Want my house solddd

[PC96]

Hello,

im looking for some help in regards to selling my house. It’s been on the market now for nearly 2 months, we have had viewings but not as many as I would have hoped and still had no offers. I’m really wanting to sell so we can move closer to family as we have none around. I will link the add of the house. We don’t really want to lower the price anymore than we have due to needing a bigger house for my disabled son. but if anyone could give us some advice that would be great.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/137440307

Once you take the conservatory and the converted garage off, it actually becomes around 750sq ft of useable space, but it is being advertised at over 1000. Let me explain:

Conservatories are basically uninhabitable rooms. They are boiling hot in summer, freezing cold in winter, often suffer from leaks and insect problems, and, more often than not, have no form of heating. They are expensive to knock down, they are expensive to replace. When I see a house with one I think ‘liability/somewhere to dry my washing.’

The garage conversion, well, I also wouldn’t consider that to be habitable either. It’s not a utility room: those usually have nice in built cupboards. It’s no longer a garage (and now you don’t even have one, nor a shed (?) nor is there space for one) it’s got small doors so it’s not a garden room, it has no carpet and bare brick walls so it’s not even a nice, welcoming second reception room or a room that could be a bedroom at a push. I am afraid I wouldn’t even look at that room and think it would make a decent WFH office for my partner, due to the tiled floor and bare walls. Yes, it has a radiator, but I look at that room and think ‘balls off cold.’

Idk what the previous owners were thinking. They have tuned it into a useful space where pots of paint, lawn mowers, tool kits, ladders etc can be stored into a room that has, well, no defined use at all, except to host a WC.

It’s desperate need of an identity.

Secondly, no way as a FTB am I paying 15% over 2021 prices in a downfall. I don’t care if the vendor needs to upsize thus needs the money. Change your requirements. Look at different towns, lose a room, cope with a smaller garden, make your kid get the bus to school. I have the patience to wait it out and I have had to change my requirements massively re: affordability too, so I am beginning to lose patience with the ‘we need’ brigade (not that you said that, actually I am not sure what you said!). Hopefully you get the picture: if ANY of us are going to move we ALL need to be flexible.

And yeah, a new photo directly from the front with plants will help.

Also, from what I understand, AstroTurf is a nightmare to then turn to turf. It takes a very special, well priced house for me to consider with AstroTurf. It is a shame that it has no natural green stuff at all, and a bit offputting.

They're not clueless. They're well aware that if they told the prospective vendor put it on for £245k and you're likely to get an offer (which is probably the correct advice) they wouldn't get the business. So, the agent says what is needed to get the instruction then goes about managing expectations afterwards.

Any estate agent who values honestly won't last long in business, as most sellers have an over inflated view of what their own property is worth.

It's not a quick thing.

We put our house on the market in January this year and we've completed and moved into our new property on August 25th.

We sold our house almost 13 % cheaper than what we originally put it on the market for in January.

At the original price we had almost no viewings, when we dropped the price, we had more viewings.

I don't think houses sell as quickly anymore as they used to do.

Omg! Yes!
We have a bloody conservatory and it's the bane of my life 😒

Yes, fair point, the problem is mainly the vendors, people have got too used to a rising market since c. 2009 and many don't quite seem to get that a house is only worth what someone will pay for it. My point really is (as someone older who bought and sold before rightmove) that these days buyers have all the information at their fingertips so are not likely to pay more in a failing market unless (as we were last year) they have particular reasons why they really need to buy.

I suppose other than a relatively small blip around 2008/2009, there has been a rising market since about 1996.

There is much more info available today, even compared to 10 years ago, and I agree most buyers aren't going to be keen to pay 15% over what the property sold for a couple of years ago. The reality is for a lot of people is that prices are already back to where they were in 2021, although it's going to take a while for Land Reg data to come through to confirm that.

If that is the case it wont sell, in 2021 interest rates were below 1% so the new price would have to be below the 2021 price to have any chance IMO, it isnt the house it is the price!

I do not like a listing when it states, "offers in excess of" Puts me right off, and I don't bother looking at it!

Sales enquiries and mortgage applications are down about 40% though? 2021 price isn`t an achievable goal for most sellers now, base rate is five times what it was in 2021! That is a massive change to how much people can afford on a property.

Nice place, it's just price if you want to sell.

Looking at what's sold, same period in 2022, 14 houses sold in a quarter mile radius.

Same period in 2023, just 2 houses have sold (yes some might appear later because of lags)

More specifically the last of those few sales were for the larger houses, ie 4/5 bed detached.

