Why can't we sell our house?

[Pentiumgold]

Please see attached link, reduced by £20 last week but still no interest. What puts you off our house? I found this property on the Rightmove Android app and wanted you to see it: www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/121091351

Hi, I think more decluttering would help. E.g bathroom and bedrooms lots of stuff out people don’t want to see anything. When I sell a house I literally get everything. Except furniture out, makes it look bigger. The garden yard area needs a tidy and power wash.
Good luck

Your name is visible on the hall photo.

I think the photos make it look dark and poky and it's probably not.

A declutter and garden tidy might help and some photos that are better quality and sharp focus might be better to help you get people through the door. Also check what other similar houses have gone for and how they were "staged".

Opening photo is just a big swathe of tarmac – givussa close-up. Floor plan suggests bedrooms are tiny. Photos suggest kitchen, dining, sitting room are all extremely dark. Have to swipe through four outside photos before you see grass – I only swiped that far as it’s a Mumsnet house thread; if I were buying I’d have given up immediately and assumed the whole garden was patio and decking, and too much work to turn into a real garden.

I’d consider repainting everything white, turning on lights for photos, opening blinds, a bit of a declutter, and reordering the photos to show some grassy garden first before the patio.

Also I personally find conservatories off putting but not a deal breaker. Hope this helps!

The photos aren't doing it for me, they make each room look really small. For example, is it the main bedroom with the black wardrobe to the right of the door? Suggests to me the room can only fit a double wardrobe, not enough storage. Each room needs to be photographed to show as much as possible and look appealing in the square mobile view as well as the landscape gallery view.

Why no images of the 4th room, study, utility? The back garden images don't show how it all ties together, why no image from the conservatory door looking out? Or the end of the garden looking back towards the house?

I'd accept the main bathroom needing updating, but if the ensuite and cloakroom do too, then that's £15-£20k budget. I'd probably give everything a coat of cream or white paint too, to make it look fresh, and agree on decluttering like crazy before the photos and keep it that way for viewings. Clutter says there's not enough storage.

Take it off for a week, sort new photos, pop it back on at £450k.

Nice house.

I like the various areas in the garden but for the photos could be decluttered a bit.

Declutter all of the personal items in the loos.

that big grey expanse in the kitchen (pantry?) sort of looms over the room; can you brighten it somehow with a mirror or picture? I am not a fan of the cooktop in the island but not much you can do about that now.

Your name is on a plaque on the hall furniture and the dog leash should be removed for photography too.

I think the front facade is fine.

Put some flowers on the dining table.

The photos are terrible, especially the ones of the garden - you get no feel of how the outside space works. Garden looks messy and decking is off putting. The bathroom also just looks cramped and a bit meh. It all looks a bit tired - what you’d expect for a family home - but I’d be thinking it needed redecorating throughout plus new bathrooms and that would be expensive and a hassle. A bit of staging and freshening up would go a long way.
I’m sorry, but the kitchen would put me off. The hob in the middle of the breakfast bar in particular - you couldn’t sit and eat there while someone was cooking. I’d ditch the bar stools and make more of the dining table - you’ve got it shoved up against the wall which makes the room look small.

I couldn’t work the garden out, it looked like loads of photos of drab patio and then a post makeover shot with Astro turf, I can’t see how the garden fits together. Also the bathroom is really dated and would need replacing and doesn’t fit with the new kitchen etc.

Bedrooms look small and cramped

The garden.

OP you need to blow up the house and rebuild. I’d suggest:

Moving the sea so it’s outside the house
Moving the nearest Ofsted outstanding school to the next street
Paying Lulu Lytle to sort your decor
Add a few stories and a glass walkway

Those are always the reasons houses don’t sell. HTH,

It's a lot of money and after what's happened people just don't have that kind of money. It reduced your pool of potential buyers. Just thank Covid

You can lighten your pics To try to make them look more inviting op.

@NoToLandfill

Change estate agents. This is their job, they should really know this stuff.

The price should be at the correct band for searches on Rightmove.
All the text has to be spot on.
Depersonalise the rooms. Photos of the garden are confusing.

I actually went back to your listing after my first comment and came back to say this. Aside from the photos perhaps not doing your house justice OP your description (which I assume was written by the agent?) has really poor punctuation and grammar. As much as maybe this stuff shouldn't put buyers off, it may just.

Sadly there's not a lot you can do about this but if I'm being honest I'm another one who wouldn't view as your kitchen looks lovely and new but it's just not to my taste at all, so I wouldn't want to pay a premium for a new kitchen that I didn't really want long term. We actually paid pretty much what you're listed for but ended up taking on a fixer upper as we felt at least that way we'd get the fittings we wanted. As you have a a lot of grey on the inside I wonder if other people are trying to factor in how much they've have to spend on redecorating if grey isn't their thing?

It’ll be the rug on the ceiling

@MrsDanversBroom

OP you need to blow up the house and rebuild. I’d suggest:

Moving the sea so it’s outside the house
Moving the nearest Ofsted outstanding school to the next street
Paying Lulu Lytle to sort your decor
Add a few stories and a glass walkway

Those are always the reasons houses don’t sell. HTH,

😂😂😂

Lose the decking and the paving stones in the garden, lay turf instead.

