Not getting any viewers?

[DisappointedOfNorfolk]

Our house has been on the market for two and half weeks now and we have had only two viewings so far (although the first viewers did want to offer but sadly their buyer couldn't get a mortgage and withdrew their offer so they couldn't).

We thought the first couple of weeks were supposed to be the busiest but nope!

We don't know what we're doing wrong, and wondered if anyone would be happy to check out our Rightmove ad and give us some feedback please?

Filling in or improving the pond.

It seems a very nice bright spacious house. But there doesn't seem to be photos of all the bedrooms. And impossible to read the room sizes on the floor plan. Not keen on the blue walls in the sitting room but that's easily painted a neutral colour. Garden is lovely.

Having a second look I do wonder if you've taken to much out / tidied really well.

Add some plants and bits back in, new photos and you're be there.

What’s the EPC rating with the lounge and sun room only separated by a curtain is it?

The sun room roof looks like it needs replacing ?

Agree too much blue and the sofa is too big for the room and doesn’t help at all.

The photos are dreadful. The bedrooms you can see look tiny. Strange hallway photos. Photos of neighbouring gardens?? None showcasing the lovely view over fields at the back (or have I imagined that?!). Great house, badly marketed.

Agreed about the photos and the bathroom would put me off. We are in same position though op.

For me, it is this photo that is really off putting. The sofa dominates the room, the walls are too dark and the ceiling looks little odd from the shadows/texture.
I would be painting that white or grey to match the rest of the house and giving the ceiling a good lick of white paint. Would take a day to get it looking nice like the rest of the house and I think it would make a big difference.

For what it's worth I think your home looks lovely OP. I agree that a couple of the photos don't make sense - ie the doors upstairs and the garden pics are a little hard to piece together. I'm not a fan of the dark blue walls either but that wouldn't put me off viewing as you can paint them.

What might stop me viewing would be unmetered water, what I assume is a very small 4th bedroom, "offers over" and I also note you're in a (lovely) rural location, I think this might alienate your market somewhat.

I'm not sure if this is also at play but funnily enough we also listed our house 3 weeks ago, for £280k. We've had a couple of first time buuer viewings cancel as when they tried to get a mortgage in principle before viewing they've realised they're unable to due to current lending conditions during COVID. x

You’ve presented it very nicely but photograph angles are not correct - should show more floor and less ceiling as it makes the rooms look bigger. Also can they go back on a dry day to retake exterior shots?

Thank you all, really useful comments and a lot of them are points we've discussed but a few additional ones to think about too .

Yes the back garden is a good size (140' long and 32' wide).

I am happy to paint the loft hatch surround, and will definitely consider repainting the sitting room and bathroom again (but I love the blue!) and will stage the conservatory better, I hadn't thought about it looking like it was a squeezed in work area rather than a space to relax in.

I will talk to the new agent about better pictures of all the rooms, and better angles (I agree the sofa looks enormous, and the 'arty' shots don't really add much value at all to the listing! The new agents also include room measurements in their descriptions so they won't be minuscule writing on a badly drawn floor plan any more either!

The sitting room has an open archway to the conservatory, and doesn't have a separate window, no.

We did wonder if the pond might put off families with small children, but there's not a lot we can do about it now...

As for recent sales, the chalet bungalow was for sale for 10 (?) months at £320k I think, then pulled off, changed to £300k, and still didn't sell for months, before being reduced to £280k and selling about 6 weeks later. The one that went for £270k last year has a similar sized garden to ours and is a similar sized house overall.

The other two I mentioned selling recently were identical looking houses to ours, but still three bedrooms (our fourth bedroom was created on the landing space and is 9' 11" x 7' 8" - it fits a 3' single bed, a chest of drawers and has built in shelves for extra storage - but is a funny shape I agree!)

The two identical 3 beds- one was up for £280k pre-lockdown in February, reduced to £270k in July and then sold within two weeks, and the other sold just afterwards in 3 days (!) after being marketed at £240k but it was original untouched 1950's decor and needed work doing. Both sold for around £5k under their asking price though...

We had four agents value ours (including the one who valued and sold the above two houses, who said ours was in better decorative order plus had the extra small bedroom) and all valued ours between £275k and £285k and so we went for the middle price as we thought that was supposed to be the best idea.

