Help! What are we missing with our house sale?

[GXDavid]

Hi Everyone,

We had sold our house but then got dropped three weeks before exchange. We have had some viewers and a lowball offer but haven't found that right buyer yet.

Our house is a 1928 Arts & Crafts style house in a private estate, ten minutes from the station/ shops and with a good selection of local private and public schools included a coveted catchment and distance to Dr Challoners grammar schools. The house is fully modernised (wiring, plumbing, heating, windows, kitchen and bathrooms) and is neutrally decorated apart from the kitchen/ dining room which is big enough to take quite a bold maroon colour that offsets the modern kitchen and flooring. For the local market we are on point re pricing , if not a little cheap. So my question is what are we missing?

If you look at the details - what is there that might put you off? Any comments very gratefully received as we feel like we have done everything we can to present the house but wonder if we are missing anything?

www.frostweb.co.uk/property-details/375332/buckinghamshire/gerrards-cross/the-queensway-1

Thanks and regards,

David

I think your photos aren’t great. And not enough of them.
It’s even more obvious on the Rightmove listing. www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/97859267#/

It’s a lovely house and would cost about the same (possibly a tad more) where I live.

Not enough photos though! And you definitely need pics of original features. Also the garden needs some wow factor, it’s not that big so it needs to look great.

Other than that I don’t think there’s anything wrong.

The rightmove links look crap, zoopla much better.

@brownet that one is stunning!

Yes lose the pool table and get more pics taken.

It's a bit soulless really - lovely lovely exterior and then modern box inside which is a shame

(Soul less... souless....lacking soul...?)

It's also very close to neighbours for 1.5m so could you get agent to take pics without neighbours in view and hopefully when someone comes to see it they will fall in love with it despite neighbours being so close.

Some more cosy interior things are needed and a repaint in the kitchen.

It’s a lovely house although I agree with pp. Ask your estate agent. For a £1.5 million house you’ll be paying them a lot. Make them earn their money.

@FAQs I can imagine myself in there cooking & I don't even cook 😆 It's all about selling the dream!

The photos are awful - poor quality and taken from strange angles. I don't really want to see what you've got hidden under your sofa, for example! I agree about the kitchen wall colour. No floor plan, no bedroom pics. I imagine the interior has been done to a very high standard with quality finishes, but that doesn't really show in the photos, so it doesn't look at all inviting. I'd think about changing agents and getting some new photos, as this lot really aren't earning their fee.

Actually there is a floorplan, I stand corrected!

The outside of the house is gorgeous.
It certainly needs more, better quality photographs.
The bathroom is clean but dull.
Rearrange the furniture in the living room. It doesn't look right with the sofas all pushed to the edges.
I know you can't do anything about the kitchen units etc but I'd lose the red/maroon colour and go for a more fashionable colour, dark blue, dark green, dusky pink, grey even.

Show the other rooms.

As pp said the garden looks a tired and unloved.

Ok lovely house but you need to improve the interior as it looked dated with your furnishings.

Paint the kitchen

Get more plants

Spotty fabric in pool room get rid

Bedroom too dark

You want luxurious fabrics, plants and a sense of lunar

Luxury

Did you take the photos yourself with an iPhone or something? They look like they were taken in early 2000s rather than with a professional camera, looks really odd.

Afraid I agree with the other comments, not enough photos and the house isn’t really dressed for sale. I find the sofa pointing at tv then other sofas in front of a fire and another sofa with the pool table an odd layout / flow.

There doesn’t seem to be one central place where all the family might sit and watch tv. Having a sofa in front of the french windows through to the pool table room is a bit odd too.

It all just needs a bit more love and attention.

The rooms don't blend with each other- it looks very dated due to dark wood and certain bedding / paint colours

Where I live (Manchester) it would fly off the market in that condition at asking price if it's on the right street. It'll be either location or price. What's next to/behind it? Doesn't look completely residential. If it's next to something unusual then it's probably overpriced, even if in line with other asking prices in the area. Price can literally change from one house to the next on a street depending on what's around them.

