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Please can someone tell me why my flat isn't selling?!

999 replies

Puffykins · 29/10/2020 20:33

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-84873916.html

Price-wise, it's appropriate - even cheap - for the area. I know that it hasn't got it's own garden, but there is a huge communal garden which, in central-ish London, I'd argue is better than a tiny garden.

Admittedly I don't like the estate agents pictures much. It's really light in real life, but they always seem obsessed with turning on all the lights.

Anyway, any tips would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

OP posts:
Ritasueandbobtoo9 · 30/10/2020 23:12

The flat is on the Brunel Estate, it is an ex council flat with 640 recorded crimes, many antisocial behaviour, within 1/2 a mile. I know people live cheek by jowl in London but I wouldn’t drop nearly half a million to there, particularly when the most I can see similar flats have sold for is £375.

Misandrylovescompany · 30/10/2020 23:13

I learned quite a lot of random stuff from picking books off my parents’ shelves - encyclopaedias, sailing handbooks, classic novels, folklore and mythology, cookbooks, trashy (sexually enlightening Hmm) fiction ...

Puffykins · 30/10/2020 23:15

@Misandrylovescompany I've never quite recovered from finding The Joy of Sex, aged 8. The DIAGRAMS 🙈🙈

OP posts:
Misandrylovescompany · 30/10/2020 23:24

BlushBlushBlushShockGrin

pollymere · 30/10/2020 23:25

You need to put all your books and loose pics in storage whilst you try to sell. Your kitchen is full of stuff too. I'd be tempted to paint your bathroom white as its quite bold with the floor. You want to sell your flat as spacious so surfaces need to be as bare as possible. It's also been marketed as a maisonette but pic looks like flats.

Ravenesque · 30/10/2020 23:34

Some people just don't get the love of books. I do send a lot to charity shops but I have hundreds, will undoubtedly have hundreds more and love having them all around my home. I wish I had better shelving but when I move -eventually - I will get metal brackets on a wall and have floor to ceiling shelves.

Books and plants bring life to my home and without them it would feel barren.

Smallgoon · 30/10/2020 23:45

I actually really like it! However, there are way too many books, and they're distracting when you really just want to see what the flat looks like. For example, picture 4 - the pile of books is the first thing that caught my eye when really I want to see as much of the bedroom as I can. The books wouldn't necessarily bother me at an in-person viewing because I can easily reimagine the space in my mind despite however many possessions are in the room. But I wonder if the books putting people off from requesting a viewing. That said, I would still definitely view. You're in a great area, and it's well priced.

OP, I want to forward you pics of my very boring 'vanilla' flat and have you make some suggestions for how I make it look way more interesting. You have great style, and I love the art/fabrics etc.

To all those saying you could buy a 3 bed house in "X, Y, Z" location, that's all good and well, but this flat is in central London, which for those of you that don't know, commands a premium price. Perhaps understand that fact before you mention your huge house in the Hebredies, or wherever!

Smallgoon · 30/10/2020 23:47

*Hebrides!

RangasNugget · 30/10/2020 23:54

Declutter! And that awful mural! And did I mention declutter?

Vinomummyinlockdown · 31/10/2020 00:02

Clutter and colour and price!

Oresome · 31/10/2020 00:10

I’m not going to get dragged into the whole neutral/clutter debate but I am shocked at the idea of rationing the number of books.

Like the OP, I discovered whole new worlds through books that I discovered on the shelves of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and older siblings too. I have very clear memories of devouring my aunt’s Anne of Green Gables books whilst staying with my grandmother and spending a week there the next year, having a bit of TLC after a bout of flu and discovering Georgette Heyer. And that patch of sunlight on the landing outside my parents’ room where I too discovered Evelyn Waugh.... Anyway, no such thing as too many books.

Also, has nobody else mentioned the Welsh blanket?! I’d insist on having that included in the sale. I’ve been looking for one for years, again as part of childhood nostalgia.

Prettybluepigeons · 31/10/2020 00:28

the kitchen needs replastering and new tiles to replace the broken ones. The outlet pipe on show needs boxing off.
The mural in the bathroom needs painting over.
You need to make something of the balcony-the abandoned brrom and bucket and overgrown ratty plants look awful.

declutter.

your personal style is lovely but if you want to sell you need to show the actual size.

Anon22 · 31/10/2020 00:36

I think the exterior of your flat doesn't reflect the potential of what is on the inside. When I go into a possible new home, I think about how I feel when I'm looking at it, your home makes me feel stressed and distracted, the collections of books, pictures, animal heads, Portmerrion jars and so many cushions that you can't sit on a sofa or lie on a bed. It is overwhelming. You've got some lovely possessions but they're hard to spot amongst all the everything everywhere.