We don't like the 'offers over' price either but we were talked into it...and we will definitely be changing that when we change agents!

Thanks again it's really useful to get unbiased views, it's so hard to be objective when it's your own house!

I think there could be a problem with the sitting room being open to the sun lounge. Did you knock through the rooms and if so did you get building regs agreement? As the sun room looks like it has a poly carbonate roof i imagine this could make the sitting room cold in winter or is there proper heating in the sun Room?

I also think you need to paint the sitting room a more neutral colour.

A few more answers:

Yes, the sofa is quite big and that's a terrible picture that makes it look even bigger. That picture also makes it look like the shadow on the ceiling from the light fitting is a damp patch, and there definitely needs to be more floor showing in the pictures.

The EPC is D, the conservatory is double glazed and south facing so actually warms the house a bit, even in winter !

Oh, and all the garden in the pictures is ours even the trampoline , I hadn't considered that the picket afence round the veggie garden (to keep the chickens out!) looks like a neighbour's fence...

I agree there needs to be at least one picture of the view across the fields at the back (it's lovely!).

Thank you for all your kind comments and constructive criticism, I was expecting more harsh comments tbh as nobody seemed to want to come and see it in person as yet!

Lots of things to think about and sort while we wait out our notice period for the first agent, and a relief that it's partly poor marketing as well as a few things that we need to change ourselves. Thank you all .

Bilbodog, the conservatory was already here and the wall knocked through when we bought the house, and does have a polycarbonate roof, it has a radiator in it and there is a radiator and multi fuel stove in the sitting room. The house is never cold tbh !

@RandomMess

The unmetered water thing is bizarre because when it's sold the buyers will be forced to have a meter by the water company...

What? I’ve never heard of that happening anywhere.

I don't understand the garden, is the trampoline in your garden or is it next door? There's a gate in the fence. Maybe take a photo of the garden from upstairs to get an overview?

Oh and the unmetered water supply is great, for the veggie garden and for filling the paddling pool/pond!

The water company cannot fit a meter either - the external stopcock is a shared supply with the two houses either side and the internal stopcock is boxed in and behind a hatch in the kitchen, and sadly the space is too small to fit a meter in... or so the meter fitting man who came to survey for the water company said last year...

Good news about the water meter

Can you get one of those stand on grids for the pond? At least then it can be mentioned as child proof "or fill it in and back a sandpit" type blurb.

Your house looks nice btw, photos aren’t amazing, but not completely awful either.

But there are 2 4 bedroom houses within a mile and a half, for less money and they’re detached...

This is an overview of the whole house plot/garden. The picket fence and gate make up the rectangle in the bottom right of the yellow outline and are surrounding the veggie garden, the trampoline and swing are beside the veggie garden on an area of bark at the end of the lawn .

Yes, there are tabularosa but...

This is your entire back garden for the first one, which is on a new, very crowded estate... and the second house - the photo is a photo of the back of the house (and its garden...) as it is situated facing onto a co op supermarket car park with about 3-4 ft between your front elevation and parking spaces!

The photos, blue lounge, pond and v small bathroom all put me off

How can people be put off by the colour of one wall?? It's easy to repaint!

Oh I could see your location is much nicer - but I’m mentioning the detached thing as...

We’re on the middle of buying (miles and miles from you, lol) a semi in a nice semi rural location, but, if it had been up to my DP alone, it’d be detached over location and garden, as in, he was filtering the search by only looking at detached houses and speaking to other people they feel the same way.

Like I said - your house is nice, I like it, but I suspect that there are detached houses the same sort of size in the same area for less might well be a factor in not getting viewings.

The arial shot you posted on this thread should be part of the listing. The agents photos make the outside space look so much smaller than it is!

Can that aerial photo be on the listing? It looks like a great plot!

I'd say the issues are, the blue, the pond (dangerous for young DC not fenced in) the way the room with the massive sofa is staged and the fact it connects to the conservatory, and it's not obvious all of those bits of loveky garden are yours.

Nothing mega, just tone some of it down a bit, rearrange some furniture and make clear what belongs to who!

Good luck! 🍀