Where have all the people who want to move to the country gone?

[notagoodidea]

We have a large country house that we have been trying to sell for the last 7 months or so but with only 2 viewings and no offers.
We are quite rural but can get supermarket delivery's ect, so not exactly cut off from the world.
There is a village very near by with a good primary school and a coop and even a bus service every hour to the nearest train station.
The location is great and the views are stunning but is is a large house.
From the house and patio you have a view down the garden to the loch and across to the hillside opposite, it is beautiful.
From looking at other threads on here i know it is "only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it" but it is on for £10k less than the home report valuation already and is priced at less than a 1 bed flat in London.
Does no one want to move to the country anymore?

I have put some pics on to show the view form the house then from the shore and lastly one from the hill just behind the house.
What do you think?

florascotia2. The broadband is pretty good, we are getting 20mb at he moment and BT spent the last couple of years laying fiber right down the road past us so that should be available soon

wowfudge. Thanks for letting me know, will add that to the list of things to "mention" to the agent

I haven't read the whole thread but is it on Rightmove? The link you put is to Zoopla which is not as widely known as Rightmove. It needs to be on Rightmove to be widely noticed in people's searches.

From a highly scientific analysis of Escape to the Country, the main things that people want are:

An outbuilding for a classic car or to use as a workshop
An huge, warm farmhouse kitchen
Some land for animals
A luxurious, spacious master bedroom with a en suite with freestanding bath.
Extra bedrooms for family to stay, but probably 4-5 in total
Peaceful isolation but access to major roads (seems contradictory to me).

Does look a lovely house and location though. But for me it would be for a holiday, not for living. I’m happy with my tedious suburb with loads of hairdressers and chicken shops.

OP - the good broadband is a real plus point. Quite a lot of places in rural Scotland don't have decent telecoms. There are areas where BT won't provide broadband connectivity at all. So if the broadband is not already mentioned as a positive advantage in the particulars, then perhaps it should be?

I second specifically mentioning broadband in the description. It’s a must for anyone wanting to either work from home or run a business, and it can’t be taken for granted on rura areas, so really worth mentioning.

in rural areas excuse typos

I hope it helps, lovely house

but what I'm thinking is - how big is the market for a house of that size? In theory, it's great but even for big family, it's very big and then you get into heating/maintenance costs - and also if members of the family are out a lot, they won't feel it's necessary to have that size home.

agree, you must mention broadband etc

Will add broadband to the list :)

OP - please excuse and ignore me if I'm interfering, but if I were re-writing the Estate Agents' description, I'd go for bullet points, not flowery prose as they did previously. Much easier for house-hunters to skim through, and creates a far more memorable message. Although in real life such things are embarrassing, you could even start with a deliberately 'cheesy' headline slogan.

Something like this - I hope I've got the details correct; ideally, there are good local schools. I'm sure other posters will be able to improve:

Large and Lovely!

• Generous family home/small business potential
• Plenty of space and character
• Wonderful views; access to loch shore
• Large garden with garage/workshop
• Within easy reach of Glasgow/Central Belt
• Edge of village; the countryside on your doorstep
• Good local schools, shop, pub
• Oil central heating/mains water and drainage
• Fast broadband - superfast coming soon

Make sure to put the total square footage on the floorplan! Always the first thing I look at after the price and main photo.

florascotia2. good idea will definatly do that

WhalesOfYore. another good idea, but what figure to use, the council use the external footprint to calculate council tax and the surveyor used the internal one and there is quite a difference.
The walls are 29" thick !
it is 320 square meters or 3445 square feet internal measurement.

OP, I know this is your home and you love everything about it, and I don’t want to come across as insulting. But as this is the internet and we are strangers, I will say something honest. I’d never be able to say this to your face, as you’d get offended (but I still think it.)

I think you need to market it as a project and a fixer upper. Maybe get an architect to draw up a few sketches of what you could do with the space.

When I looked at similar properties, this one came up:

m.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/46963534?search_identifier=0227ae9f212695e7c8c722f4e433cb81

I would rather pay another £100k for the “after” than buy your “before” and spend the £70-80k on renovating it (and paying rent elsewhere while that happens)

But - I think your house would appeal to someone who wants to configure a house to their family and needs and would rather take on a project. Or even knows diy and be able to renovate for half the cost.

It’s not going to appeal as “is” to most of the market.

@notagoodidea internal sq ft that excludes restricted height areas etc, not the external footprint

I agree with @ShiftyMcGifty - if you are competing with totally newly renovated properties that are only another £100k (yes I know your's is bugger but I'm not sure many people actually want a house that big!) then you are narrowing your market.