The flat doesn't look well maintained and that worries me, things that I would be wondering: Why is there a wire hanging down in the hallway? Why did they take the tiles off in the kitchen? Why isn't that vent in the kitchen boxed in? Why are the floors covered in rugs, what are they covering? What are the piles of magazines and books hiding, cracks, damp? Will I need to replaster once all those pictures etc come down? Why are all the plants dead? And if you haven't fixed the curtains that are coming down in your children's room, what else have you neglected?

If it was mine, I wouldn't sell it now. I would put the children in the larger bedroom and put a room divider (bookcase?) in so that they both had separate areas. Are you able to make anything of the balcony by putting balcony decking or tiles down, covering the screening on the balcony rail? Can you put a chair out there for instance? Or a step ladder with plants on it? I'd be tempted to upgrade the dated kitchen and bathroom and hang new doors on the wardrobes, so that I'd get some enjoyment and use out of them, rather than do it exclusively for the benefit of a new buyer.

Can your Husband hire a storage unit for all his props and either expense it through his business or back to his employer? You could use some of it for the books. Or could he share them with a prop hire company? Do you really need to keep all of those magazines?

allfurcoatnoknickers · 31/10/2020 00:37

3 books?! I've got three book cases and a kindle full, and that's after a ruthless cull Grin

Please can someone tell me why my flat isn't selling?!
SpikedTea · 31/10/2020 00:50

I agree it is most likely clutter and the bathroom. I however love homes that are lived in and cosy so quite like it.
A friend of mine has a grey and white home with nothing out of place, I couldn't live like that.
In order to sell to the grey room types I would personally get rid of the bathroom mural and take some pictures off the walls etc. Ask agent to remove the pic of outside as it isnt great.
Fongers crossed you sell soon!

nitsandwormsdodger · 31/10/2020 00:56

Dear god! I reeled at all the clutter !!
Is lovely and I assume you love it all otherwise you wouldn't be asking us
Hire a storage unit and put everything in it apart from bed wardrobe , sofa only the absolute essentials
Re paint walls neutral if they look shabby after all the pics are removed

I can't comment but I assume the price is right ?

Celestine70 · 31/10/2020 01:07

While it looks very pleasant most people would be put off by all the stuff and the decor.

chukwe · 31/10/2020 01:16

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the house. Those kind of houses are not selling at this moment

Terrace58 · 31/10/2020 01:17

I don’t think 3 books is sufficient. I have 1000s. I said 3 books while you are on the market.

Bluntness100 · 31/10/2020 02:21

What really bothers me is the huge number of people giving their 'expert' opinion that cluttered homes without fitted cupboards and fitted kitchens don't sell. That's not an expert opinion. It's not a fact

It’s been on since the beginning of august. And it’s under priced. So ....😂

ChristmasArmadillo · 31/10/2020 02:30

We just sold a house; the photographer told us to remove 90% of the personal items (and I’m a minimalist! There wasn’t much to begin with.) and everything from off the walls, surfaces, etc. It felt sad to do but it sold in 24 hours for considerably more than we were asking so was well worth it.

Julz1969 · 31/10/2020 02:41

Take out as much off your personal items that you can (use storage). Take down most off the wall hangings, as it looks very busy. Paint over the bathroom and go for a neutral colour all over. Good luck on selling.

ChristmasArmadillo · 31/10/2020 02:48

As a buyer I’d also be worried (sorry! I’m sure it isn’t true for you) that it would be filthy once everything was moved out as I’d wonder if all the stuff was moved around regularly for a deep clean.

Mamanyt · 31/10/2020 02:52

@Misandrylovescompany

I am genuinely shocked by the number of people commenting negatively about the quantity of books, by the way. Yes it could do with more shelving (I would do floor to ceiling shelving across the whole of the wall which currently houses that red Ikea cabinet in the sitting room, for example) but the quantity per se is far from excessive. I have many more. What kind of world do we live in in which adults may have three books each?! It’s laughable.
LOL, they'd have a fit if they came to my house. I currently have around 1000 books. And those are only the books l care enough about to re-read. I find this perfectly normal. When I go into a home with no books, or only a scant handful, I know immediately that this will almost certainly be a surface relationship. And I also have a Kindle, although I find it lacking, somewhat . I miss the weight and heft of a book in my hands.
wontonwoman · 31/10/2020 03:30

Take away most the cushions and take lots of things off the walls and de clutter. It's too busy.

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