House not selling. Honest feedback please!

[twinmumoffour85]

Only two viewings in two months and one booked for this Friday. Estate agent reluctant to reduce price and sister who’s also an estate agent thinks we should give it a few more weeks but we really want to sell soon but also need as much £££ as we can for our next move. Is it the pictures? Price? What do you think? Honest feedback very much appreciated!

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143559242

@WaterWeasel you could add a whole lot of curb appeal with 100k. And it has the garden/space to expand. There are no neighbours listening through the walls either.

I don't think that any new buildy type house has kerb appeal but I like old properties.

@omghesbackagain I agree there are some beautiful houses in rural Yorkshire/Cumbria but just because they're rural doesn't mean they're in desirable areas or near amenities. I really don't think you can compare county to county or even village to village because everywhere has their own selling points. Whether it's good schools, bus routes, train station, road links, amenities like pubs/cafes/shops or proximity to the coast.

It’s considerably smaller, and backs on to a busy road. Everyone has their own wants and needs though. It being a terrace really isn’t an issue for us, and we definitely wouldn’t be put off buying another one.

Up north has the most beautiful places and friendly people. I live in the south due to marriage but I'm heading back north. I'm homesick !

Exactly, the interest rate just went up at the fastest pace in 40 years! How on earth are people thinking they can get more than prices when rates were zero? You need to be looking at prices from when rates were last at 5% TBH unless they really start making big cuts soon.

It's a lovely home, and i know this area of the north east very welI. I think your agent has done a very poor job of marketing it effectively for you and the price is not reflective of you wanting a quick sale. Photos, description and floor plan are all poor and not up to scruff to maximise the sale price on niche property. That's a lot of square footage in a terrace in lovely location. You'd need to be patient to find a buyer and achieve top price which I'd guess at being £485-500k if you're prepared to wait.

If moving soon is important for everyone in the household I'd have the listing improved and drop the price to £475 to generate significant interest and allow you to move on.

You need to drop it significantly to get people through the door to understand the space on offer versus a 4 bed detached in morpeth and alnwick. Good luck and I hope the sun is shining for the next set of photos.

There's been a fair bit of negative publicity about woodburners lately and also about grey going out of fashion, both would make me think twice. It's nice inside although pretty much the same as a great many others so not much individuality, maybe a few pops of colour somehow to make it a bit more interesting. Those are just bits though, the garden is the big problem, some big pots with decent sized palms or something similarly striking and definitely trellis all the way round for privacy. That's quite an investment though so it would need thinking about. We did some trellis last year, it was dead easy if a little laborious

Sorry if I offended you, wasn’t my intention. Wrote the post in a hurry. I have been to Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Barnard Castle and other areas and it’s a beautiful part of the country. Sometimes it’s not all about the square footage, you can have a smaller house that is very well designed and works well. For me it’s how a house flows downstairs and how much light and sunshine a house gets. If you read my 1st post I said it was a
lovely house.

If you are going to redo photos then maybe have a bit of a jiggle to make one area look like a playroom. That's high on the wish list for a lot of young families

I think you really like your house, which is normal, so maybe aren’t in a mental place to hear the answers to whay you asked.

the simple fact is op, it’s not selling, no matter how much better than every other property you feel it is, no one even wants to view it. You get one viewing a month on average. You should have several through each week.

so I think the question I’d be asking myself is why the disconnect, why do you think it’s the best for miles but you can barely get anyone through the door to even consider it. They are looking online and discarding immediately as not even worth a view.

price is clearly a major issue here, and you’ve a lot of competition in the area where you can get detached homes in bigger plots for less or the same money, I understand you personally love a terrace but generally most other people feel a detached is worth more. For reasons of noise, privacy etc.and that means the competition, with your overly high price, has resulted in the situation uoure in.

if you were getting them through the door it would be different, but the sad fact is, you’re not. And if I wanted to sell, I would absolutely be very open to accepting the fact you habe competition on properties others would deem more atttactive and that folks don’t wish to even view. It tells you a lot.

i think it’s a lovely house, but id not view it. I think its over priced for what it is, and has not escalated in value by 75k in a couple of years, which tells me unrealistic sellers, who often are very difficult to deal with.

Nice house, I like it. I like Morpeth too. But can't see it selling for more than you paid, its probably going to be a bit less to be honest. Prices in 2021 were insane and we are now in a readjustment following the return of normalised borrowing costs.
Prices are likley to continue falling this year so my advice would be to make an aggressive adjustment to the asking £ to try and get a sale ahead of the trend. If you just reduce by a small amount it might continue to stick whilst gradually becoming worth less. Its going to be a tough couple of years for selling. Interest rates for mortgages are not coming down in the short term (by any meaningful amount, or possibly not at all) so unfortunately it will be expectations of house values that may likley, slowly reset.

