Help me get ready to sell my house (Photos included and brutal honesty welcome)

[UHWINFO]

We were on the market last year and got 1 viewing. Naturally this year has been a write off so I'm trying to use this time to improve it and make sure it appeals to people.

It's in South Wales and we bought for 90k in 2014. Last year it was valued at 110k and I'd be happy to sell at that. It's a 3 bed, end terrace with an attached garage and small courtyard garden. We also have an upstairs bathroom plus downstairs loo/utility room which is unusual for terraces in the area.

Outside. I'd paint the sills under the windows and the bit under where the extension is. It will look much brighter. Also add some plants outside.

Bedroom 1. Put some curtains up and drop the blinds. Change the bedding to something nicer. Plain cream etc. Lose the guitars and stage it more like a bedroom

Bedroom 2 looks too boring too. Change the curtains and bedding in here and make it look nice.

Baby's bedroom is sweet.

Your sofa has a water bottle on it? Who left these there for professional photos?

Get rid of toys lying about in the kitchen. Put a little table in the kitchen so there's a place to eat. Tuck the bin away.

Declutter surfaces as much as you can. No one needs to see your crap.

Lose the kiddie bits in the bathroom too

It's seems reasonably priced. Where in SW are you ?

Looks clean & well presented: you just need a better photographer!
I don’t agree it’s ‘tired’ : kitchen & bathroom look good to go as far as I can tell

If I was being fussy, ditch the stripy curtains, the red wall (paint it cream), and pale solid colour bedding - and get rid of bath mat for pics

Is that a cot/toddler bed? Can you fold back as a cot for more space?

Repainting outside will not be cost effective I suspect
If your buyers are likely to be on a tight budget then making sure carpets are Vv clean or New may be important

I’m just stunned by the price - good luck OP

For that price, inside is fine, hate the outside. It would look much nicer painted white / cream but that may not get money back. Cheaper would be paint front door maybe dark red and put a window box with flowers and flowers in front garden and paint gate.

I’d get a ladder and a pot of paint and sort the outside out.
The hedge is overgrown and needs trimming. Don’t have a car in the way of the photo either.

Internally, it’s fine but I agree that professional photos would look better.

I would not paint the pebble dash, but would get the exterior photos done on a day when the front is in sun and brighter. I would put effort into brightening the front garden, trimming the hedge, adding plants in front of the ?garage window. A bright front door would make a difference but painted uPVC often looks crap.

Inside just needs dressing for photos and decent photos, it's fine for the price bracket.

Can you fit a small kitchen table in rather than the play table? The kitchen looks big but that makes it seem cluttered.

It’s a great house OP.

Can you wash/clean the render? Agree with PP about painting the cills under the windows. Some kind of planter under the extension window and other pots, maybe a climber around the door. Reduce the hedge in height and width and your living room will be much brighter. Maybe some shrubs or a small tree in the front, especially the grassy area in front of the extension.

I’d put a large mirror above the bath and a bigger mirror above your bathroom sink.

Good luck!

sills

Ok, I've made a list which is titled "Declutter, Declutter, Declutter" and I'm going to order some plants.

@UHWINFO

Ok, I've made a list which is titled "Declutter, Declutter, Declutter" and I'm going to order some plants.

I thought I'd decluttered really well when I sold a house in SW a couple of years ago. When the photographer arrived she moved things I'd never thought to. They photos were amazing. Almost didn't want to move out after seeing them

I think it looks like a great house. I think the outside would benefit from having the window sills scrubbed or painted, and some flowers/plants. The kids play area needs removing from the kitchen and you need a photo of the dining area. Other than that your house looks clean and tidy.

I think it looks nice. I'd always be put off by photos where they've used that lens that stretches the room though. I couldn't be arsed to view because I'd know already the rooms will be smaller than they look and if the size of the rooms is being hidden in the photos, I'd wonder what else is. But I'm fussy 😂

It just looks very ordinary and a bit lacking in charm. But the light & aspect look good - can you rev up photos which show lots of natural light? And show the 'bones" of the house - the decor is unappealing & the furniture bland (to me) , but a lot of people - particularly I guess in that low price bracket - won't be experienced at looking for the bones of a house - the things you can't change. THey'll be looking at ^you6 decor, furniture etc as an aspirational idea for them.

So can you show off those good basic features of the house? It's great family layout - that kitchen looks nice & big and well-planned, for example. Can you emphasise the things that can't be changed eg aspect, light, basic flow through of the rooms & floor plan etc. Rugs on the tiles?

But it may be that there are quite a few properties pretty much the same in the general area, and people feel the can get the same thing for less ... It's a pretty standard house, unless there's something special about the area or its access to something.

I had a house like that (although about 3 times the price) - it was one of many like it in a long street of very similar houses - a very desirable street & area. When I cam to sell, I really only got what I paid + inflation (not house price inflation, normal inflation!) back on it. BUT - I'd lived there for about 8 years, and hadn't done anything to improve or extend the house (I bought it because it didn't need a thing doing to it, and I was in a job which I knew would take me 60-70 hours a week to do, so I needed everything just so). So I got my value out of the house, and I don't regret the purchase - it owed me nothing (and neither did the property market).

We shouldn't always assume that house prices will automatically rise, particularly if we don't do major extensions or renovations.

I've just realised what makes it look a bit dull and rather cold & bland- nothing on the walls, and no books or things to show taste & personality & character. Many purchasers are buying a bit of a dream along with a house ...

Definately need to paint the outside of the house a lighter brighter colour and have some plants at the front. The house looks clean and pretty okay inside to me!

