No viewings - please tell me what I need to change in house!

[Whywontitsell]

Desperately trying to sell a house that we've never lived in and is nowhere near where we're currently living. We move around with DH's job and have accommodation provided with that, so we bought the house 6 years ago to keep us on the ladder.

We've already dropped the price from £500k to £490k to now £475k, but there's just zero interest. It's definitely not looking its best having had (good) tenants in for the past few years - some dodgy curtains left up and some hanging off the track! So the pics definitely aren't selling it well.

We live about a 3 hour drive away but I have a week off soon. If I go through there to do some work - what would I be best to focus on? The showhome pics make it look so nice - I presume you can't add a link to these on the Rightmove ad? An empty house is just so unappealing...

I would really appreciate any advice...

House:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143709212#/?channel=RES_BUY

Prices have risen. We bought in 2018 for £345k and sold last year for 400k.
but that’s the kind of increase to expect…not 385k to 500k!! Prices have not risen that much, and regardless the market is very stagnant due to the mortgage situations.

Yep, new bathroom, new kitchen cupboards, improved the garden, repainted the whole house to sell, new carpets in bedrooms, upgraded the hot water system, installed hive thermostat. And it was a family home sold as a family home that had been looked after.
i think expecting over 100k profit without upgrading the property at all is quite a stretch in the market we are in.

I did not buy it as a new-build. It also has not had multiple tenants - only two over 5 and a half years.

I'm actually finding your stalking quite creepy. No idea why you've become so invested and obsessive about something that wasn't the point of the thread.

I put the house on for the price I was advised by my agent - not at a random plucked-out-of-thin-air price. I checked his recommendation with Zoopla - good match, and with what else was on for sale in the estate at the same time. The smaller 3-bed had just sold for £465 or £475 (since fallen through and back on the market) and 4 beds were all over £500.

I don't believe it's only worth the same as I paid, but even if it is, I've had an excellent income from it so haven't lost anything.

Haven't decided yet whether to rent or put it back on in a couple of months (with new agent).

I spoke to the agent today and he was adamant it doesn't need much to make it nice. He recommended a deep clean including a professional carpet clean (said they definitely don't need to be changed), and a fresh coat of paint at the most. He also said the kitchen and bathrooms are in really good condition. So I'll arrange for all those things to be done (whether selling or letting).

I think the pics are making it look even worse than it is.

What on earth's going on with all the deleted posts from bottlerecycle1??

Can you link to the general area so we can have a look with PropertyLog?

Maybe multiple accounts?

So I can have a stalker too?

I believe it is now worth less than you paid, but without any viewings you have no way to gauge actual reality, and one place where you will definitely not gauge reality is on an internet thread IMO, these types of threads are rammed with property VIs who just want to pretend that the market hasnt shifted big time.

No, so we can see what sort of areas produce those gains (which frankly sound a little bit optimistic to me)

How can actual, realised gains be "optimistic"?

Two ways;

1. Not sustainable

2. Not provable on a forum without more info.

I always find it strange on threads about not getting any views, at all, that people always pop up and say Oh we doubled our money or made this much in three years etc. etc. Maybe they did and scenario 1) is the most likely one, that is why PropertyLog is useful to see if that sentiment is still continuing. I would say for most parts of the UK it isn`t.

Property prices over the last 20 years show a big plummet in response to the financial crisis and then a recovery, but that was still within the bubble, which was my point. (I don’t know what you mean by “normal market peaks and troughs” and thats not what I said, the crash was not a normal occurrence).

It depends how you define cheap lending: we’ve had ultra cheap lending since the crash, prior to that we still had what people thought of as cheap lending but interest rates were actually comparable to what they are now. Back in the 80s, the bubble then was served by interest rates in double figures. The lowest rate of the whole decade was 7.38%.

We’re heading for a recession, and prices have been falling this year, but it may not be the crash you’re expecting.

