Why doesn’t anyone want our house?!

[noitsachicken]

Been on the market since January.
Dropped the price twice, recently switched agents.
Lots of viewings, generally positive feedback. People like the house, but no one wants to buy it!!

wowfudge it is a huge trend, and very practical. When you have only one bathroom it needs to work hard. The lack of a downstairs loo and no obvious place to put one is already a drawback. On the basis that this is all the house can ever hope for by way of a bathroom, and there have been viewings but nothing further, I would be considering lowering the price.

My first impression, looking at the first photo, was it looked a bit grim. Also, that you would feel you need to squeeze down that dark lane to get into the house. However, the inside and backyard photos looked okay. Could you put some pot plants along the front or something to relieve the dreariness?

I genuinely think the sofa is a lovely colour. It's not remotely dated, green is very in at the moment.

I'm really not sure what the issue is here. If it's not to someone's taste, who gives a shit. You're not buying the sofa.

Oh get real @mathanxiety - double sinks are what you have when you have a massive bathroom. And it's an American import in the UK, from a country with far less dense housing than in the UK. If you've room for two sinks, why not have tandem toilets and go the whole hog. What utter bollocks. A bathroom doesn't work hard. It's a facility, it's not a person. I am under the impression you have probably not been brought up in a house with one bathroom containing the only loo in the house which everyone has managed to share without actually using it simultaneously.

Seriously Math, a red sofa rather than a green one is your personal preference and has fuck all to do with selling OP's house.

It has nothing to do with you being able to magically "recognise" something the rest of us cannot.

LOL at double sink in 800 sq ft house.

Buyers aren't buying the supposedly dated green sofa. If that puts them off, they're too stupid to own a home.

Here is the issue with the colour of the sofa - thanks to the beige walls and carpet on top of the couch colour the room lacks punch so you are presenting an overall impression of drabness. The room has a lot going for it and could be far better presented to highlight its good points. The whole point of putting photos online is to attract interest - you do this by means of visual impact.

As an alternative to a red slipcover for the green couch, if the OP wanted to she could paint the walls in a colour that would give it some oomph instead. To make the green furniture stand out and highlight the white shelves, if she wasn't fussy about the poang chair upholstery looking as if it didn't belong, she could choose a good deep grey blue or a barn red.

There is no magic to this, PCohle. You can't see it, that's all. Fwiw, I don't have a red couch or much red at all in my mainly pastel decorating scheme that includes some pastel green.

PickAChew when you are selling your house for over £300k you are presenting a lifestyle a family could enjoy there in 2019. If you have had your house on the market for a while and don't know why you haven't had an offer you can eliminate 'stupid buyers' from the list of reasons by a little redecorating involving very little investment of money and effort. Then if nobody bites you can conclude that there are issues like the one small bathroom and front facing kitchen holding people back, and decide if dropping the price might do the trick.

wowfudge I was brought up in a house that started out with one bathroom. We thought it was fine until my parents added a downstairs loo which made a massive difference to a family of five.

I owned a house that started out with one bathroom, and I added a second full bath. Again - massive difference. House was just under 1,000 sq ft.

A bathroom doesn't work hard. It's a facility, it's not a person.
^^ Pedantry.
Bathrooms are functional rooms. They either function well or poorly. A double sink is incredibly useful absent a downstairs loo. This house doesn't have room for one, unless a buyer were to rip out the bathtub and put in a shower (not likely for a young family or for anyone hoping to sell on to a young family). So price must be looked at given that there is just the one bathroom.

If someone other than a young family (say parent/s with two teens) were to move in - and given the front facing kitchen the house might be more attractive to this sort of family than one with small children - then whether the bathroom is up to the task becomes very important. Again, is a house with just one bathroom worth the price the OP is asking?

Again, given that it just has one bathroom, the best foot forward motto means the OP should look at taking out the beige flooring and replacing it with lino or wood-look tiles. It's not a huge room and a new floor wouldn't cost the earth.

Actually, the phrase 'stupid buyers' is really strange, PickAChew. Presumably there are some people out there looking at this house who are in a position to buy, ready with their 20% down payment. If they are attracted to the house by a few hanging baskets and the necessary visual aids to really see the potential of any given room, who are you to argue with giving the customer what they want in order to get them closer to making an offer? That's what this is all about, right?

Your personal interiors preferences are not objective truths. But clearly you refuse to believe otherwise so by all means carry on pontificating. It's certainly entertaining

mathanxiety your condescending style of posting on this issue grates. Just give it a rest.

I see your 'condescending style' and raise you either a very limited experience of current trends in interiors or a very small social circle (certainly a very weird one if you are aware of how everyone you know uses their bathroom) plus a very odd interest in my own bathroom arrangements in past decades.

