market above half a million so there just must be very few buyers. Most of the top ten that had sold were in the £300,000 range. It explained to me why the gorgeous houses I see in the local paper stay on the market for months.

But maybe try and find similar figures for your parents area? If the houses that are selling are several hundred below their asking price it's just there aren't many buyers in the area with enough money.

If you go to Home.co.uk you will find load of information for your area, such as average sold prices for different sizes, how long on the market and other useful statistics.
It might be a help in your decisions.

OP - I think the agents have taken awful photos actually. They have taken them to show the size of the house and rooms but if the photo doesn't look warm or inviting or quite 'right' then there is no point and I think it may be why the house isn't selling. Get your parents to pay a professional house dresser or photographer. Or just photographer and redo the pics. Or use the dresser and get them to tell the agents which views to take.

It is as if everything is geared towards "look how big this house is!" Rather than "look what a lovely place this is to live. It is still welcoming and warm and huge too!"

I think the house is lovely but it needs to be rephotoed and dressed.

1. Drive and entrance are crucial. They need to look nicer. They are off putting and sinister (to me!) as they are. Maybe change the door colour?

2. Weird bits in the house.
   OP - what did you use that hall sitting area for? It just makes no sense the way it is. It would be better to have a well designed storage area either side of the fireplace or some nice antique drawers/cupboards. Auctions are great place for picking up period furniture cheaply. At ours, the modern things sell better than the period items. You may need to shop in a different area.

3. each room declutter and make it look as inviting as possible even if you have to borrow soft furnishings from friends

4. the agents are a but crap I think. "Look at this lovely period living room - oh no, it doesn't look "family" enough! Quick, add a child's easel!"'
   I bet you could get MN to dress the rooms better. Take it room by room. Photo of room - ask for changes, choose the sensible ones. There are a lot of property pornographers on here! People would prob get right into it.

I think the estate agent needs to put more emphasis on the location of this property. A five minute walk from this property will take you to a beautiful beach and stunning cliff top walks. Also , the village in which this property is situated is very picturesque.

Another massive selling point for a family house like this, is the fact that it is within very close walking distance to Whitburn Academy ( secondary school). This is currently one of the best state schools in the area and is very popular. They operate a feeder school system for entry and one of their feeder junior schools is about a 3 minute walk away from this house. I think more could be made of this in the sales information.

While I agree photos can make or break the interest you get in a house when you are trying to sell in the middle of a street/estate/town of similar houses I don't think it is the case here. In any case I don't think the photos are so awful. I don't imagine your parents are thinking of giving the house a makeover and what would be the point they might not be to the taste of who ever buys it anyway - better to let the price reflect the work someone would have to do to bring it up to standard so they can factor that in. I would have thought one selling point is that it's a house you can move into and then make improvements as the mood takes you (and big enough to live in another part while work is going on). Could work for a large family or for one with multiple generations living in the same house. But whichever way you look at it if it has been on the market for three years it is too expensive. Could they at least come down under £700,000 so they drop into a lower price band?

Thanks everyone, some useful advice here.

It's strange that people say the garden looks small- I grew up playing in it and it is massive!

The seating area in the hall is where the phone is- spent many an hour sitting there chatting! Suppose a bit redundant now with the demise of the landline! But it is also a good seating area for parties of which we had many over the years. You can see from the floor plan that there is another sitting room which doesn't feature in the photos, it's the biggest room yet!

Of the garden isn't small and there's an enormous unphotographed room the agents really need to get back in there! It's a lovely house

Any house, from a 2 bed terrace to a 5 bed mansion, in any area, that hasn't sold after 3 years is only due to one reason, price.

I'd paint the exterior white.

Could your parents change agents? Or at least get a couple of other agents in and ask them what they would do? They will know the market and have a view. Also ask the original agent to come up with an action plan.

The photos used are poor choices - that messy side entrance- and one large room is missing.

I agree with comments about decluttering, especially in the bedrooms.

I just realised the first picture is the back of the house!

I see why they are marketing it that way as the front of house doesnt have as good kerb appeal, tiny windows odd shape etc

If the back was the front, it would have sold by now.

Have you had any interest from developers who would be interested in demolishing and building a block of flats there instead?

It isn't that the garden is small, it's that often with houses that size the plot is an acre plus, which it maybe but it doesn't look it from the photos. Do you know what size the plot is, might be worth adding.

It's very big!
My main criticism is that the inside doesn't match the outside. The outside strikes me as modern and Art Deco style yet the inside just seems very old fashioned, what is expect to see in a period Manor House. They don't go together. Frilly pelmets?? Bring the interior up to date or lower the price

It probably just boils down to price, in the end. It's beautiful, of course, but too big and too impractical. And although it's probably in good nick, it needs "dressing" to show it at its absolute best. The market is going to be tiny for such a house in that location as it is.

I used to work in an estate agency and houses like that would take years to sell in some cases.

Where I live, properties like this are bought by developers for a similar price, then knocked down and five other properties built in their place.

Modern and Art Deco?? It's an Edwardian house with Art Deco influences outside. Inside there are arts and crafts influences. The fact is that anyone buying the house would a) need to have the money to run it and deal with ongoing maintenance; and b) would probably want to spend quite a bit on the kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms.

I think it is terrible that there is a large living room which doesn't even feature in the photos. The Agents don't even know the difference between past and passed and their blurb is poor at best. It does nothing to sell the house.

I disagree that if a house hasn't sold after 3 years it is down to price. That is one element, but I suspect a combination of factors are at work here. The house we bought was on the market for two years. They actually dropped the price relatively quickly. The reason it didn't sell before we came along was because the décor did not have mass appeal, it was also very cluttered - literally every wall had plates and pictures on it and there were nick nacks everywhere and the kitchen just didn't go with the house and was tiny.

Expensive properties might get a viewing once a month where less expensive ones get a couple of viewings each weekend, unless the area is red hot.

The pool of potential buyers must be tiny? How many other houses are listed in the same price bracket?

Image 25 is a much nicer one of the frontage. The one they have now looks heavily photoshopped and a bit dingy.

The kitchen and bathrooms look very cheap, out dated and devoid of all original character in comparison to the rest of the house. In fact the kitchen looks like a weird layout and for the house size these key rooms all look relatively small.

I saw an article last week listing areas where the market is particularly slow and Sunderland was no.1