Anyone fancy critiquing my house?

[SuperDuperCuper]

Don't know if I'm brave enough to risk a Rightmove link

Anyway, 3 bedroom townhouse, 2 bathrooms, 1 cloakroom and 3 double bedrooms (one is very large). No real garden to speak of as it's a town house but we have a small courtyard garden it all decked with flowers in pots.

We are priced to sell and have had about 5 viewings. All very positive feedback - one offer but he then couldn't secure the funds. Another guy couldn't afford the house, another couple have two young children and wanted a large garden and another were in their 70s and were unsure about two floors of stairs

We've been on the market for about 7 weeks now. Anyone fancy giving me some pointers at all?

@Aria999 I'm fond of the creams/neutrals I must admit. I'm not one for splashes of colour anywhere - but maybe that's extremely boring

Totally agree with pps who have said you need to show more of the house and the conservatory and garden.

@wowfudge hopefully pics will be more substantial at the weekend. Great points by everyone.

Come back with the new pics super once they are done I bet we'll all have our tongues hanging out

Once the new pics are done then as long as it priced right for your area I don't see why I wouldn't go quickly.

I just wanted to say what ginky said about the huge master room. The photo's rubbish and makes it look like a single room.

I'm in a townhouse with young children and love it. Our bedroom is basically a haven up at the top away from the clutter and chaos and I'd love an ensuite to go with it plus all that space! People might be put off initially but if there was a way of planting the seed!

@Ginkythefangedhellpigofdoom I'll update when new pics are up and fingers crossed they'll be better

So weird re the master bedroom. It's genuinely enormous and the whole top floor.

I'm sure they will. You have a lot of really good suggestions and lots of ideas on what are must show elements so you will have that in mind when they are done.

Oh and I was thinking about the table in the kitchen thing. I'm with you that you don't want to store your fridge or buy another smaller one (so much wasted expense!) but you could I suppose move them out of the way stick a small table and chairs there then take the pictures then put the fridge back it would be a half hour job, less even but would give you the image that lots of people have mentioned they would want to see.

I don't know if I could be arsed with all the faff though if it was me selling

It's a lovely house!

A few comments:

1. My husband never read anything on Rightmove. He relied on pictures so would assume you have no garden at all (just saying there are people like him).
2. I do read everything but if I didn't see a photo of the conservatory and garden, I would think there was something very wrong/dilapidated about them.
3. If you have a double shower in your ensuite show this, that was definitely something I wished for just so I would have more storage space for shampoos and whatnot.
4. I'm not sure if this is something you'd want to do but you might want to rename the living room to open plan living area on the floor plan. You could also move the sofa forward, closer to the television and grab your table from the conservatory and place it behind the sofa. Or you could get rid of your TV stand, mount the TV and try to rework the space. The lack of a table is going to be seen as a negative for parents, especially ones who depend on high chairs. You could try to copy/do something similar to what Barratt Homes has done to their new build show home in this video:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=qTHLd-iyOAQ It's a small space but tables are important and show homes are designed from a psychological perspective to sell an ideal to people.

1. Your Estate Agent has not mentioned if you have a shower in your family bathroom, and this is important.
2. If you have parking for 2 cars then you should mention that. I don't know why but I had a foreign buyer who kept asking if I had spaces for 2 cars, so it's not always obvious and its important.

I think your issue is the way the house is presented but the house itself is very nice. We are also going to a downturn for property so the house prices going down has scared off others from wanting to sell and move, so unfortunately it is bad timing. I also think it's a global downturn so we don't know when we're getting out of it although I predict it will be on its way up (thanks to businesses like AirBnb) soon again.

@NoHolidays - I agree with your points.

I would let anyone view who wants to OP - you just never know. I viewed a house once whilst my husband was away on business, I was just passing time on. I bought it, sold ours before my husband came home!

The lack of viewings over past couple of weeks could be due to Easter, weather has been very good, perhaps too good to 'waste' house viewing. Good luck it is a lovely house.

Where do you eat? The kitchen looks small compared to other rooms and there’s no obvious dining area in pics.

Picture of courtyard as others have said. Parking is a big bonus in a town house so needs to be put more prominently. Not sure its a good idea to put on the initial details you have already found somewhere as it really encourages cheeky offers. I think in this climate 7 weeks on market with an offer already probably shows you are doing well. You always get some clowns looking who are never going to buy unfortunately. (Eyeballing the school mum who viewed my house for no apparent reason).

