Advice on selling - Rightmove link included

[PumpkinChai]

Hello

We put our house on the market a few days ago. This is our first time selling so have very much gone on all the advice from the estate agent but I'm having a wobble.

Mainly because there is so much competition on our estate and we are looking for a reasonably quick sell (we are selling because we are worried about not being able to afford to stay here much longer).

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-98778998.html

Thats our Rightmove link. We have been advised to do nothing to the property and save money for new house by the EA.

Anyway, please do be honest.

We were looking at your price range not that long ago. I really like it! Apart from the living room, I would worry if you could fit two sofas in the living room.

Your kitchen looks huge but the lounge looks tiny? Put a nice white tablecloth on your table.

If there were two similar houses on same estate I'd go with the one with a proper estate agent. Especially as the stamp holiday is coming to an end.

Agree with weed the patio, the fact that is coming through shows it needs replacing. Definitely need a photo of the downstairs shower that would be a major selling point for me.

I'm sure you've worked your numbers but just make sure you have added moving and legal costs and cost to new place, when I sat down with my friend and worked her numbers she wasn't going to get the saving she expected.

The kitchen looks really nice op and I can't see anything at all wrong with the bathroom. I'd put another chair in the lounge too. And surely that ginourmous tv in the lounge must make it look smaller/narrower than it is....

Definitley take a pic of the downstairs loo. To me they are a huge bonus.

You need to retake the picture of the living room and do it from more than one angle. Remove all the kids stuff so it is tidy.
I was struck by how lovely your kitchen was and then your living room was a disapointment in comparison. It needs to be as presentable as the kitchen.

Because the 'shower room' text is so small many people will skim over that and assume it's just a cupboard especially as it looks so narrow on the floorplan.

Stick whatever is behind the sofa out of the way and get another photo done with the sofa pushed against the wall. Buy/borrow an armchair to add to the room. The photo makes that room look narrower than I suspect it is so I'd try a different layout to improve that.

Otherwise looks fine to me.

I'm trying to sell in the SE at the moment and I have to say it's slow going but my house is not as appealing as yours so hopefully you'll fare better!

Good luck

We have number crunched @Crockof , we are on a painfully high 5% interest rate, paying £1250pcm, 2.5 years left on the term and it will cost £7k to get out early. Our plan is to sell, pay that £7k and all other fees etc, move out of the area and put down a 15% deposit and have about £500pcm as a mortgage instead

I'd echo what PP have said: weed, declutter, sort out the tablecloth and rearrange the livingroom to make it look as spacious as it is.

The best advice I ever had from an EA was to make your house look easy to live in and keep tidy. That means clearing out stuff you don't need to give the impression of loads of storage.

When you say your friends have sold with purple bricks do you mean actually completed?

I'm in a chain with PB. The agent at the beginning is irrelevant. It's once your under offer that things go wrong. The post sales team are absolutely useless!

Our chain would have fallen apart if it wasn't for the proper agent (ours) holding it together.

I will never buy a PB house again and I know I'm not the only one with this view

I think its generally fine and appears at a mid price compared to others - I would value a new kitchen at £10k but might pay £20k so not the hassle of doing it. However pricing £10k to £20k lower would be one way to make yours the most attractive quickly.

The one thing I noticed was the living / dining room looks cluttered and gives the impression of a stressful, slightly chaotic life with a baby / toddler rather than a calm, relaxed one - its probably the reality of life with toddlers but maybe not best from a sales point of view. Also the cycling gear and clutter in one of the rooms would be better hidden. I would be tempted to clear all the clutter from living room / dining room and get new photos.

Would get rid of weeds in garden.

We've just sold and key to it seemed to be undercutting opposition on price.

Yeah they've all completed and said PB were very efficient as well as cheap @Baxdream

Agree re cluttered living room. It looks very long and thin

Kitchen and garden are nice

Listing itself is just a whopping great block of text

Is there any way it can be broken down by room to highlight what different spaces the property offers?
Something like

Entrance hallway

Cloakroom / wc

Living room - 10ft x 10ft
With tv point, window to front elevation, radiator and door to

Kitchen 5ft x 5ft
Recently updated and offering a range of built in units and a window overlooking the

Garden

Etc. Really lay it out. When browsing huge paragraphs are quite offputting.

I find the idea of a loo and shower coming off the sitting room very unappealing. Do you use it much?

Lounge, definitely needs work.

You could de with moving a lot of clutter out of shot.

If you wanted to go the extra mile I'd stage the baby bed in the office, as the kids bedroom and get a bigger bed in the second bedroom to highlight size.

