How many more viewers - 23 and counting!!

[Miltonglade]

We have had our house on the market since December 2020 and initially went with a local estate agent had lots of views but no real support or advice - changed to Purple Bricks in the last few weeks and they suggested reducing guide price. We are not 23 couples viewing with only one second view and no buys. House is in a nice cul-de-sac close to amenities, kitchen needs updating but is huge and bathroom the same but we don't even get lower offers help....... can't keep up the showroom tiddiness anymore with a toddler lol

That's annoying @Miltonglade. Fingers crossed you'll get more viewings soon, especially now you have made most of the suggested house/garden changes - maybe it's time for new marketing photos? (unless you hopefully get some good news in the next week or two!).

I think it varies hugely by area whether houses sell more quickly or not at the moment (unless they are quite under priced) - also where I live at least, the more expensive 4/5 bed houses always seem to take longer to shift than the cheaper, smaller 3 bed ones.

It’s still listed as a 4 bed OP, I just think the smallest bedroom would be much better represented as an office.

It’s on for 315 so you’re in the middle of a price bracket, if you can drop to 309950 you will get more views online

the issue is nearly always price.

I often see people say this and it makes no sense to me. If it’s only down to price, then why don’t people just make a cheeky offer if it’s been on the market for a while and they like it?

It’s often down to a price the vendor will accept. I would wonder what the people who said they couldn’t get a mortgage big enough could have afforded? If it was priced at £299,500 - could they have afforded that? What discussion was there?

There seems to be a disconnect with viewers liking it but not offering. A decent agent might have got to the bottom of that.

House prices have gone up nearly everywhere. Just seen figures. That might get buyers in. Some areas have little on the market.

Our agent from Purple Bricks said yesterday that houses are taking an average of 30/40 views to sell at the moment. The feedback we are getting is not about price but more about individual vendor issues ie: not a high enough mortgage, wanting a slightly bigger master bedroom, being nearer a high achieving school were some of them. We have a second viewing and more first viewings this weekend. Our agent does not think it is price at all.

We sold recently with Purple Bricks and had 2 completely different experiences- first listed last summer and had 9 viewings over a 10 week period with no offers (but also high ratings for the price!) so we came off the market. Relisted again in February, had 11 viewings arranged within a couple of days and sold on the only day we had viewings with several asking price offers.

The market has changed a lot between our listings and I wonder if part of what you're experiencing now OP is the situation we've had when trying to find a new home- as there's so little on the market we found ourselves viewing pretty much anything and everything that met our criteria on paper as we didn't want to lose our buyers and wanted to voew places with open minds. We've found a house now but must have viewed 10 others or so in the last month where there was nothing wrong with them per se, they were priced fairly but they just weren't anything exciting enough for us to want to offer on. So I wonder if this sort of house hunting that people have been forced into given demand is outstripping supply. (Although I 100% echo what others have said about it being listed as a 4 bedroom, given the current climate I think 3 bed with study would actually be more appealing and make people feel they're getting more living space for the asking price).

I'd also take the "high enough mortgage" feedback with a pinch of salt- it would be pretty silly to view a house that's relatively new to the market that they couldn't afford to begin with. Our purple brick agent asked everyone if they had a MiP in place before allowing viewings to be booked, so that ruled it out for us. I'd also not be inclined to take this as genuine feedback as people will offer what they think the house is worth. The house we're currently buying was fresh to the market and we were the first to view it. We offered £50k under the asking price and had the offer accepted as it turned out the owner just wanted a quick sale and knew they'd hugely overpriced it so were unlikely to get a better offer than ours!

I agree about changing the listing to 3 bed with home office/study. When we were recently looking for a 3 bed house I viewed quite a few that seemed right on paper but in reality the 3rd bedroom was very small (including 2 where it would not have been possible to fit a single bed and open the door- one was empty and the other had a cot in so not clear from pictures). I felt this was a waste of time for us and the sellers and explained why both had been on the market for ages.

Is the price good for a real four bedroom house so it would raise interest? Maybe people think the house has four bedrooms upstairs but seeing the house they see that one is downstairs and more like a study.

Yes. That’s the problem. The lovely 3 bed down the road was £275,000. So a converted garage has added a significant amount. That’s the issue. But often vendors need a certain amount from the sale to buy somewhere else. If it was under £300,000 it might be more realistically priced.