Frustration - house not selling

[Bayeight]

We put our house on the market about a month ago.

We had 10 viewings in the first week. One very low offer.

Then another 2 viewings in the last few days.

All the feedback has said the house & garden are lovely.

Most people’s issue is it is on a busy main road. It is however we’ll set back with a long drive and lots of trees/hedges.

Starting to feel really crap about the whole thing. Everyone keeps saying how houses are selling in days, yet we’ve been on for a month and nothing

It’s SUCH hard work getting the house ready for the viewings, feel like I’ve spent most of the last month shouting at the kids for making a mess which is not fair on them at all.

Can’t decide if we should cut our losses and go back to trying to afford an extension. Or persevere for a bit longer and see what September brings.

Urgh. Horrible, horrible process selling houses - never again!

I'm going to go against the grain.

I have been the person who's not offered on houses like yours. It's within the price range for me, so I've viewed - I've even been excited for how much house/decor I can get for the money. And then I've visited and it's been busy and noisy, and I haven't wanted the house, so I've decided not to offer.

Someone will come along who does want it. We sold our house on a B road just before the pandemic, after 4 months on the market, to someone who made the same calculation exactly as us - it was way more house, decor, and garden, than they could get in a similar location any other way. We moved to a silent no through road as that was what had become important in the meantime!

OP:
I’m not against dropping the price. Just can’t see how that is necessarily going to improve things as 11 out of the 12 haven’t even made a cheeky offer

We fell into the trap of thinking this way. The thing is, if your house is priced at 575 then your viewers are going to be people with a budget of 575-600. If they decide various things about your house mean it's only worth 525, they don't not think, "I'll offer less on this one and don't have to spend as much." They think, "I've got 575-600 to spend - I'll find a house where I can pay that and get more for my money". You need to be attracting the people whose budget is what your house is really worth. Who, at the moment, are probably being put off by the price tag

This PP has nailed it. If I had a budget of £575-600k, I'd view yours but the road would completely put me off. I'd know that for my budget I can buy a similar house that isn't blighted (sorry) by a main road. There's such a dearth of properties on the market ATM that I'd view it anyway, in the hope that when we arrived the road wouldn't be as bad as we feared.

You need to attract people that want a house like yours but can only afford it with the road. The first group of people won't mention the price, because that isn't what is putting them off - they've got the money. It's the road that they don't want and can afford to avoid.

You need to attract people from slightly lower down the chain. Good luck.

PS also be awarer of spending a lot of money on an extension - you will still have the problem of the road when you come to sell.

The planning permission may not add much to the value of the bricks and mortar. I’d put it in the same category as a nice kitchen: something that makes the house more desirable but not something I’d pay over the odds for. If your purchasers wanted an extension/loft conversion, what would they have to pay to get that permission themselves? A few thousand pounds? That’s the only “saving” they’d make if they bought your house.

I don't think there is value in the planning permission and perhaps even puts off buyers as it makes them believe that without the extension the house is too small/worth less.

It will be the road that is the hitch and it is difficult to work out how much that reduces the price. But you must have taken this into account when you bought not so long ago, so how did you account for it when you bought yourselves?

I am considering buying in a tiny village on a road which has a 50 mile per hour speed limit, so quite fast when you are standing outside the house. I won't pay anywhere near the asking, the house in this case also needs a full renovation, but I am waiting until the vendors have had enough time to realise they won't get their price and the house has lost it's fresh appeal. Though in this case it already lost that as a sale fell through on it. Of course it means that I may miss out, but it is the road that is putting me off so thinking also that something better might come on the market.

Sorry not to be very helpful.

Exactly what LittleRedYoshi said. Even down to the numbers!

Ours took 4 months and it was deffo the price.

Long story short, it sold when viewers were able to say, 'wow, I never thought I'd be able to afford a place like this', rather than, 'we can easily afford this but I'd rather max my budget and get a house that ticks all our boxes.'

(I was happy to lower the price as I thought the agent had overpriced it in the first place. It was an unusual sell though and not easy to compare with other houses.)

Really interesting to hear people’s views and experiences, thank you.

To answer a few points:

The house certainly doesn’t need extending for your average family. It has 4 double bedrooms, 3 reception rooms as well as a large garden room with electric/internet that we use as a gym. It is also on a large plot with a big, mature, south facing garden that is not overlooked.

We bought it with the intention of extending as we have 4 children and regular in laws staying over so need 6 beds. When we were looking to buy, it was an excellent choice as it was on a big enough plot that even with extending, you would still be left with a good sized garden.

We have spent approx £10k in getting the planning permission, full worked drawings from architect and structural engineer calculations. It’s not as cheap a process as you would think! Absolutely not expecting someone else to cover that cost when buying the house though, but should someone be looking to do such a project, it would be a significant benefit to them to avoid all the time and expense.

The road didn’t bother us at all when we bought the house. To be honest, I see it as a plus point. With soon to be teenagers, having easy access by road or public transport into the nearby towns is so useful. Getting anywhere we need to go is so easy as we’re straight on the main road to everywhere.

We’re set far back enough with a good sized front garden and trees blocking the view to the road. So it doesn’t bother us in the slightest. It’s double glazed throughout so the house isn’t noisy.

Could you stay and make it work for you? It sounds like you really like the house and position.

You home sounds right up our street. We’ve been perusing the market for a while. Can you pm me the details/area please? It’s ok if you don’t because you don’t want outing.

Good Luck 🤞

If you're getting lots of viewings then the pictures & listing must be ok.
It's the price. Even if it has its drawbacks if it was accordingly priced then it would be snapped up.

I think its the beginng of the end of this scramble to buy market. I would wonder why the sellers had got the planning permission and not done the work themselves. You have had quite a lot of viewers. Hard to say whether or not the price is putting people off. Depends on what your lowest limit would be.