@Beercrispsandnuts

You can lighten your pics To try to make them look more inviting op.

Yes

I think the photos make it look dark.

However, I think it’s the price. I am fairly near to you and the market has been crazy for over a year. Most homes sell over asking price even if they are tatty and unappealing. If you can’t sell a nice house like that in this market the price must be wrong.

OP your house is lovely.
I would suggest,
Sack your estate agent, get another one and get better pics.
Declutter, especially your two childrens bedrooms. Can't picture my own things in there because it's so full of stuff.
Clear your bathroom and toilet of all bottles and razors. It looks so messy.
Jet wash your flag stones.
Paint your render at the front.

Honestly, we viewed a house today that was dirty, dates and full of cat hair. First day of viewings and they’ve already had an asking price offer before we even had our viewing.

Compared to other houses for sale in your area, how does your price compare? If it is too overpriced you might not generate much interest.

Also the picture angles aren't great. The floor plan helps you gage how big your property actually is.

TBH I think a person buying would be able to see past how busy /messy inviting a place looks.

They would be more concerned about how much more work they may need to do eg do electrics need doing/modernising extension etc therefore I don't think you need to dress it up or down.

I like your kitchen ! And I can see past a bit of bedroom clutter. The sizes of them wouldn’t bother me as they’d be fine for children.

There are three things that would put me off:

• I’d prefer the conservatory to be closed off from the kitchen. I generally discount conservatories from being ‘real’ rooms, and here I think it would lose heat.

• The lounge is really small for a family who are likely to have three children, 13 x 10 is little - do you have to put measurements on the floor plan pic (maybe just in the narrative description) ?

• the garden looks quite small and I always thinking of decking and old patio to be quite slippery and unusable. Some better pics of the grass area would be nice.

Could you list as a five bed ? Is there flexibility with the office ? There can’t be many detached five beds for that kind of price near you ?

And if you are going to go for ‘in excess of’ (which always puts me off too), go for £450k. And if you’d take that, don’t put ‘in excess of’.

@MeridasMum

Just some observations as I go through the pics. Here goes: ⁃ Kerb appeal - there’s a lot of grey, not very pretty. Maybe some pots of greenery and colour ⁃ Kitchen looks nice (if a little dark - make sure lights are already on when viewers come) but I’d completely clear the worktops. It’s a bit cluttered ⁃ Remove frames on windowsill and clutter on mantelpiece. The rug is distracting, so you have a plain non-patterned one you could put in that room? Or remove it ⁃ It looks like a bedroom chest of drawers in the conservatory. Can they be removed? Pull the blinds round. It looks like they might not fit and I’d be wondering how much they were going to cost as I’d definitely have to get ceiling blinds for the conservatory. ⁃ Remove clutter from bathroom windowsill ⁃ Remove ‘the moon’ poster from the bedroom ceiling and the ivy (?). Bed should have been made properly before photos. It draws the eye and makes the place look too small, untidy, etc ⁃ Remove string of photos from bedroom wall and declutter the open shelving unit. It looks like you don’t have enough room to store things ⁃ Remove shampoo bottles from around the bath and clutter from windowsill ⁃ Pressure wash the patio and deck. They look dull and dirty ⁃ What’s going on with the metal frame near the conservatory? Take it down In general I think the pics need to be retaken after you have restated the rooms

I think it looks like a nice house, clean and tidy and not over cluttered but maybe extra decluttering is required for pictures. the front outside of the house looks a bit drab... as pp suggested. More colourful pots Also jet washing the deck and barbeque area ( I know its probably due to winter and much nicer in the Summer) but a bit of scene dressing there to make it look more inviting. New bedding would help too. (nothing wrong with your bedding but I just think it might raise the game for the photos) The bathroom does look a bit dated, particularly the black bath panel, which makes it look darker but you could add some new accessories to update without a full re dec. Kitchen is nice. And its nice to have a conservatory. Also. I think the three pictures over the fireplace look out of sync.. and it would better to get a really big feature mirror over the fireplace, to add more light to the room and its not so specific to you . Not sure about the extra wardrobe in the bedroom? It doesn't look right as everything else is white and its wooden. It looks like you don't have enough space but There's already a large built in closet there. I'm sure its useful but could you consider putting it in storage until after the sale? Maybe your estate agent isnt working hard enough ( that happened to us) and things improved when we got someone else in. Its a nice house Best of luck.

“Offers over” would put me off. I’ve lost out on several houses that were advertised as offers over because I had no idea what to bid, and now I just don’t bother going to view them. I’m a chain free buyer with a large deposit, agents keep telling me I’m in a great position, but I am repeatedly outbid and the agents won’t tell me how much by.

Anyway, that’s turned into a rant, but chances are it’s putting your potential buyers off too. The house is great otherwise.

Is it the same house last sold for £275k in 2015? If so I can see from the floor plan you’ve done a lot of work, so you’re trying to make your money’s worth on that work – but is the work you’ve done worth a nearly £200k increase to a buyer?

I don’t think I could get over the split-level garden – now you’ve explained it I can figure it out from the photos but it would really put me off.