Thanks. Our Snug/family room is actually a play room, you just can't see all the toys as they are behind the camera. Definitely going to get more shots of this room and include the kids stuff but also show how big the room actually is!

In which case the floorplan needs re-sizing as it isn't drawn to scale with the measurements.
Floorplans are the 1st thing I look at and that one definitely doesn't make sense (ie the measurements and the scale don't align with each other).

I'm reading through the whole thread but was going to post this at the end, and am surprised that non-one else had mentioned it until the quoted post which is a long way into the thread.

The other thing you need to find a good reason for is the selling so quickly op; as many folks will view with suspicion that you want to sell and move 2 years after buying, I understand its location, but few people want to move with a baby, never mind two, so it would indicate a serious need to move.

it could be work, whatever you wish to say, but you do need to find something believable as otherwise it looks like you’re trying to recoup all the costs of a double move and get out fast.

It’s a lovely house. Just needs some new photos to market it a bit better and a bit more attention paid to the garden and also try a price reduction down to 500k. That may stimulate some new interest as it’s a lower Rightmove banding.

I definitely get what you're saying but as I said to a previous poster our reason for moving is to be closer to husbands work (he works very long hours), my daughters mental health (she's currently being homeschooled and struggles to leave the house) and to be closer to our family/support network. I think giving the sincere and honest answer is ok and I feel like they're good enough reasons to want to move.

I understand your frustration OP. I've been on the market for 2 months and only had 4 viewers in that time. Mine is only a 2 bed Victorian terrace but the rooms are a good size throughout. When I bought it in October 2022 it was on the market for £265k and I bought it for £259k.
Sadly the market and property values seem to be really low at the moment and mine went up for £250k but have now lowered the price to £235k and I'm still not getting viewers though the doors.
My estate agents I have no problems with as I've sold with them before a few times and they've always been really good.
I'm just noticing that prices are really low all over compared to a couple of years ago where I got £5k over asking when I sold my previous house. Also I'm noticing so many properties being reduced every day.
I'm only on the market again because of mobility issues and want something all on one level. It is really getting me down though how little interest I'm getting.
I knew a 2 bed terrace would be a harder sell of my previous properties that have normally sold within a week or two,but hadn't thought it would be this bad.
Your house 🏠 is gorgeous by the way 😊.

Although this isn't necessarily the case in OPs situation, I have been looking for my son (first time buyers) with his GF in and around London peripheries- she's a London girl and they both have ok jobs but not humorously well paid but they do go into the office-both 4 days a week

At a £300k mortgage we are talking around £1700 a month plus service charge - (flats) so taking it to around £2k a month - even doing shared ownership it's around the same for a 2 bedder - (although easier to get the mortgage and a lower deposit) and they aren't keen on a 1 bed flat as it doesn't give options for having a baby or a room mate.
This then puts them at the maximum of affordability too with lenders.

If you move further out you then have high commuting costs and they aren't really any cheaper - certainly in Home Counties.

It's mortgages at the moment that are killing the market stone dead unless you are in an area with much cheaper housing or your house is unlikely to go to a first time buyer - or anyone who needs a big mortgage.

18 months ago it would have been in the region of £1300 which is far more doable and far easier to fit affordability criteria.

These flats were going for around £170,000 8 to 10 years ago and wages are little different .

People have got so used to property prices always on the up but that has partly been because of cheap mortgages- the bubble was always going to burst at some point but even more so in expensive areas

Unless you have a house that's particularly unique, is priced to sell and in an area of demand with a shortage of similar property - I think many people will struggle to achieve what they paid if they bought in the last 5 years unless it's had a huge upgrade, extension etc

"Although this isn't necessarily the case in OPs situation, I have been looking for my son (first time buyers) with his GF in and around London peripheries- she's a London girl and they both have ok jobs but not humorously well paid but they do go into the office-both 4 days a week"

That made me laugh. Thanks.

@XVGN Ha, ha - where do these weird words come from- lol!! Should of course be humongously

Great advice, it has almost certainly decreased in value since rates went back to more normal levels, you have to take the emotion out of it if you want to sell.

Hopefully mortgage rates are going back to historical norms and maybe a bit higher, overall that is a net positive for society, but yes regarding this sale you are right - Don"t get caught chasing the market down.

I was reading this morning that over 60% of people surveyed by the BOE, think that rates will either increase, or stay the same. A considerable majority that don't think rates are coming down soon.
I think that's a big part of the reason things are going to get tougher. Sentiment is everything when your looking at buying property - or just moving. Quote from the report :

"Over a third of Britons expect interest rates to rise over the next 12 months despite market bets of several cuts starting in June.
In a survey conducted for the Bank of England, when asked about the future path of interest rates, 36% of respondents expected rates to rise over the next 12 months, down from 44% in November 2023.
Some 26% said they expected rates to stay about the same over the next twelve months, down from 29% in November 2023."

Interesting, they mean mortgage rates though not base rate?