I think estate agents are over pricing the houses.betting that there Id someone desperate enough to buy..

You desperate buyer hasn’t came along yet. You can wait or try reduce you price to sell property faster.

It's definitely the price (in relation to the road) imho.

Some years ago we sold a five bed Georgian house in a village that straddled an A road. We'd extended and fully refurbed the whole property (full rewire, new heating system, three high end bathrooms, handbuilt kitchen, acoustic double glazing etc) including the large garden. We had five EAs round to value - although the sixth refused to even come out because of its position in a main road, saying their London buyers wouldn't consider a house with road issues 😮

We were told by most of the EAs that had the house not been on the main road we could have asked between £150-200k more.

As it was we priced at the lower end of all valuations (£425k) and had a a couple of viewings in the first week. After three weeks with no further viewings and because we'd already found the - very unique - house we wanted to buy, we reduced to £385k. Immediately after this we had a handful of viewings, followed by three asking price offers.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think had we not been so keen to secure our onward purchase we could have held out for more - it was quite a lot of house for the money (2500 sq ft), but as it was we sold for £135k more than we'd paid three years previously.

Our buyers admitted they couldn't have afforded to buy the house had it not been on the A road......

Yes from your updates is the price. I think you know that deep down. So many agents do that, price high to get the business then you’ll find they aren’t off the usual ploy of asking you to drop it soon.

You seem to love the place so why not stay! What you see as benefits most see as disadvantages. Ie you can have easy access to roads and transport and not be on a busy road. The plans etc are only beneficial to someone who wants to extend and in the way you did. For anyone else it’s not really relevant.

@TheRealHousewife

You home sounds right up our street. We’ve been perusing the market for a while. Can you pm me the details/area please? It’s ok if you don’t because you don’t want outing.

Good Luck 🤞

I’d be cautious of this. Perusing is an unusual word to use, especially when coupled with “for a while”

Sorry to the poster but it doesn’t look right,

Feedback putting buyers off has been about the main road. So there are likely alternative houses available within the buyers budgets that don’t have this issue. August is slow but if you don’t have any offers by mid Sept I’d drop the price so that it falls into the price band of other buyers. Have a look what others on your road have sold for recently.

Everything priced right sells.

Wrong.

We were the kind of buyers looking at your house. We viewed almost exactly the same price as yours, although a bit of a kick in the teeth that it had risen so much in such a short time. It also had pp but it wasn't a design we would have gone with so wasn't of limited value. Also on a very busy road and ultimately that was too much of a compromise for us. We viewed it in the hope that the road wouldn't be that bad in real life and the house would make it worth it but it just didn't.

In saying that the house we viewed did sell within a few weeks but it wasn't the school hols at the time.

I noticed a house came on yesterday identical to one my sister sold in November, same street, similar level of decor, and the price was higher by about 20%. It seems very, very expensive for what it is. I know there is very little supply at the moment but it did make me wonder if at some people are just going to refuse to pay over the odds.

Sorry the pp was of limited value. Not wasn't.

I’m with others who don’t really see that having planning permission and plans adds value to a house. I’d have concerns that I’m paying 100K more than you did just a few years ago, potentially another 100K to do the extension work and that might then put my total spend well above the ceiling price for the street or area (if I was to ever choose to move).

August is a slow month, but the market is most areas remains pretty active at the minute and if your house isn’t selling, I suspect it’s overpriced.

August is a slow month, you need to get the map location changed as people are viewing under false illusion of where the property is and then disappointed. The main road is a factor price could be as well.

But it’s only been a few weeks. I personally think the frenzy of buying anything has now moved on. People are trying to evaluate working practices going forward as they realise not every one will be wfh in the future. You need the Summer holidays over and to see what September brings and go from there but it is crucial to have the correct location detail as you are wasting both your and viewers time in not having this right.

You'll get there with it, ours took about 24 viewings until the right person came along, fell in love with it and offered full asking price. And even better she's a proper cash buyer with a first time buyer for her own house and as "we" are an executors sale, there should be minimal holdups

I do wonder if it's the beginning of the end of the current surge in demand. Ours has been on since early July, and there's nothing that should put anyone off. A house opposite sold for 10K under ours a few months ago (checked actual sold price), and it has one fewer reception with 20% less floor space, and a tiny garden about a fifth the size of ours, and no view (we have a nice view!)

We're starting to get a few more viewings now, but no offers yet. There's other houses locally that have been sat there for months (but are clearly overpriced) - nothing else in our house type has come on, and it's a very popular village. No negative feedback according to the EAs, who genuinely seemed to think it should have sold by now. We've already reduced the price once, as have many in the area.

We're Hertfordshire and an easy commute to London, walking distance of the station, good schools etc, so hardly anywhere weird!

We also have four children, and keeping the house tidy is, well, you know! I am just hoping it's that people felt they didn't want to buy so soon after the stamp duty holiday ended as they would feel a bit ripped off by not trying a month or so earlier, but maybe soon people will have forgotten that (plus August is quiet) and things will pick up. Certainly we've had more viewings the last two weeks than we did for all of July!

Good luck!

I was going to say what @LittleRedYoshi said! When we were looking we had a budget of 300k (a while ago!) and I didn’t think about looking at houses on for more than that. Maybe a few grand more but certainly not at 330k. I thought I would just be setting myself up for disappointment. In the end we bought for 297k, and it had been on for 315k.

I also think a lot of people are unsure about work location, if they need to be in an office and how often. So maybe don’t want to make any big decisions now on location.

My first assumption is your not priced right for your location ie. the busy road. We’re looking and we’ve found this a few times. Well do a drive by and realise the A or B road that didn’t look too bad on Streetview us actually incredibly busy.