The "recovery" (I would say one of the worst things to happen to UK society) was only due to interest rates being cut to near zero, my definition of "normal peaks and troughs" is peaks and troughs caused by wage inflation/recession, not a global money experiment where cheap debt was dished out to the masses, that puts an artificial overlay over everything which cancels out normal market/economic signals, as an example 30 or 40 years ago a rate hiking cycle like this one (last time it was this fast was 40 years ago actually) would have seen a nearly instant transmission to the real economy as people tightened their belts and job security became more of a concern, now people have so much access to credit that they can keep spending like drunken sailors until the ship actually hits the rocks instead of stopping when the lighthouse (rate rises) appears. The "cheap" lending before the crash was indeed cheap compared to previous decades, but it was enhanced by allowing people to borrow too much (100%+ mortgages, self-Cert, Liar Loans etc.) that is how the bubble got started, and the cut to zero rates was the cherry on top that allowed people to think it would never end. I don`t think you can maintain a bubble on a (bursting) bubble built on zero rates (15 years worth!) with rates where they are now, I think the crash will be deep and prolonged.

The price is too high. You could tart it up a bit for sure but the vast majority of the valuation of a house is derived from the land and the price of money (interest rates) at the time of transaction, such is the nature of debt and leverage embedded in property. You are still quite early in the rush for the exit so perhaps a touch of tarting then back on at 10% lower than any estate agent suggests.

You have listed it too high, received no viewings and therefore you are not participating in the market - which would provide the liquidity your require at a lower price. You have engaged an estate agent, however, who may or may not be grateful for your business as they look to desperately up the volume on their books.

Gosh OP, I’m shocked at some of the vitriol & ‘stalking’ you’ve had to put up with on here after simply asking for help & advice!! Envy in some cases I assume? Whether some ppl like it or not, your house will likely have increased in value since u bought, not least as the pandemic saw a rise in prices - particularly rural properties - at that time. I have family buying/selling in Salisbury & the south west & things are definitely higher since 5-6 years ago. Glad you’re changing agents & good luck x

We're in one of the parts of greater London where achieved prices are still rising and properties usually sell quickly, though if properties are over-priced they don't sell.

We though we'd possibly paid over the odds in 2020 in the pandemic as so many people were looking for property at that time, but we're still in profit - it isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that the OP bought well and will make a profit on top of the decent rent that she's been getting,

@CrashyTime The peaks and troughs I was referring to were simply house price fluctuation within that timescale. It happens to include the impact of financial crisis, but made no comment on the “normality“ of otherwise of the crash - which was obviously an extra-ordinary event; my point was simply that the current bubble has been going for 20+ years.

As interest rates prior to the crash were roughly what they are now, there’s no reason to think that that alone will end the bubble. A recession + col crisis + war will all have their impact, but this is a small island with increasing numbers of people who want to live here and pressure on existing housing stock, so the impact on house prices may not be as marked as you think.

I disagree that it looks ‘cosmetically awful’. It looks bare and needs staging with furniture/pictures and rugs. You can also change the curtains/lampshades. The walls look ok with no obvious marks. Carpets may need cleaning or replacing-hard to tell in pictures. House buyers often lack imagination and cannot visualise where their couch, table etc will go.

It's on for too much.
No one will visit if it's overpriced, which it is.
It doesn't matter what the OP originally paid - the important thing is what are people prepared to pay now. And it's clearly significantly less than it's marketed for.
A house is only worth what people are prepared to pay at that moment in time. And in this case it's nowhere near 475k.
It's a nice house but it's basically in a car-dependent neighbourhood, doesn't have the guarantees and shininess of an actual new build and is tainted by the quality problems associated with most houses built since the 90s - regardless of whatever spec it was sold as or the quality actually offered.
Drop the price and sell it quickly. Or keep the asking price and have it on the market indefinitely.
No amount of carpet cleaning or staging or better pics is going to get you 475k anytime soon.
Appropriately priced houses in my street (all around the 450k/500k mark) are selling in days if not hours. The money's there, but only for the right house in the right area.

@Whywontitsell I have no idea why you’re getting so much flak. I’m hoping so much you can get an asking price offer now.