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

brownet that is the most beautiful house!

The agent I mentioned in my last post...
michaelgraham.co.uk

I don’t think the rooms look dark.
I love the house.
You definitely need more photos and a bit of house dressing plus pots of pansies or something to brighten the garden.

[quote LyndaSnellsSniff]@GXDavid

Same as everybody else has said. It’s the photos. The exterior is beautiful. Your windows are gorgeous as is your front door (I’m assuming it’s original?). You have the most wonderful enormous picture window on the stairwell which would have made a fabulous photo. You have the original interior doors with matching hardware. The bay windows are wonderful. All of those things should have been photographed in detail.

The decor is quite 90s. The flooring looks hard and unwelcoming downstairs and the living-room fireplace is out of character. The kitchen itself is fine but the wall colour is indeed bold, but that’s ok. None of those things are insurmountable.

Yes, the front of the house would be more instantly appealing if it wasn’t in shadow.

I think this estate agent do amazing photos. Different type of house entirely, but they seem to be able to present houses to their very best.

housepartnership.co.uk/property/30211778/[/quote]
These are lovely photos. It's not even to my taste (a bit much 'metal animal heads' for me), but it's made a relatively small house for that price point look like a fantasy. Imagine that house taken with flat pictures.

OP, life is different now than it was a year ago. People aren't out for a weekend seeing six houses at a time and will throw yours in to the list. It's about online attraction to get anything close to the interest you need, particularly as the mass London exodus has already happened and the stamp tax is about to change.

Your list of original features sounds amazing! You'd never know from the listing tho. A friend had a pro photographer do pix of her house to sell, charming cottage so not the same thing but she focused on little touches, pix of my friend's decorative vintage finds etc. Clearly these were not on sale but they really sold a lifestyle.

You could get pix focusing on the doors and door handles, Windows etc. And why not 30 pix? I make it more than 15 rooms in X all bathrooms and kitchen and dining area, plus gardens and outside views, close ups and more than one view of kitchen and living room fir sure.

Thanks again for your comments and for the recommendations. I do really like the idea of showcasing some of the features (yes the door is original :-) )

I fell in love with the original front door on our house. It still makes me smile when I get home. Things like that make such a difference. It sounds like you put effort into preserving the original features so they deserve to be shown off.

It’s a bit well, boring... where’s your arts and crafts! The bushes and plants could do with a tidy up and a few more pictures of the upstairs. It looks fine, but I don’t know if I want ‘fine’ if I’m spending that amount, its nothing special.

Sorry, but the completely unsympathetic modernisation would kill it for me. The fabric of the house is beautiful, but the interior - while clearly high end - just doesn't work and the garden's a disaster

The agent's couldn't-care-less description and lack of photos don't help, but with so many more characterful houses on offer it'll probably need quite a reduction to sell

I’m going to assume you have a really lovely staircase and entrance hallway?

I don’t think the estate agent does it justice

Things from the garden you have two skylights - these aren’t shown very well and you have to look for them

For example people want to work from home yet there’s no office photo

The fences need painting

There’s little life in the photos

Small pool of buyers with £1.5 million to spend, will be choosy and want it perfect.
Inside/outside don't match - I knw this is a design choice but some people want a traditional type house and wouldn't expect an uber modern interior.
Very stripped out and decluttered - no personality left in the house, it looks spacious at the expense of cosy. Garden looks like you spent all the money on the kitchen and had none left.
Very skimpy on photos - where are the bedrooms?
In this price bracket you need to raise your game a bit. The house looks a bit odd. It could be improved with presentation and better marketing I'm sure.

Solid oak floors and equally expensive wardrobes and kitchen units so upset that they look so cheap although I has exactly the same reaction to a photo of a room I saw on the house we want to buy...

For me the kitchen is a big letdown - both in terms of style and space. The downstairs layout doesn’t work for me at all. The living room is a huge empty space that isn’t zoned properly. IMO that space is crying out for a kitchen, diner, family space. The current kitchen would be better suited as a formal lounge.

In order to sell, I’d advise you to paint the kitchen a neutral colour and invest in some room staging to give the buyer an idea of how the large living space can be zoned.

I’d also invest some money in the garden - it looks quite run down.
Good luck.

Hi! Firstly it is a gorgeous house, sorry am going to be harsh though...

