No viewings/offers since failed open day - What would you do?

[rosemarycait96]

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/144690626#/?channel=RES_BUY

Here's our listing ^^

A fairly normal house for our village which has a lot of cottages of a similar size or bigger. The ones that are on the market all are priced £385-£450k ish.

We started on £425k with an open day as per recommendation by our EA. 3 viewings. 2 of the parties were extremely interested and gave good feedback saying it was well presented and lovely etc. But no offers.

Thought the price may be the issue, so we reduced to £415k. No offers and not even a single viewing since then.

Other houses in our village seem to sit on the market for weeks too, and our house had been on the market for a month when we bought it in early 2022 when homes were flying off the shelves in days! So I wasn't expecting a miracle. I was, however, expecting at least some viewings.

Anything we can do to help speed things along? I'm getting a little impatient now - we're viewing a lovely house tomorrow that, if we had sold already, I'd be very confident putting an offer in on. I'm thinking we could reduce to 399k to open up a new band of buyers on rightmove, but it would feel so demoralising as we'd barely make any profit then!

Its pretty, nicely presented. Its not clear where the front door is on the plan? If its where the boot room is, I would have that renamed on the plan as entrance hallway.

The stairs are not safe or within building regulations, its a big red flag on what else has been skimped during renovations so I think you really must do that.

Vertical spindles, no more than 10mm gap between them and a secure handrail. Basic painted wood doesn't have to cost much if you DIY it.

I’d take the rug up in the lounge as it’s awful and the stone floor is much nicer and get some photos taken on a brighter day as in all the photos the lights are on and it still looks quite dingy in some photos

Yes. Big red flag on what else has not been done properly.

@MadameameBeans ha ha I meant the fact that there are no windows in the lounge. Obviously lots of people refer to the staircase.

ah, sorry! I guess no windows in the lounge means no glare on the TV screen? (Trying to see the positives!)

Apart from the glare from the window into the bootroom that has a large window.

It's a lovely house, nicely decorated, but expensive for the size. It's also terraced, which can put people off.
The fake grass can be a big turn-off for a lot of people as well. Small patches I think you can get away with, but whole lawns never lie very well, and end up very quickly looking like bumpy, wrinkled carpets.
If you took it down to £399, you'd also, as you say, open it up to a new price bracket, and new potential buyers.

As I understand it, if you are replacing an existing staircase or doing alterations in an older property then the staircase does not need to meet current building regs.

However, you cannot make it worse (or maybe, "less compliant" is the term I'm looking for?) than it already is.

For example, if the staircase has a handrail then you cannot simply just remove that handrail - which it looks like might have happened with the OP's home - but you have to replace it with a handrail of at least a similar standard.

The OP's home looks as though part of a wall has been removed or, at the very least, it looks like there may have been balustrades and a handrail that have been removed.

You just can't simply get rid of an existing handrail or spindles in an older property entirely, but you have to replace them with something that is no worse (regulations wise) than what was already there.

Any news OP?

Is that a terrace? For 400k? That's nearly half a million pounds to not even live in a semi-detached house!

You’d be shocked by some of the terraces in London that cost millions! Looked up Kier Starmers house yesterday bring nosy, he lives in a terraced house in north London which would be valued at nearly 2M according to Zoopla.

The house being terraced isn’t the problem. Looks like there’s still no handrail on the stairs despite so many people saying that would be a deal breaker for them.

The photos make the rooms look small and dark. Doesn’t explain the jacking offers from people who’ve seen it in the flesh. So guess the price is too high for you up make a profit so soon after purchasing.

I'm back, but not with good news... we've had a steady trickle of viewings with no offer in sight. Another viewing taking place on Saturday, not expecting much though!

Overwhelmingly positive feedback from viewers but problems like the many little steps keep cropping up for older buyers as well as people saying the house feels too small.

However -
We finally reached the end of the sole agency agreement with the EA (16 bloody weeks) and are now in the process of changing agents. I've been really unimpressed by our current agent and want a fresh start. Can't wait for new pics and will definitely be more picky this time with the way our house is presented

We will be fitting a hand rail/bannister for the staircase this weekend

We've changed the layout of the lounge so the sofa is back against a wall, making the room look much bigger

Considering a price drop to £395k which is what we paid for it - we really, really can't afford to go much lower so I hope it won't come to that

Once again thanks for the kind advice everyone.

Aw good luck @rosemarycait96 sounds like you are the process of making some positive changes that should help

Good luck. It's a super tough market out there at the moment and I know from my incessant refreshing of Rightmove that just brings up reduced properties rather than new ones, that there are a hell of a lot of people out there in the same position as you. It's hard to keep your spirits up.

Hi OP, I know this area pretty well (and yes, it’s pretty but I too was itching to get back into a city). A lot of the villages are having huge new build developments tacked onto them, e.g. Langford and I noticed there’s a development proposal for the quarry in your village. With you saying a lot of houses int he village are up for sale and not moving, is it possible the development (it appears it has been given the go ahead and there are a couple of others in the works nearby) is putting some people off?

Were looking to buy a 5 bedroom in Weston and I can buy one for the price you're asking. I'd think another 25k off would do it.

Does the living room not have a window? None on the floorplan.
House seems to have low ceilings and stairs between kitchen/dining, which looking at photos would mean hurting my head each time. If ceilings aren't low, then it's photo angles.

@Peonies007 yes, the ceilings are quite low - it's an 18th century (estimate) cottage so definitely not suitable for anyone taller than average. I'm 5ft tall sland husband is a shortie so suits us fine, but we've had comments from some male viewers about low ceilings!

The lounge doenst have a window, the main window is a large one in the boot room, at the very front of the house.

@TiredCatLady thanks, I hadn't even thought of that as I had considered it a good thing the village is getting some new houses! The ones in the quarry are all huge 4/5 bed detached homes rather than flats or starter homes and should look quite nice, but I can see why it would bother people. I lived on a new build development once and despised the building site outside my front door.

God I have just seen some horrible typos, sorry, symptom of a 5am wake up from the toddler.

It looks like a really lovely property. Fingers crossed changing agents is effective!

Low ceilings will put off a portion of viewers.. it would be instant no from us with 6'4 husband and my 10 yo who is already 5'2.
Just read the comments re staircase and I haven't noticed, but yes easy and cheap fix.

Oh.. so is the boot room the entrance? I thought main entrance was via dining room? Maybe make that clearer by renaming boot room to entrance hall?

I'm afraid you lost quite some time by trying to make a profit on a property bought when the market was on it's top in 2022.

It is known that when the market is fast, it accelerates even properties with bigger compromises, and when it slows down, they slow more than the others and lose value more.

Does your competition have low ceilings as well? It sounds like a kind of competitive disadvantage which would be hard to offset by money without actually getting to a cheaper price range.