The shiny, glossy, high tech kitchen is completely at odds with the style of the house. I'd be thinking that if the careful renovations got that so badly wrong then I wouldn't hold out much hope for the rest of the original features. My first thought on seeing the kitchen was, I'd have to rip that out! Not good in £1.5 million house. That's why I wouldn't even look at this house.
I agree with the pool table comment, also not enough photos of the upstairs. Gardens are very difficult to show at this time of year, so maybe get photos re-done in the spring.

Also the video is so weird, it introduces the bedrooms and bathrooms as a whole section then only shows one of them?!

I agree with everyone else. The interior seems too modern and stripped down for the exterior. It doesn't look a cosy, comfortable or inviting house; it looks quite cold and clinical. There aren't nearly enough photos. It's a lovely looking house on the outside, though.

You need more photos.

It looks a bit sparsely furnished - for £1.5m you need to sell the dream.

It's not my taste tbh so you might want to take my comments with a pinch of salt and focus on those comments from people who like very modern interiors.

The lack of window dressings in many areas is a problem for me, it looks like there might be no door between bedroom and bathroom in one of the pictures, the garden and front look empty and a little sad and the maroon wall (although it is my favourite part of the kitchen!) is perhaps a little at odds with the stark modern interior and so is neither appealing to lovers of minimalist modern nor to people who like homely and more elaborate.

The bare bones of what you have will only appeal to people who are after high fashion current on-trend houses. It will not appeal to people who love period charm so I'd up the effort in that regard (modern garden furniture, high tech gadgets in the kitchen, no colour anywhere) and not even try to appeal at all to people like me as it needs a lot of work to do that.

In all honesty I hate the kitchen, not right for the house so assuming that the price is right for the area I would be looking for £25k off to refit it. Bedroom looks tired and other 4 are missing. Dressing the house for the photos would be a cheap option to make it aspirational. I'm selling a similar sized house currently (different area) and the rooms are dressed for each photo

Is the main ensuite open plan. when you retake the photo if there is a door close it. looks weird to me.

I'd also have more photos of bedrooms.

Also take the virtual tour thing off. if you're gonna do a virtual tour do a virtual tour. A video of all the photos is not a virtual tour!

This is so very far above my price range that it's like commenting on another world entirely, but... when I clicked on the "see similar properties" link on rightmove, all but one of the houses that came up did a better job of fitting the "what a 1.5 million pound house looks like" bill for me, and the one that didn't is cheaper, really nice onside and comes with a huge number of photos. There is literally nothing wrong with your house that I can see- indeed it's a gorgeous, high spec house in what is clearly a madly desirable area- but for the same money within half a mile there are a minimum of 5 properties I'd look at before I wanted to view yours. And I very much doubt they're all actually better, but their listings certainly make the most of them in a way yours doesn't.

I really hate fitted wardrobes. And the video zooms right in on crumpled bed linen in your bedroom! But yes, I’m with everyone else wondering what the rest of the bedrooms look like. In the video the kitchen looks better than it does in the photos, so it will probably look better in real life too. The house itself is lovely outside but the inside is plain and dull. I think you should consider hiring someone to dress it.

On photos;

• Photo Quality is terrible (blurred)
• Rooms all look dark and cramped
• Half the photos don't even show the full room
• Most of the rooms aren't photographed
• Garden looks small and poorly maintained

On actual substance;

• I'd want to refit the kitchen (£25-30K)
• I'd want new fencing in the garden (£2-3K)
• Living room floors look like laminate? Are they actually wood; they don't look it in the photo, if not - most people would rip up the laminate. (£10K on wooden flooring)
• Your patio in your garden has weeds growing through it in the photos. New patio (£5K)
• Your garden has big patches of dead grass/dirt - I'd want a new lawn fitted/someone to come in and fix that (£3K)
• Bedroom photo, new carpet, and paint put in (£1k).
• I'm assuming the other rooms are in similar condition (£6K)

As it currently stands - I'd spend about £60K refurnishing the house (based on the photos). Speaking honestly; the estate agent does nothing to sell your house and I would have just scrolled right past if if I was looking for a house in that area with that budget.

The worst hing is that the estate agent hasn't even tried to make your house look good. The photo of your garden with weeds in the patio is awful and shouldn't even be in the photo line up if you had 50 photos, let alone 10!