Re the kitchen table thing - DD2 lives in a very small terraced house & she just got this one for her kitchen. She & her DP both WFH sometimes & with one leaf up they can sit either side & have enough workspace.

They bought 2 of the chairs illustrated, & also have 2 folding chairs for visitors when both leaves are open. It looks lovely too

Would it fit between the kitchen door & the huge fridge?

(.House is lovely btw. Can’t believe it’s not brand new!)

www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/tables/dining-tables/ingatorp-drop-leaf-table-white-art-00423108/

Firstly, I think your house is lovely!

I agree with the missing photos though. Looking at the plan, I'd love to see a picture of the en-suite - it looks massive!

Can't believe the estate agents missed photos of the garden and conservatory as well - seems like a bit of an obvious thing to photograph! Perhaps they took them but they didn't come out well.

Just a couple of minor things in the kitchen - could you hide the washing up sponge, etc, under the sink and also move whatever it is in front of the toaster (and possibly hide the bread bin and mixer somewhere)? It just starts making the worktop seem a little cluttered.

The carrot did make me chuckle!

The top floor is a little confusing for me (or it could just be my brain!). If it has an en-suite I would assume it's the master bedroom, but it looks like a single bed. Is that right? It isn't obvious how/where a double bed would fit. The estate agent has done the usual thing of showing the maximum sizes on the floor plan, but not the actual usable space for a larger bed.

Thanks for all the feedback

OK, so 3 new pics added showing the back decking, the conservatory complete with dining room table and our en suite bathroom. Due to current market and the fact we have a house lined up we've dropped the price and as a result have 3 viewings tomorrow so fingers crossed eh?

Beautiful house ,looks brand new.

Nothing to add but good luck with the viewings tomorrow .

I hope it went well x

Good luck - house looks lovely.

You need to present it so that viewers don’t have to think too much. Therefore put a dining table in. The office chair in the bedroom doesn’t look too great. The walls and floors just seem too bare to me. Have you any more pictures? Rugs?

@Decormad38 we have a dining table and this is shown.

@oldmum22 @FiveShelties @Robin2323 thanks so much

@SuperDuper oh sorry just thought that was your conservatory, not dining room. Not sure I would want to eat my evening meal in there.

I thought it was a show home, it’s lovely 😊

Hope your viewings went well.

A few more pointers from me:

• The garden needs to be staged, it doesn't look an appealing place to spend time. I'd add a small dining set (even for 2) and some new colourful potted plants. Paint the two fences and back gate the same colour (they look like they're three different colours)
• I think the most off putting thing to me is the dining space. It's great you've now added a photo and furniture, but I think you can tell it's not used. Could you add a couple of house plants to warm up the space? Is there room on the other side of the conservatory to add a reading chair, side table and light. Have a think about how to make that space more appealing.
• Re-order the photos, it's quite disorienting to jump from a lounge to bedroom pic, then back to the lounge again.

Otherwise, your lounge is lovely, kitchen is fine size wise for me.

Hope that helps.

Hi Op, just wanted to say that we have just bought a 60s town house with a courtyard garden (they called it that on the particulars, I refer to it as the yard!).

Our house was on the market for months - it was in a dreadful state which I think put people off, but also the courtyard garden. However, it is perfect for us and we knew as soon as we stepped inside that it would be right.

Yours is such a beaut that the right buyers are out there. It's just that you are having to find them from a smaller pool of people as buyers have a thing about a big garden. I find them awful, especially now I have two dogs who just bring mud in. Instead we have a local park to walk the dogs in and our (not lovely yet but will be) backyard.

I was going to suggest a seating area in the garden to indicate a usable space.

Good luck, you'll get there!

I'd also be hesitant to restrict to "serious buyers" as you never know someone who could be viewing on a whim could fall in love with it. We weren't on the market and not really in the best position/timing to move, I saw a lovely house online nowhere near where we lived, but managed to persuade oh to go and have a look. We instantly fell in love with it and the area, put ours on the market and sold within the next 3 days and offered the full asking price less than a week after our viewing. Happily moved in a few months later. We weren't considered serious buyers, and the estate agent even commented on how the sellers might not be up for us having a look as we weren't on the market. Luckily they said they didn't care, and did the viewing themselves as the estate agent couldn't even be arsed to come out and show us round as we were so obviously time wasters!
I'd maybe put some colourful plant pots and flowers around on the decking to make it less stark, a couple of hanging baskets maybe to brighten it up? And as pps have said a pic of the dining table so it shows there is space for one would probably help. It's a beautiful home though. X