What's wrong with our house 13 days no viewings

[Namechangetoshowhouse]

Help us out Please 🙏
We put our house on the market 13 days ago we have friends in the area who have put theirs on and been busy with viewings straight away but we've had nothing.

Three Estate agents said £375 so we started with that after no viewings at 9 days we dropped to £367
We know house is a bit bottom heavy a bit like me and doesn't look pretty but is well presented and has over 80 Sq m of downstairs living space. A huge Kitchen and lounge, 10 mins walk to most amenities as well.

We have seen a house that we love that won't come up again we've put in an offer for asking price but not sure we'll get it as they say they've had 6 offers already.

Anyway here it is do we drop the price some more or just wait a bit?
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-82594633.html

Essentially it's not what most people seeking a 4 or even 3 bed house want.....and therefore it needs to be priced lower than even very small 3 beds that deliver those things.....the key one being an upstairs bathroom.

So look at the price of houses which have 3 small bedrooms, with one a box room, but which have an upstairs bathroom....and then look to price below that to reflect the fact yours doesn't have the bathroom upstairs....it's seen as an essential in a modern house, not just a 'nice to have' like an Ensuite or a dining kitchen, but absolutely essential. I wouldn't underestimate the impact of it.

Plus, remember overall size isn'tt key on its own....odd layouts devalue houses. Having to go through a utility room to that extra room has wrecked the layout of the house and impacted negatively on the garden too.

It's not an easy fix this one. It's not just a colourful throw, moving a chair and using a different camera lens. Odd layout and no bathroom upstairs won't be fixed before sale, so it's the price that needs some serious adjusting.

Op, you can see the competition locally. With lots of new builds for sale, any defects in layout etc become even more negative in terms of impact on the price of yours. I know it's disappointing, but I'd be getting another agent in for some serious talk about the real value given its really a 2.5 bed house with no upstairs bathroom, plus an odd layout that won't appeal to most. The price is likely to be significantly different to you have hoped for. The Estate Agent hasn't done you any favours, but to be honest, you should be able to spot the defects yourself and the level of competition.

It seems to be a 3 bed but is advertised as a 4 bed?

It’s a 3 bedroom house, quite bland and soul less, no kerb appeal. I don’t understand why they’ve incorrectly advertised it as a 4 bedroom house? That’s probably why you have no viewings.
As well as the fact you have no upstairs bathroom and it looks like a 2 bed with a storage room on the floor plan.

@MMN123

If I was a buyer, I'd view these before yours: www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-77275870.html www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-95202089.html

Might be overpriced still.

Interestingly, the photos of the first house are dreadful. Photos are a factor, but the layout is a much bigger one.

I know it's disappointing, but I'd be getting another agent in for some serious talk about the real value given its really a 2.5 bed house with no upstairs bathroom, plus an odd layout that won't appeal to most.

Agree with this. And if the agent have conned you into agreeing their fee on the basis of a % of the intial list price, you need to be prepared to challenge them on it.

I've been stuck like that before! Agents were over optimistic because it was in their financial interest to be.

^ stung, not stuck

I’m not going to mension bedrooms or kerb appeal because everyone has said it. Watching Kelly Hopper last week on tv she said to take all the furniture away from the wall and bring it in a bit to make the room cosier. She said to put a consol table behind the sofa with flowers on it and to look at the pictures on the wall. The furniture is all at the edge of the room. If you move the armchair you could move the dining table in to the middle away from the wall and dress it. someone telling you to declutter, their is nothing to declutter. I think you have gone too far and it looks like no one livesin it. One or two nice bits on the tv cabinet and in the bedrooms will make a difference.

Mention not mension.

Kelly Hoppen.

It’s not a house anyone is going to fall in love with. The layout is terrible and no amount of window dressing is going to get round that. It needs to be a bargain to compete with what else is available - why would a buyer pick your house over any of the others posters have turned up in a cursory search of the internet? It’s price (it always is, but particularly in this case). Drop the price so it looks like a bargain and a you might get some interest.

The layout messes with my head - especially the off centre chimney stack (fireplaces are usually a focal point, not off to a corner).

I feel like the front door is in the wrong place too - not because it’s at the side (I grew up in a 50s house with the door on the side) but because that bit of the front room where the dining table is is so oddly proportioned.

Have you had the entire downstairs layout reconfigured? Because it’s really messing with my head!

