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Original poster

Property not selling and not getting any offer

85 replies

movingTolondon2018 · 21/07/2018 16:16

Hi,
It has becoming little furstated now and thought if someone please cam advise or help me because I cannot figure out the issue and tried chaning the agents as well.
I am trying to sell my property and it is exactly as per the market rate but now, it has been 6 months and only one buyer offered who later pulled out. It is really a nice property and we always leave it completely clean on the viewing day but still no luck.
Can anyone please help or suggest something.

Thanks,
Liss

OP posts:

pennycarbonara · 21/07/2018 20:49

it might be a small shed or former coal cellar. Garden storage space is useful, for tools, bikes, toys etc. don't get rid of that. Especially as there's no hall to put stuff like that indoors.

sunshinesupermum · 21/07/2018 20:51

FabulousSophie as pps have stated - the way buying and selling is conducted in the UK is very different from the USA.

Sorry movingTolondon - having bought and sold many homes in my lifetime advice as to how best to sell your home from a US contributor is not really going to help and may just confuse the issue. You have a lovely home and I would take note from pps as to how to dress it more attractively to draw more viewings and hopefully a successful offer.

Good luck with your move to London - greatest city in the world!

Kardashianlove · 21/07/2018 20:55

all three bedrooms can accomodate double beds or king size huge selling point. You need to dress them like this then. Put bedside cabinets with lamps either side. Get some nice bedlinen, cushions, throws.

faloma · 21/07/2018 21:05

Apart from it's probably over priced as you've had no real interest, although it seems spacious it's uninviting. The downstairs bathroom (and panelling) would put me off. The living room ceiling looks panelled too? As others have said, you need to stage the house to sell it. Photos of a canopy in the garden that you're likely to,take with you aren't helpful! Good luck.

KateGrey · 21/07/2018 21:10

It needs to be a bit more homely. Some of the bedrooms have very little in so I’d dress it a bit more

Bubbles121 · 21/07/2018 21:16

OP I am local and I really don't think the house is over priced. We are also on the market and it is SLOWWWWW. Everything I've looked at bar one immaculate, underpriced house is still on the market. (Underpriced one created a bidding war and sold in two days - before I could even view it!) I agree about staging it better but I doubt the issue is your price - the heatwave and the summer holidays are causing people to find something better to do than buy houses (shocker that that is)

Dressing it up will help tremendously though.

Bluntness100 · 21/07/2018 21:23

I usually always say it's the price as it usually always is. In this instance, I think it's probably priced realistically, it's simply dressed unappealingly.

It's not hard to warm it up op, it just looks a bit cold and sterile right now. I think it's the grey that's doing it. You can fix this easily.

Some nice accessories, maybe mustard in the living room, some cool accent accessories in the kitchen, maybe lime, a bed in the bedrooms. Some nice colourful little pot plants in the garden, some nice prints on the walls. You don't have to spend much, but it just looks a bit unappealing as a family home and lots of people can't see past that unfortunately.

FabulousSophie · 21/07/2018 21:37

@Bubbles121 I think you are misunderstanding the meaning of a slow market. If the market is slow, it means buyers consider everything to be overpriced.

wherewithal · 21/07/2018 21:41

I really don't think the house is over priced. We are also on the market and it is SLOWWWWW. Everything I've looked at bar one immaculate, underpriced house is still on the market.

ie, the “underpriced” house was priced correctly, as it sold.

hlr1987 · 21/07/2018 22:28

I agree that it mostly just looks a bit uninhabited in the pictures because you've presumably done what's advised and stripped personal clutter. Its more like your advertising to rent it than sell. Simple improvements for viewings would be to add something to each room like a welcoming touch in a nice hotel. So maybe a vase of flowers on the dining table or place settings, a bowl of fruit in the kitchen, some nice cushions in a stand out colour. Don't forget to add smells- a vanilla scent, or coffee. I'd avoid anything too floral or strong as it can come across like cleaning products.
More complicated fixes- doing up the spare rooms with furniture to show buyers what they could use the rooms for, redoing the photos with the extra touches in. If you were redoing photos I would dress the garden table with candles/ table cloth/ chair cushions/ lantern or fairy lights and just get a photo that catches the garden in the background. It looks massive but really narrow because the fence is very bright in the pictures. You have a lovely social area but the photo says "look how much lawn I have" rather than "wouldn't you enjoy sitting here with friends and a drink while your children play".
Are there any new builds online or near you you can look at the showhome for? They are a fantastic way to see about styling rooms and get ideas for accessories.
But yes, don't expect people to flock round when they're off on holiday.

Bubbles121 · 21/07/2018 22:37

@FabulousSophie I mean that the process is slow. Buyers are slow to view and houses are slow to move. They are all selling though at their asking price they're just taking a long time to do so, at least in these parts. Of course it may be different in your area Sophie but I am also in the SE like OP and not far from her current location.

