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!!

It's a quirky house and it's small. 3 bedrooms in 800 sq feet is really little. The kerb appeal is awful. I think you're going to have to drop to £299k to get any bids. Lots of people will have sent the search to 300 and won't even be seeing it.

For me the bedrooms look small in the photos so can only assume they are smaller on real life as agent photos can be deceiving. Garden is also small. Kerb appeal is not good and not having a visible front door looks odd.

I think your downstairs rooms look fab however maybe the fact it is only 2 rooms is off putting because nowadays having a playroom/office/spare room seems to be popular. And there is no scope for extending due to small garden and frontage.

Overall I think your house looks nice but I'm assuming families want something bigger or with potential and those without kids/older buyers will not want to live near a school and/or students.

Overall it's nice. I would get rid of the feature wall in the kitchen/diner and repaint the room with the bunkbeds a more neutral colour.

As a pp said, when something doesn't sell it's always the price

Lost count of how many times this has been pointed out, but I'm not sure whether the message is being heard.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the house, and evidently people have been viewing, just the asking price is a little too high for what is on offer.

Is “offers over” a thing where you live? Here loads of properties are listed at “offers over £300k” or whatever so that the people capping their search at £300k see it.

Lack of a front door wouldn’t bother me, the alley would only bother me if it looks like access would be an issue so you definitely need better photos of that, and to brighten up the front somehow.

I don’t agree it’s all about price - if I had £320k to spend and I had the choice of a house with bigger bedrooms for £320k and smaller bedrooms for £300k, I would buy the more expensive one. Others may feel differently.

We had to sell my mum’s house which was quite quirky - took us a year to sell it, and for a fair bit less than we expected. It did sell eventually though.

Had it been on the market long when you bought it?

So, you're happy to pay £20k more for something that offers more. And a property offering less needs to reflect that in the price.

Don't worry too much. We had our property on for 20 weeks with our first agent, 5 viewing and kept saying it's because of brexit. Changed agents and sold in 11 days!! They did better photos and I wasn't in for viewings!

Curb appeal is important. I kill any plant that has the grace to come to our home so just brought new ones all the tine when I had viewings lol

Your buyer will come along soon xx

If you can, I would put a porch on the front with a front door that then leads into the kitchen diner, which is lovely

Then change entrance hall to downstairs loo

The initial picture of the front put me off straight away

Living room looks great too are garden is fine

It's absolutely lovely and about the same size as mine. It's not selling as everyone wants at least two toilets nowdays. Even two bed new builds have two toilets.

Looking at similar houses in a one mile radius from your property, you can easily get 3 bed detached newish builds for around 300k, which are much more attractive, and have a garage. The issue is definitely price. If I were you I would reduce by 15k at least.

Pursey Drive, Bradley Stoke, Bristol, Gloucestershire, BS32
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-57574407.html

For example, this one is lovely and has features yours does not such as downstairs loo.

Thanks everyone.
I have taken some new photos to send to the agent of the front.
We can’t afford to make more than cosmetic changes.
I was hoping location would be a big selling point as we are in a lovely road with great access to everything locally.

@jackstini agree with this

That house is in Bradley Stoke not Stoke Gifford, I know it’s not far away, but does make a difference to price

We are looking at houses at the moment. I didn’t realise how much more of a “heart over head” sort of decision t would be up being! We seem to decide almost instantly upon viewing if we like somewhere. It can be the smallest things that make or break a house, it’s all about that feeling. Some houses feel like happy homes and some feel like unhappy houses. It’s hard to explain. A few things that have put us off during viewings:

*bad smells in the house
*bad lighting (too dark/ no sunlight)
*dirty kitchens
*dog poop in garden
*dirty carpets
*misleading photos from EA (house a lot smaller in reality)
*horrible/ sad stories from EA about why vendors are selling house

I’m saying any of these things are your problem but it can really influence the feel
Of a house. I would look tomdress your house up for a family as best you can - fresh flowers in vases, lovely smells in all the rooms etc

Best of luck!

In which case you might want them to change the listing as it’s currently saying “nestled in the heart of Stoke Gifford”

No we are Stoke Gifford, the house linked above is Bradley Stoke

I really make an effort when we have a viewing, clear out loads of stuff, no clutter, flowers, we have had the carpets cleaned...

I think it's the small bedrooms, they are all small. The ceilings are low and the houses even though detached, are very close together.

Also the price needs looking at.

I like your house OP. It has a lovely feeling of space. I do think the first photo needs to be retaken and from a different angle. Also further back as you don't really get an idea of how large your driveway is.

I think that if you were moving large furniture into the living room you wouldn't take it through the front door - you'd go round to the French doors. So this is a bit of a red herring. I love your bookcase

I like the idea a pp had of putting on a front porch. I realise you'd need planning permission for this as it's forward of the building line. A porch could incorporate a downstairs loo which would cover both of the main issues people in this thread have raised.

I realise you wouldn't want to do this as it would be expensive but it's the sort of idea the EA could drop in to prospective buyers during viewings.

Love: the wall of bookshelves, the kitchen/diner. Hard to tell there's a shower in the bathroom - I assumed from the photo that there wasn't. Bathroom looks a bit dated. Is there room for a wardrobe in Bed1? Personally I can't stand vivid yellow on walls, but that's just me.

If the layout is confusing, try to write a reassuring/positive description. We've lived in our house for decades, but turned it down the first time the agent sent the details, as we couldn't work out the layout from the description & the external photos were confusing. Thank goodness they sent the details again & we came & viewed it. (It still confuses visitors, but that's fine!)

andrewsonline.co.uk/sale/details/391971/beaufort-crescent-stoke-gifford-bristol-bs34-8qy

New photo of the front

According to agency side at rightmove (used to work in the industry, lettings not sales though - so May not be much help!) properties with kitchen pics as the cover get more views than those with frontage ones. Used to recommend us to swap them over on properties that were moving slowly. Yours is a great kitchen, might be worth asking your agent to swap them round see if it picks up?