If I were looking in the area I would only consider it IF it was priced to allow a complete overhaul, like maybe to allow 200k plus of changes. Others have raised the issues: kitchen doesn’t go with house, red doesn’t look good, don’t like kitchen floor;

bathroom—only 1 shown but is dated and needs to be redone, I would assume that this is the best one in the house and therefore they all need to be done;

garden front and back need landscaping, they are just blank at the moment. New fences, a professional landscaper, thousands of pounds of plants, new patio. That would be assuming I’m not a garden fan and am happy to let it take time to bed in, otherwise would be a dealbreaker.

Period features need adding back in—fireplaces, internal doors, etc would all need to be ripped. Also needs curtains throughout and I don’t like the floors (planks, kitchen floor, carpets). The only interior fittings (like doors and knobs) that I see inside look like they would need to be replaced.

Windows: am I right that these are modern? They look like fake leaded? I would have to replace immediately, couldn’t live with them.

Bedrooms: we only see one and it looks like it needs bee windows, carpets, and dated built ins rippled out. I would assume that all the others would need more.

I don’t see the stairs so I’m assuming I’ll be replacing that too.

Basically—what I’m trying to say is that I would be pricing in A HUGE amount of work to being it to a high spec finish. Which also means you obviously need to conisider the inconvenience. I would only consider this if the finished equivalent of yours was worth well over 300k more TBH, otherwise not worth my time.

Sorry so I’m terms of what to do: I would say either drastically drop price expectations or get a professional interior stylist to advise. You’ll need professional staging, some repainting and proper professional photos. You’ll also need to get a garden stylist—to do it properly would cost a lot but they could at least tidy it and try to add some charm

Also any estate agent who lets storage items under a chair be visible needs to be FIRED

Onjnmoeiejducwoapy - I don't think this is the house for you...

Solid oak floors and equally expensive wardrobes and kitchen units so upset that they look so cheap

Personally I don't think it looks cheap; it's just that most choices have been for the latest "thing", and because that attracts so many low cost copies people think cheap when they see it

Which is perhaps why many of us would prefer to see something more in keeping with the style of the house - still of good quality obviously, but more sympathetic

Well I live somewhere similar and recently helped sell a large high-value period home with a modernised interior...

Agree re lack of photos. Definitely paint the fence panels, the fence looks old and most would look at it and think about the cost of replacing. Plants in pots for colour/interest. Need a photo of landing window. Bedroom looks mismatched - maroon, green and other colours, odd picture on wall, all too dark. And the first thing I’d think when looking at the kitchen would be that I’d have to repaint it which would also be a big job. The back area looks lovely with the skylights but no photos (apart from the kitchen one where you can just see that area in the background). Lovely house but needs dressing better.

Have a look at this for arts and crafts inspiration: www.fineandcountry.com/uk/property-for-sale/Caldy/CH48+2JG/1454579

Gorgeous.

Is there a home office/study space? Most houses of this size or age should have one, especially in the current climate. I think a lot of houses are getting sold on that basis alone

Sorry @GXDavid am not meaning to be rude! It really is a genuinely gorgeous house.

One bit of advice that will immediately elevate: when hanging pictures from a picture rail they don’t go directly underneath, they hang down. I was confused at first about the ceilings but realised the pictures are just in the wrong place

How can anyone say the bathroom that is shown looks dated? That's ridiculous.

Your house is beautiful but I have to agree with the other comments there’s no pictures of the bedrooms and the one they have makes the room look small (which I’m sure it’s not) but if the one they show you looks small what’s going on with the others...also the bathroom picture they have again it doesn’t look tiny but it doesn’t look big.

I have to disagree re the kitchen I think it’s lovely I like the deep red with all the light from the windows and the white cabinets!

Don't worry - MN 'house doctoring' is always full of people making totally irrelevant comments which have nothing to do with your actual house sale in that specific location and to your specific target market.

The market is weird atm. Family sized houses have been flying off the shelves as people wanted more space for WFH and home-schooling. And there was a frenzy as everyone wanted to buy before the end of the stamp duty holiday - worth £13k. So lots of people who were thinking of moving are in the process or have done it.

And now everyone is waiting to see what Rishi says on Mar 3rd.

Really bad luck that your offer fell through.

I would hold tight until after the budget, and see what happens then.