Shower room photo is a must

And lose the stunt pumpkin

Yes, @ApolloandDaphne we do too, when we bought the plan was to rearrange to there wasn't a downstairs shower and 2 doors to the loo, there is a house up for sale thats managed similar

Definitely move your current sofa backwards and buy an armchair to bring some functionality to the room.

Remove the cushions from the sofa, far too many.

Remove some of the baby/children’s toys and put them either in cupboards or in a car for viewings/photos

Remove the table cloth and table mats.

Make clear on the photos which is bedroom three and take a better photo if you’re selling it as a three bed. Otherwise that can just look like a spare room.

Take photos of the allocated parking without your cars in it. Make sure the listing comes up when someone searches for houses within your price range with parking.

Best of luck, hope you find a lovely buyer and have a smooth sale soon.

Go for a proper agent as soon as you can. Purple bricks don’t care about the price they get for the property and agent fees will be offset by the increase in price you could get. They just care about the sale and not about you negotiating a higher offer. As for the house, imagine your prospective buyers are dumb so everything needs spelling out.

1. dress bed 3 as a bedroom. Second hand bed / free cycle with nice bedlinen will be fine. If this is a single room and your dcs bedroom a double, dress bed 2 as a double and move your dc. You don’t want people thinking you have 2 single bedrooms and only one double..

2. the bathroom looks really cold and sparse. Someone said about a plant. Get some green and greenery in there. Your designer makeup / wash bags don’t cut it. Try closing the shower screen so you can see it’s a shower.

3. i agree with all points above on the living room - table / cloth, lack of second sofa, baby clutter and hoover before you take the pics.

4. remove weeds outside - the outside looks very sparse and sad. If it’s in budget, consider getting a few tubs to take with you. But spend the money inside first.

5. you absolutely need a pic of the shower room. My reaction is if this is the best bathroom, what is the worst one like when actually it may be brand new...

6. take another pic of your kitchen. It’s the big selling point.

Oh I meant put more than one picture of your kitchen. The current pic is fine.

I don't know about the price I only looked at yours but I think it looks lovely for a small family/couple.
I think your main bedroom green wall is fine in the photo but is it in your face for a viewing?

I would retake just your living room photo, then you can move the toys to another room, push back the sofa and dress it a bit. Could you get a cheap rug nice colour rug and a new table cloth, big IKEA type plant, flowers on table? The pink cushions look untidy in one of the photos so maybe less of those

Weed the patio
Coulple of pots with flowers in dotted about
As above move all toys highchair etc to another room whilst photos are taken.
Make the lounge look like an adults place.
Re do photos
Kitchen will sell it

It mentions off-road parking and garage but no photo? This is the first thing we look for

Why don't you wait til it's in the open market? If you are getting viewings then it's not the house nor the price in my opinion

Recently bought through purple bricks and they are useless! Luckily our sellers used a local solicitors instead of on conveyor’s which did speed things up.
Our local agents who we sold through phoned us every few days with updates, once pb had an offer agreed the ‘on the ground’ agent was no where to be seen.

Agree with others you do need a photo of every room, show how people can live there. Your small room doesn’t look big enough for a bed from that angle. Does the table fit in the kitchen? Think of showhomes using smaller furniture.

I think it looks fine , I can see past people’s toys/ ornaments, shampoo bottles 😀 when I view a house. But the main thing is it’s clean , can’t be doing with viewing houses that are dirty ☹️

on these threads I like to just put my comments without reading the other posters comments so am going on the listing alone. I think it is an attractive house and overall it is good. I dont think you need to spend any money really but could do a few small things to make it more appealing.
I would:
get a small table to go in the kitchen as it looks like there is space. Get some bright colours in there like a bright table cloth, fruit bowl maybe some flowers as the kitchen is very grey.
Remove the grass growing between your patio tiles and as that is clear on the kitchen picture.
Re-take the garden pic on a sunny/not rainy day as the decking looks very slippery! I'd probably put the table and chairs on the decking too. Maybe get some nice flowers or shrubs in some pots to add some colour?
Your living/dining area looks very long and thin. I would move the sofa to divide up the sitting/dining area. I'd also get rid of some of your child's things from there- the play mat and kids table.
Upstairs in the room you are using as a study, I would take the things that are hanging off the wall (looks like a coat rack?) just so it doesn't look so cluttered.
Most of this is very small so you could just put that stuff in your car or something when the photographer comes or when you have a viewing.
Good luck op. It's a nice house and looks well priced for the south east so am sure it will sell soon, I just think there are a few small visual changes you can make to help it look better.