Still No Viewings 2 Weeks After Back Up For Sale

[Ramsey1989]

I think I have finally managed to open a new thread (thanks for everyone's patience of previously jumping on the back of your threads).

So long story short, timeline for attempt at selling house and buying a bigger one is as follows:

1st August - listed house for sale with YOPA
6th August - After couple of days of negotiation accepted offer
6th September - Offer accepted on purchase of new house
1st October - Mortgage offer received, survey completed, sale of our place going well and only a week or two from exchange - then receive email from our buyer saying they are withdrawing from the purchase.
8th October - Seller of house we were buying puts his house back up for sale, though he said if we find another buyer he will accept our offer again.

Our buyer gave the following reasons for withdrawing from purchase:

• Maintenance fee of £43pm (for upkeep of private road and shrubberies, all 10 houses in close pay this), though the buyers knew this before viewing property and our agent reiterated this at the viewing before they offered. Buyers were also looking specifically for a flat so this is so much cheaper than leasehold flats.

• Subsidence risk is 'Low'; buyer said it should start at a scale of zero, however we have had confirmed by our solicitor that this scale is low, moderate, high, very high for southern properties. So as buyer is from north I think they got a bit confused.

• Alternative energy sources within 5k of property effecting ongoing value - again puzzled by this because I would understand of there was a wind turbine outside our window but we can't seen anything as we live in a town...

For whatever reason they changed their mind; so we need to find a new buyer fast, or we lose any chance of our onward purchase.

I have de-cluttered and had new photos taken as suggested; this was a good idea of everyone as I remember when viewing houses we preferred ones with only a bit of furniture, as we could then picture our own furniture in it easier.

Some may be put off by living over garages; however they are quieter than people I can assure you, none of the three garages (as we have 1 of them) have light/ power/ water and have strict covenants restricting doing any work to your car in or outside of the garage.

As the title of the post suggests we haven't had any viewing requests since it was put back up for sale; yet it was so popular when we bought it, and very popular when we had it up for sale at the start of August - EA says it is unusually quiet across the board from the start of October and he thinks it will pick up, but it isn't looking good.

I am just looking for anyone's help in trying to get some viewings? or whether they have struggled getting viewings after a sale has fallen through and what they did about it?

Listing is here:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55790604.html

Is there just a lack of buyers at the moment?

I think you’ve been unlucky, what on Earth are they on about re the renewal energy ?! Assumably the solar farm at Uddens which according to their logic would effect the value whole of Ferndown and Wimborne and clearly doesn’t, or is there anything else?! Think they’ve just got general cold feet .I’d be tempted to ditch YOPA and try someone like Hearnes who are local.

However prices have been falling and this is some of your competition:

Dudsbury Avenue , been reduced.

Another just been reduced

Not reduced but lower priced

Another reduced

There’s more but that’s enough to give you an idea. It is quiet at the moment, think people are getting very twitchy about Brexit and a sense of doom and gloom is doing the rounds plus I’ve seen some people give up selling and let instead. I think basically the market has fallen since the summer and you will probably need to rethink on the pricing front.

And I think you need to have a go at your kitchen, is that a pack of loo rolls on top of the tall kitchen unit at the end? There’s lots of stuff on the worktop so looks as if not enough storage. 3 pretty much duplicate kitchen photos. Not sure about the dining table in front of the radiator like that, what’s all the stuff further down from it? Could you make that more of a dining area down there? Main bedroom a bit busy, can you tone that down a bit as feels a bit full on looking at it.

These flats mostly only have one bathroom; one parking space with no garage, no garden of there own or seperate entrance and we also have the solar hot water heating system reducing gas costs - along with being 75% cheaper per year in maintenance costs and includes the freehold of the entire building.

Storage isn't an issue; for starters we have a loft that runs the full length of the building; cannot remove dining table from its current location as ot wont fit anywhere else (at end of there is storage units and display cabinet but too narrow for dining table), main bedroom looks pretty empty to me so other than throwing canvas's in loft and showing holes after removing picture hooks - not sure what yo do here.

I have seen other 2 bed flats go under offer recently not to far from our price, and there are some over our price so we are in the middle there.

Can't reduce price really because we wont be able to afford our onward purchase - also given that we had offer at listed price, we shouldnt really have to reduce it after being on market technically almost 3 weeks.

I think the description could be a bit confusing to some.

It says detached apartment. In what way is it detached? If it shares a garage then there's another apartment in the building. Presumably that takes up the whole of the downstairs space (apart from the garages)?

Does the flat solely own the freehold ?

Does the loft belong to your apartment because your apartment runs the length of the top floor?

Details say a garden. Further details say that a garden could be made out of the space at the front.

I think if you were a first time buyer or not used to looking at property details it could all seem a bit vague. Who owns which bit etc.

Look at the picture of the kitchen in link 2 and compare to yours and also the main bedroom in that one. Just showed your bedroom to DH to see if it were me and he winced and said ‘oh dear me’ as instant reaction, huge apologies if it offends. Ditch the soft toys on the unit and anything else on there, the stuff on the top of the chest of drawers, one of the pictures and some plain bedding.