I posted on the other thread too before it was deleted.

You are either going to have to spend some money to sell or drop your price and sell as a doer upper as Shifty has said.

Seven bedrooms is a lot. Change one to a bathroom at a minimum. Depending on size you could divide one into a bathroom and also En suite for another room.

Get the gym equipment into a room that you can label a gym. At the very least get it out of the room it’s in.

Get rid of all the leather sofas etc in bedrooms and dress the bedroom as actual bedrooms rather than studio flats/bedsits which is what they currently look like.

Dress the beds. Valances to hide the divans.

Lose the table cloths on your dining tables. Try to get a bigger dining table for your dining room. Looks like the one in there only seats 6? As I said lose the table cloths and put either a vase of flowers or a candelabra.

Would agree about the red/green room. Won’t appeal to many. Sorry!

Sort out your books. Far too many in that room. You could put some on small book shelves in bedrooms or just box some up and store them.

Fix the rugs in the hall. Why is one hooked over the radiator? Centre the red one on the door.

Not sure about the kitchen. I think most people would want a new kitchen but that breakfast bar arrangement looks really odd. I would be factoring in the cost of a new kitchen if I was viewing.

It’s hard when you have lived in a house for so long. You stop seeing things I think. We are doing a few bits to our house and it’s making me see other things with new eyes. Just general clutter. Things we have done for ease or because it suits us but doesn’t really work for anyone else.

ShiftyMcGifty. I do understand what you are saying but the photos really do not do the house justice, maybe it is the stupid fish eye lens that was used, I don't know. And yes you would want to put your own stamp on it as we all do with a new home, but it is not really a doer upper, it is perfectly livable as it is, and even better, if you wanted to to work on it, it is big enough for you to still live in at the same time and not be to inconvenienced by it.
I know because that's what we did.
And the house you linked to was very nice, however it was only a 5 bed not the 7/8 bed we have and it was 160,000 more.
If your budget was 560,000 and you spent 400,000 on this one, then you could really go to town with the other 160,000 and have everything perfect for you, or you could buy the one you linked to and have a really nice already done house, but done to someone else's taste! And you would want to just change this or that and end up spending more and more, so OK I am biased but this would be the better buy in my opinion.
That said I am listening to all the advise and if I can get new photos done with this agent or have to change the agent, the next photos will be a lot better thanks to all the advise and tips from everyone, thank you

FluffyWuffy100. The internal sq ft is 3445 with no restricted height areas

Hi OP. You are the customer here - give the current agents a deadline to sort out getting new photos taken and the listing revised or you will give notice. In fact, I would take it off the market for a week and be sure new photos are on there and the listing is the best it can be then re-launch for Easter.

Gorgeous house Nd spectacular views.

I agree with moving the gym equipment out of the lounge.

Also, you don’t need several shots of the same room, only,one or two at most.

I quite like the cluttered bookshelves. Other rooms shouldn’t be cluttered.

Can’t quite believe you can get all that for the price. I’d moved if Scotland was slightly warmer.

Also, put some pictures up on the walls. The bedrooms look a bit bland without them.

We moved, but not to Scotland. Also rather large ...

Well OP that’s the problem, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what you think because you’re not buying your own house.

I honestly don't think that anyone prepared to spend that sort of money (in that area) and wanting a house that size, is really going to be very much influenced by superficialities like dressing the beds.

I do think you need a different estate agent, better photos (with description, sitting room, etc.) a better blurb, a really good, clear floor plan with room sizes, and a listing on rightmove as well as zoopla.

Obviously it's not a run of the mill house, and your market's going to be limited, hence the need to reach as many potential buyers as possible. I'm sure that eventually someone is going to love it enough to want to buy it.

The other £560k property linked to is beautiful, but I dont really think it would attract the same people.The other house seems to be in a more urban area, doesnt have the stunning views and no land or outbuildings and is consideraby more expensive and smaller.

That said, in the particulars you need to make much more of the potential for various business uses, multi family occupation etc, otherwise you are just selling a large family house too.

I know lots of people that work in Glasgow and live an hour (or more away). That needs to be in big bold letters all over the listing. If it was an hour from Edinburgh I’d bite your hand off for 7 bedrooms at that price. But my idea of what houses cost is seriously messed up by living in Edinburgh.
My sister had a farmhouse on the market for 2 years without a peep. She went out to a much more expensive estate agent (probably the first on google). They told her to spend 6k, retook all her photos and got the asking price in 3 months. Definitely worth paying for it to be advertised in Glasgow as well (the premium listing/house of the week thing)