Re: the extension, bit weird but ok as a bonus space, the blind down at the end makes it look almost windowless though - yet this room has doors, right? They need to be in the photo. At the moment it’s just looks like a box. I would probably try and dress this as more of a garden room, wicker chairs, big pot plants, take a picture from the outside doors looking in. That way it makes sense as almost a summer house type thing, and it makes the way it connects to the house less strange.

Otherwise I would dress it properly as a bedroom and put the office stuff in the smallest bedroom.

At the moment, the photos actually do my head in a bit, because viewing it is like trying to work out a puzzle. A puzzling space isn’t a relaxing of pleasant place to live - maybe it makes a lot more sense in person and it’s just the pictures that are giving the wrong impression - if that’s the case then you definitely need to shift some furniture around and retake the photos so that they don’t leave you thinking ‘what room is that again’ and ‘where does that door lead to?’

Some of the other things that leave me feeling a bit discombobulated are the mismatched doors (white and period 50s upstairs, mixture of brown and white but both new downstairs) and the mixture of styles between clean, contemporary kitchen cupboards and farmhouse style stove. The extremely stylised bar stools really dominate the photo too, when the kitchen is actually a pretty lovely space, it’s just a bit incoherent. Same with the contrast between the dated wardrobes upstairs and the new kitchen downstairs - the whole house gives the feel of a half done project that got given up on?

I don’t expect you to ‘finish the project’ of course, you want to sell and get out, but I do think minimising the contrast between the done bits and the not-done bits and shifting the furniture around before retaking photos will help.

The layout messes with my head - especially the off centre chimney stack (fireplaces are usually a focal point, not off to a corner)... ...Have you had the entire downstairs layout reconfigured?

It's very obvious from the steel bean across the living room ceiling that the living room used to be two separate rooms.

The front one will have been the living room and had the chimney breast in it, the back one was probably the kitchen/dining room.

beam! not bean

I wouldn't view , sorry . No kerb appeal , odd layout . Soulless .

I’m still reeling that you can get a family house for that price...

(Really need to think about leaving the South East)

The upstairs and and the downstairs have been really badly reconfigured.

This is what the lay out what originally
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-18520011.html

It's an unusual house and the layout is a bit crackers. If it were mine to sell I would reconfigure the furniture as the living room looks like a "through room" and so I would put the table up the top end and the sofa and tv by the window around the fire.

I would look at your house if I was looking for a spacious 2 bedroom home. It would have been perfect for me and DH pre-kids because we each need home office space. If my budget was super-tight, I might consider it if I was looking for 3 bedrooms. It should not be coming up on searches for a 4 bedroom.

At the very least, I would redo the photo of the box room. As taken, it looks like you might have to slide in sideways to get in the bed.

I think that as an extended semi detached your main competition are Barry Avenue and Beverley Gardens and they both have upstairs bedrooms, but aren't as nicely finished as yours They are both cheaper though. You need to push the granny annex angle.

Yyou can improve the desirability of the current workroom by turning the annex back into a studio apartment: at 22 foot long there's definitely enough space. Of houses with 3 bedrooms upstairs and an annex room there's one on the south wold estate which is on at 375 but the annex is literally a garage with a bed in it; the details don't even show a loo or anything out there! However the 3 bed house but does have an upstairs bathroom and an en suite plus the area is apparently slightly more expensive than yours.

Your house looks well maintained and spacious but it falls down on the downstairs bathroom and the road it's on. Your market here is someone who doesn't mind a downstairs bathroom and needs an annex for an elderly relative or a lodger. The photos aren't brilliant but they do show a clean maintained blank canvas home. There's not much to change really.

I know that area, and as others have said there are a shit ton on new builds going up, some recently reduced or with big incentives too.

You can jazz up the front with plants etc but the extension is an issue for me, it looks like a big caravan in the garden. I don't think you'll be able to do much to improve that.

I hope you're not upset with this thread and can find some good tips

Crikey I didn’t realise til I saw that overhead shot that the kitchen is an extension too! Wow. That’s a whopper of an extension.

I have just sold my house in 9 days.
My estate agent told me to never put an number on the end, keep it in the 10's. When people are searching they don't want to see random numbers. I put mine up for 120k, got 118k so I would say drop to offers over 360k to get 365k

also i would recommend Strike - Very good customer service

There's nothing mumsnetters like more than getting stuck into some constructive house re-marketing is there .

I like the white, my house is all white. But it does need some work on the photos, personal items and kerb appeal.