Btw, if you bothered to read what I actually posted on the topic of double sinks, you would notice that I said the question is moot because the bathroom is too small to accommodate one. Further discussion related to double sinks in general and your refusal to believe they might be useful to other people based on your own personal preference and your distaste for practical ideas from America.

Certainly if some think interiors dont sell a lifestyle to a buyer, which makes the difference between a 315k house and a similar 300k one down the road, they are too stupid to sell a house!!

I personally would not buy a house on interior; i'd have doer-uppers, but that usnt the target market here. Busy families want ready-to-use houses.

This house nearby is on the market for only £5k more but looks about £25k better in terms of more space, better presentation etc.

This house nearby is on the market for £30k less than yours. It seems pretty comparable to me - it is a semi rather than detached but it has the downstairs loo you lack. I think that's the price range you should be aiming for.

You definitely need to pretty up the front. Even a PPs like scribble drawings made such a huge difference.

mathanxiety
I get what you're saying about selling a lifestyle, but also not everyone wants to pay for someone else's lifestyle and decor. Spending a lot of cash decorating a house when the main issues are likely to be structural and layout related seems a waste of money to me.

We would have rather paid less for our house and it look dated. We would decorate anyway. I know quite a lot of people with that view.

Most people are willing to compromise on some elements of a house if the overall package is good and the price is right.

I think the main things with the OP's house is that for a typical family, there might be too many inconvenient things for a house of that price:

• Access to back garden is awkward if I remember correctly
• No garage so where does all the gardening and car stuff go (and crap that doesn't go in the house)?
• No downstairs toilet
• Awkward narrow side access
• Due to the layout there's not much flexibility internally to alter the configuration
• Solar panels and associated issues

These aren't things the OP can easily do much about which means realistically they'll need to accept a lower offer.

mathanxiety think a lot of your analysis is spot on.
Personally I far far prefer to see empty houses as I get tired of looking past every single thing set up to ‘appeal’ to work out how I would love in a space. The only thing I find helpful is a double bed (even just the frame) to really see the bedroom possibilities (so I don’t have to do the Kirsty lying on floor thing).
If a house isn’t empty it really doesn’t matter at all what is in it other than things that are staying.
But I know (have house on market at the moment - successfully touch wood) that many do want things ‘dressed’ (hate hate that term) to help them visualise.

The big issue is that it’s not particularly attractive and over priced for 800 sq ft. Simple as that!

Phew! I’m so glad my huge trough style sink with two taps is considered suitable for a large bathroom! I thought I’d committed the ultimate faux pas by having it. I have a green velvet settee too! Another faux pas. It’s Designers Guild so does that redeem it?

Other newer houses in the area are larger, cheaper, more attractive and have cloakrooms and bigger bedrooms. That’s the problem!

As a landlord my first impression was a lack of colour.

Offer lunch to the friend with the most stylish house, and head for IKEA (no Homesense in Bristol, sadly) for cheap items that will brighten up each room: curtains, duvet covers, cushions, rugs, perhaps a poster to replace that scattering of small pictures. Plus a colourful pot plant in each room. (The first thing I do when trying to rent upscale London properties is to head for the flower market and then put fresh flowers, ideally with a nice scent, into the main rooms. It makes a huge difference.) And a planter or something at the front.

You dont need much, and certainly dont want too much.

Borrow if you can, or buy things you would be happy to take with you.

BTW I think it is a lovely house. And really well located.

I just think this thread has gone very weird. All this analysis of a sofa colour? And personally I'd hate a red sofa or red walls. Taste is subjective.

The main issue with this house is very clear and it's not the lack of a double sink or the fact the sofa is green that's making it unsellable, that's simply bonkers. It's:

It's overpriced in comparison to other properties.
The roof is leased potentially making it unmortgeagble and no reference is made in the blurb if it meets mortgage lender criteria and there fore mortgageable.
Two of the bedrooms are incredibly small and I'm surprised one of them can even be legally defined as a bedroom.
The front of thr house looks incredibly odd now the Garage door has been removed, and the side return to enter is incredibly narrow, and unwelcoming.

It's not about rhe sofa colour, and few people would expect a double sink in an 800 sq foot property.

Well said bluntness

Second thread I’ve been on very recently which has been said to have gone ‘weird’. I may be a common thread (very common). Checking myself now.
Off to organise reupholstering of a chair. Steering clear of red but was actually considering a green

It's not about rhe sofa colour, and few people would expect a double sink in an 800 sq foot property
This ^^

Ultimately people aren't going to be put off by superficial things like the colour of the owner's sofa when there are more pressing structural and layout issues that make a property less appealing than others in the area.

I don’t know the area so can’t comment on the price but just based on the square footage it’s very small for a family of 4 and I’d probably wouldn’t view it