Kitchen worktops looked pretty full of stuff and would make me worry about storage. If you’ve seen things similar going under offer then I guess you’re in the right ballpark figure and when you list it like that seems fair enough. It’s sticky at the moment. Friend’s sister went back on market near you recently after getting buyer easily before (they decided to stay put longer). This time round a couple if people interested but neither of them have sold so aren’t yet procedable. Think you’ll need to be patient. My neighbour has had valuations and general message was ‘it’s a difficult market at the moment’.

The apartment in link 2 is so much nicer than yours and it is £50k cheaper!

Yours is too overpriced and looks small

Agree about confusing description.

Have you got a picture of the garden?

I agree the wording of your advert isn't great. The comment about the possible small front garden. The exclamation mark in the first paragraph.

Whilst I can see the benefits of being detached , some people might be put off by being essentially in a garage block.

I would switch agents.

You need a photo of the garden. The fourth photo makes the lounge look really cramped

Hide the soft toys in the bedroom and put white bed linen on.
Clear the kitchen surfaces

There are 3 pictures of the kitchen which isn't that great frankly. You need to totally clear the work surfaces in there and have a picture leading from the kitchen to the dining table so it looks like part of the kitchen as currently it looks part of your lounge which is bedsittery.
You need a picture of the front garden and entrance too.
Personally I also think you need to get rid of the rug and the unit next to the telly as they're making the space look cramped.
But all this is just dressing and if your buyer is out there they'll see through it.
Good luck

The grammar errors in the description put me off before I even looked at the pictures. Maybe a small thing but contributes to overall impression.
My advice would be to declutter the kitchen and the walls, change the duvet cover to something plain and well-ironed. Some nice throws for both sofas would help too and remove the shamrock mat. You don’t need to emphasise that the garden is small.
Best of luck.

Forgot to say bathrooms are nice!
Also remove the sign hanging off kitchen cupboard. You need to aim for immaculate, spacious and tasteful. I appreciate it’s all for show but superficial people (like me) would dismiss it at first hurdle i.e. online.

@nicenewdusters

It is detatched because we are the only living accomodation in the building; underneath are 4 garages, one which belongs to us and three which the terraced houses at the front of the close lease from us as the freeholder of the entire building.

So as we own the entire building; this includes the entire loft space which runs the length of thr building, and the garden is the front hedged area anf another smaller fenced area to the left of it - we have permission to fence this all in as one big garden (just havent done it as no spare cash for fence panels).

Just to check the timeline- you first listed it in August and put it back on the market to weeks ago? Rightmove and Zoopla filtered searches for new to the market properties won't pull your listing up, as it's been online over a month. You may get more viewings if you wanted to gamble on getting the agent to take it completely offline and remarket in over two weeks so it considered it new again for searches. Most people don't repeatedly go through all the available listings they just filter new stuff when they have been looking for a while.
You might find it slow now anyway, in the Christmas run up.

@PostNotInHaste

We are getting another picture of 2nd bedroom later this week; so i will remove everything from kitchen surfaces and on top of cupboards to get a better picture of this, i will also remove everything from main bedroom and put white bed sheets on to get better photo of that.

Thanks for your help :)

I'd be put off by it being over other people's garages tbh. It says you own the free hold of the building, so that would make the garage owners long leaseholders? All very well, but if they break the terms of the lease/ use the garage for storage of food waste or flammable, decided to let it out, or don't maintain the structure, that could be a huge, expensive problem to solve.

Ok that makes much more sense now and I can see why it’s priced as it is but do think that you need a sensible local agent in an ideal world or get the details and pictures redone. Might be a silly question but could you potentially create another room in the loft ? And if so would be an idea to have that in and maybe a mention of what you said about combining the garden area to create larger space.

@user1494670108

A picture from end of dining table looking into kitchen is possible; but it may show edge of sofa, will see if we can get one of these when EA comes over to take photos this week.

Will get better photo of garden if i can.

@Iggity

I will follow your advice regarding kitchen and check through description to ask EA to amend certain sections.

And much sympathy, selling stressful at best of times but even worse when sale has fallen through.

@hlr1987

EA said you cannot re list unless its been off market for 14 weeks; it was off for about 8 i think, unless you list with new agent but im tied to YOPA as sole agent for 16 weeks - thats up to 21st November.

@PostNotInHaste

You probably cannot make another room in loft; the builders went overboard with criss cross low beams down it so you cant walk down it, which i presume is for a sound structure as its a very long roof.

@Theyprobablywill

Yes 999 year leases; we inspect the garages yearly, any maintenance on garage doors etc has been directly paid for by people leasing it so nice and easy.

No problems with them using it for any other purpose either. I appreciate this aspect can put people off so it isnt everyones cup of tea, but for me id prefer it over having neighbours attached to both sides/ below/ above.