The house is absolutely realistically priced, especially for the area and road. Houses are just taking much longer overall to sell (I think there was even an article on this somewhere - average time to offer is a few weeks longer than a year ago - now 14 weeks)

Gettingbackonmyfeet · 21/07/2018 22:38

Ahh OP I do know the area I'm afraid and I think the advice you've been given is possibly over valuing for the area

Beautiful house and I wouldn't have an issue with the view but I have knowledge of the town and houses bigger in Chineham and Overton are going for the same ,I suspect it's not that the house is overpriced per se but some of the other areas are having to drop their prices which affects yours

Bubbles121 · 21/07/2018 22:40

No @wherewithal I mean it was significantly under priced for what it was, went for 10% over asking and actually the reason I hesitated on viewing it (and therefor missed doing so) is because I was so suspicious about why it was so cheap. Turned out to sadly be a couple splitting up and desperate for a quick sale (small town means nothing is private anymore) and it ended up selling for around what it should have done anyway.

Bubbles121 · 21/07/2018 22:45

@Gettingbackonmyfeet I don't think there are? Cheapest three bed on right move right now in chineham starts with at £310k and that is significantly smaller?

Gettingbackonmyfeet · 21/07/2018 22:50

My information only comes from recent valuations in both places (I'd rather not say why due to outing ) and advice given to family ,the properties valued at higher are not selling and they are dropping their prices

They seem to start off higher valuation and then have to drop

I'm assuming that may make a difference

I'm not entirely sure right move is the be all and end all ....because I know several family members in those areas have had to drop their prices

It's very unfair and may not have an impact but certainly I know properties are struggling to sell in those places and dropping their prices which may or may not have a knock on effect ?

SmilingButClueless · 21/07/2018 22:58

I don’t know Basingstoke that well, but there seem to be a lot of properties in the town with the same number of bedrooms at a similar price. They may not be in as good an area as yours, but most of them seem to have more attractive layouts / features i.e. have parking and the bathroom isn’t on the ground floor. People may just be being put off by things you can’t change - dropping the price might help, but I suspect you’re just competing with more saleable properties in a buyer’s market.

FabulousSophie · 21/07/2018 22:59

A local property market, in a similar way to a stock market, can change very suddenly. One month pricing can be strong, and the next month it can be much weaker. Past performance is not a guide to the future. Perhaps the deflation of the London property market has belatedly hit Basingstoke?

Bluntness100 · 21/07/2018 23:05

I think the most accurate way to tell if a house is priced accurately is to look at comparable sales in the last couple of months in the area. As such, the info is easily clickable on the link she's provided and she would be priced pretty much where she should be, she's definitely in the ball park of what houses are selling for where she is.

I can't see from recent sales her house is over priced but it's not presented very well in comparison to the others though so looks less appealing.

No furniture in two of the bedrooms, kids toys but no kids bedroom, weirdly one bedroom used as an office but the filing cabinets are down stairs in the dining area for some reason, a gazebo that doesn't look very nice and that should be removed, curtains hanging off the rail in one room, no plants in garden, and a rather clinical looking living room, everything is either grey or magnolia throughout.

She could easily brighten it up to make it look like a warm family home. 500 quid would do it, and she wouldn't need to drop the price. It's a decent size and in good condition, the price seems right, so it must be the way it's presented.

FabulousSophie · 21/07/2018 23:14

The Land Registry is not updated for 3 months after a sale, and that's about 3 months after the price is agreed. So the Land Registry is effectively about 6 months out of date. It therefore shows nothing more than the state the market was in 6 months ago, not the current state. A lot can change in 6 months.

RubyTrees · 21/07/2018 23:23

Who's your target buyer OP? I'm assuming a couple with young children given the very small 2nd and 3rd bedrooms. I can see why you don't have beds in those rooms - it would only highlight the fact that there's little room for a bedside table and wardrobe/chest of drawers.

Perhaps people aren't so keen these days to buy houses that they will outgrow quickly, and possibly be stuck in for a very long time.

Racecardriver · 21/07/2018 23:34

So it's very unattractive from the front. A few pot plays and a lick of paint on the door and window frames in sage green/greyish blue/whatever would fix that. The back garden looks barren and the gazebo make it look smaller. I would suggest posting something to cover the fences a bit but I'm not sure you have the time for it to grow. 'Zoning' Gardens can also help to make them look bigger. I would also consider a garden mirror in the somewhere to add a sense of depth. The tiles in the kitchen and bathroom are very dated so may be worth sticking some lino on top or something if you can be bothered.

Bluntness100 · 22/07/2018 01:51

It's not the land registry,, and the date of sale is visible

FabulousSophie · 22/07/2018 07:05

@Blunt Rightmove gets that any selling price info from the land registry. It does not collect that info from sellers itself.

user546425732 · 22/07/2018 07:11

It looks very sterile and not homely, I'd add some flowers and pictures for splashes of colour, bowl of fruit in the kitchen and the legendary stunt pineapple

It's a nice house and the pictures don't do it justice. Maybe add some pots of bright plants that you can take with you.

FabulousSophie · 22/07/2018 07:12

@Blunt It actually says Land Registry prices if you click on the link . For instance, 1 Coronation Road was sold on 4th May 2018 for £293k. That sale was probably agreed about 3 months prior to that, so, the sale price was set around February 218 which is 6 months ago, which is a long terms in terms of constantly changing markets.

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