Just says to me its a highly illiquid market for this type of place, and maybe even those people who could afford are choosing to jump straight up to the larger properties instead of going for the smaller ones.

So I wouldn't be surprised at all if there many houses like this, the mexican stand off between sellers trying to get peak prices and buyers unable to afford it.

Given everything it is not easy to see why a house should be more expensive than it was in 2021 given that interest rates are much higher, but of course agents love pitching this to clients, because anyone saying this would not get any business.

So, the OP has got zero hope at 2021 price +15%!

There's always a chance of getting lucky ! - but after 2 months I suspect a significant drop is needed.

Get photo no. 1 of the front of the house done again - this time in sunshine with a tub of bright flowers outside the front door. It looks somewhat bleak at the moment.

This is peak prices plus 15% though? There is a point where you can just end up annoying potential buyers and they will stay clear on principle. Put yourself in the shoes of someone desperate to buy, and they have seen their affordability drop as interest rates increased five-fold, they are not going to take kindly to sellers trying to get peak price (lets be honest, 2021 was the peak) plus a nice lump sum on top, they will just move to the next listing, and if they are using PropertyLog or a similar app they will quickly be able to see where the realistic sellers are.

I wouldn`t say zero hope, you can never tell who will pop up (maybe they have savings in a currency that is doing well against the pound?) but looking at interest rates and how much people can now borrow I would say 200k to 225k is a more realistic starting price.

That huge utility room is not appealing at all. It doesn't look like living space although it's called a reception room. Is it still single skin walls in part like a garage? You can't dress it as a living room because you need it for the fridge, washer etc. Also the conservatory would put a lot of people off. Not sure what can be done about those things to help you sell it other than...

reduce the price. Anything will sell if it seems like good value.

I think it is well presented and I really like the garden area and the kitchen, very appealing, it is just that interest rates are against you in trying to get more than peak prices.

2 of the people who have viewed have said that is priced correctly and one really liked it and wanted to book a 2nd viewing but then we never heard back from them. Most of the viewing feedback is that the bedrooms are to small but that’s one thing we can’t change is the size of the rooms but if some have said that it’s prices correctly and none of the feedback have said that it’s overpriced then I can’t see that we have it up for way to much. I totally understand that the market isn’t like it used to be but we are only going of what we have been told by the estate agents and feedback.

Every house in my village has been reduced over the last two months. It's just a really tough market and going to get worse before it gets better.

Houses on my street were up for £475k 18 months ago, and selling at that. I've just had mine valued and was told to market at £440-£450 but accept anything over £420 by 3 agents.

The problem is the estate agents tell you what they think you want to hear, both in terms of original pricing advice (because if they were absolutely honest about price you'd likely not instruct them) and in terms of feedback.

The reality is that if a property isn't selling it's virtual certain that the price is too high.

Is it currently attracting offers at OIEO £280k? - No.

Would it likely receive an offer if you listed it for £100k? - Yes.

Somewhere between £100k and £280k there is a buyer, you've just got to work out where.

Unfortunately for all of us, the value of our current home isn't influenced by what we need in order to buy the next one.

Are other houses selling quickly around you? If not then it’s because it’s a slow market. If yes then it’s the price. I do think it’s a lovely home by the way.

TBH people's feedback isn't gonna be staightforward.

If the price is correct why didn't someone even make an offer under? Then they'd be getting it for below what they thought it was worth?

2nd viewing, people view more than 1 place, most likely explanations are that either they were just being polite or more likely there was a better place for the money.

When people say stuff like rooms, garden too small, it seems stupid because they know the sizes of these things before viewing, but the translation is too small for the price.

It seems deluded to try and hold the price on what 2 people have said, which may not even be the truth, just people saying things to get the EA off the back. Meanwhile there is the silent feedback of hundreds and hundreds of people, who have viewed your advert and not proceeded with any viewing or offers.

No all the houses in the village that are up are taking a long time to sell, thank you we do love this house and if we was in the right location we would defiantly stay in the house and potentially extend but unfortunately we need to move.

When people say stuff like rooms, garden too small, it seems stupid because they know the sizes of these things before viewing, but the translation is too small for the price.

Exactly, you've got to decode the feedback!

"Rooms too small" = "For this price, I am expecting to buy a property with larger rooms."

We're in the same boat. Our EA has suggested school summer holidays are a bad time of the year for selling, plus with the interest rates going up the market is slower.