You can’t really paint pebble dash, as it loses stones from time to time Which would leave bare batches all over the walls, I could see in the pics it was PD and not render, it would have to be removed and re-rendered to paint properly, and that is horribly expensive. It may be possible to get it skimmed ? I am not sure about that, just wondering.
I agree with plants outside to give it some character and colour. If the front door is Upvc then it can’t be painted either, so I would be tempted to throw some money at that - buy a wooden front door and paint it a lovely , glossy colour.
It all looks well looked after and in good order inside, maybe a bit bare though, contrary to the usual mumsnet advice, I feel you can go too far in decluttering , and a few pictures up, flowers etc, would a difference.

I was very fortunate to win a makeover done for my holiday let business and learnt quite a bit from the process. Lots of people have mentioned curb appeal. You have a beautiful stone wall as a boundary. use plants down your path to the front door to link this beautiful part to the front door. paint the front door in an old off knocked back green cream colour. it will pull it all together.

Declutter and try to move furniture around so beds aren't stuffed against walls. The walls are pretty bare, some cheap Ikea picture frames on command strips can brighten things up quite easily.

Get photos of dining room and garden. And if that's your car out the front then move it next time.

Great point about the wall. There’s a plant called Erigeron that looks nice spilling over walls. It’s evergreen and hardy and self seeds like crazy.

www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/erigeron-karvinskianus/classid.2751/

Erigeron is great but it dies back in autumn and doesn't flower until May so it won't help if OP is looking to sell soon.

Window boxes on the upper windows (or all of them) would really help break up the grey, as well as some pots in the garden. Zinc/metal planters would work with the grey or coloured plastic planters. Elho have a good (and good) value range of brightly coloured pots. This powder blue self watering window box could work with the grey too (and is a steal at £4.99):

www.ocado.com/products/whitefurze-boston-window-box-powder-blue-475756011

I would go with pink and white flowers, or red and white, with evergreen foliage. At this time of year, you could plant cyclamens (if you are selling soon), heathers, trailing winter pansies, wallflowers, chrysanthemums, ivy, solanum (for berries). If you go with red, you could consider a holly in a pot.

Maybe it’s because I’m in the SE but mine is evergreen 🤷🏻‍♀️ It doesn’t flower in the winter.

It looks a bit unloved. Yes to a better photographer, decluttering and improving the garden. When I was looking at the pictures I thought the rooms would be improved by a large picture or 2 to add a bit of interest, just something cheap from B&M or try charity shops, near me they're full of big canvases.

There's nothing drastically wrong it just looks very plain and not homely. I'd struggle to picture it as my home.

The front looks very dull. I would plant some flowers and hanging baskets at the front and tidy up the hedges. Even fake flowers or bushes would so for the photos just to brighten it up.

If possible maybe have the front door sprayed a brighter colour? A matching plaque with the door number on? That could be an inexpensive way to add a bit of colour. Maybe red or pastel green? Something memorable to make it stand out in the photos.

Unless you can very easily afford it i wouldn't bother painting the outside of the house. If the inside is what someone wants they will go for it regardless of the colour of the outside. That's something for the buyer to do themselves along with other home improvements. It just seems a waste of money for you to go to that extreme.

Inside needs tidying up a little to neutralise it. Get rid of the kids toys in the bathroom, bottles off the worktop, guitars, pictures on the fridge. Add some cheap vases/flowers/big candles/decorative things.

The walls look very plain. Make a bit of a colour theme in each room with cheap canvas pictures and ornament/decorative stuff. Bathroom needs more of a blue theme.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m looking at different photos to everyone else, because I can’t really see the “clutter“ everyone is talking about.

If anything I’d say that the house looks a little bit empty and perhaps a bit too plain for my liking. I doubt it’d really put anyone off, but if there are a lot of similar houses in the area, it would definitely stop your house from standing out. A few pictures on the wall, or one or two big house plants in the living room would help. B&Q usually have some fairly big, reasonably priced (and low maintenance!) houseplants at this time of the year.

In terms of standing out from the competition, as others have said, the front of the house is the biggest challenge. I’d think that anyone looking for a house in your area is used to seeing pebble dash, so I wouldn’t think it’s necessary to paint, or render it, but the question is how to add in enough colour to make the house stand out a bit more. A hanging basket might be a good idea, although you are going to be limited at this time of the year when it comes to flowering plants. Do you have a garden bench that you could paint and put at the front of the house, even if just for the pictures?

Having just had a quote for replacing a uPVC door for a cheap wooden one, I would not recommend doing that! (the door itself is £250, cost with fitting, locks, new door frame etc is 10x that 😂). I think there’s a bit of a trend at the moment for painting uPVC doors, so that might be something worth looking at for adding a splash of colour? I don’t think you need to go too crazy. Just do enough to make the front of the house a little bit more memorable.

Everyone near my parents seems to be jazzing up the front of their house with a little porch, or at the least a porch roof, like this - www.onbuy.com/gb/oak-porch-and-stilts-up-to-8-week-wait~c9393~p14265551/?exta=gshp&stat=eyJpcCI6IjMyMC4wMCIsImRwIjoiMzUuMDAwMCIsImxpZCI6IjE5MzM0NTgxIiwicyI6IjEzIiwidCI6MTYwMDY4NTA0NiwiYm1jIjoiMTAuMCJ9&lid=19334581&gclid=CjwKCAjww5r8BRB6EiwArcckC3NwoCq6iiilKQP1zVObLhv0SPy9y3Ucwu27xhaZAFFrhZIUbma4UxoCDZUQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

it makes the world of difference to the exterior. Depends whether you can be bothered though. Everyone else has given good suggestions. Declutter, make more bland neutral, add pictures and plants.