House is getting no interest - what is going on?

[MrsB94]

Hi everyone!

Our house has been on the market since the start of February, with this estate agent we got 4 viewings and 1 offer in the first week and were SSTC.

Sadly, the sale fell through after 7 weeks and our house went back on the market with the same agent for another 3 weeks until our agreement ended. In those 3 weeks we had no interest at all despite a price reduction from £255k to £250k.

We decided to put it on with an independent agent who seemed to have houses sold within days of hitting the market. It’s been on for a week now and yet still, no interest. We have 1 viewing booked for Saturday but I believe the EA was showing them around another house, mentioned ours and he decided to view based on the EA recommendation.

What are we doing wrong? Other houses in our area are selling quickly and I feel like our house is reasonably priced and well presented. The house 2 doors up from us has been on the market since January with no interest, they reduced from £290k to £275k and still no interest (ours is better than theirs I think).

For info, we bought the house for £185k in 2018. We bought to get on the ladder and we have never liked the house or area, so we want a quick sale which is why we priced it low. 3 EA’s valued it between £260k-£275k.

https://www.christianlewisproperty.co.uk/property-details/33037568/-/evesham/west-street

Any advice is really appreciated!

The inside is done really nicely.

I don’t think the front of the house is that bad tbh. It’s nothing special and a bit meh but it wouldn’t put me off buying.

The back garden though I think is so lifeless so as others have suggested I’d try to brighten this up with pots.

Ultimately though it’ll be price and location. We bought a house that had a back garden which was just patio and fake grass! We spent the weekend digging it up and putting a lawn down. So could be changed. It’s the things in a house that can’t be changed that put people off I think and location and being overlooked unfortunately can’t be changed.

The overlooked garden could be fixed by pulling up some of the paving bricks and putting in raised beds to plant up. But many viewers just write it off if it needs any work.

The kitchen looks tired, the fridge freezer too big for the room and the washer and dryer stand out as they aren't integrated. Sitting room is fine but the box room should never have been photographed with the clothes hanging there.

I would clean the roof - first thing I noticed. Maybe it is just the photo of the roof used in the listing.

I think it needs costing up a bit. It looks strangely bare which is emphasising the overlooked feeling from the back.

Make house feel more like a refuge.
For a start paint behind stove black not green. Get rid of green feature wall, please please...all walls same colour, whitish or cream but no feature wall. Take telly off wall put mirror or nice picture there and put telly on a box, table (rustic effect)
More houseplants
Fridge is blocking kitchen double doors....could you turn larder into fridge area and put a wooden unit on the door side freestanding not too wide, max 90 cm high
Trees in back garden v good, but maybe some more plants in big pots flowers etc.
Don't like porch either ...could you get rid of it and put a new door in (green door next door looks so much better than glass porch/white door)
Kitchen needs softening...rug on floor.
Bit of red somewhere just a tiny bit.

Three bedrooms however small /narrow the beds to give impression of three beds

I think the street is nice just been butchered by porches and driveways

COSY-ING not costing

Not sure on price as no expert but feeling the same as some others. Really well presented but def need to make bedrooms look like bedrooms. So you might need to invest in some cheap furniture to show a bed and storage can fit in the rooms. Maybe put a sofa bed and desk in the small room/office. Roof really needs a clean (just looks worse than it is being next to the solar panels of next door) and the garden could do with feeling more useable and inviting. Maybe a bench or small bistro set and some pots of flowers for colour, front and back. It is very clean and tidy but you have to get people imagining themselves actually living but maybe needs to be a bit cosier and lived in. I love the green! Plants, artwork and mirrors can help. We recently changed estate agent and he did such a great write up of the house and area, including pics of the street, we got loads of interest and are about to complete. When people come you need to do the old baking bread/cake on the table trick and have a few things out like books and maybe a box of toys of a young family comes.

Lovely house OP but there is one thing I noticed immediately, there is no room for storage upstairs. I don't really look at measurements if the photos look "full" with no storage. I can cope with clutter or bad decor. I can't cope with no storage.

Bedroom 1 only has room for a bed.
Bedroom 2 looks only big enough for a teeny, tiny desk.
Bedroom 3 is a dressing room because it's not big enough for a bed and/or the other rooms aren't big enough to have their own wardrobes and drawers.

My advice is
Bedroom 1 get a double bed in, with wardrobe and drawers.
Bedroom 2 get a double bed in, with wardrobe and drawers.
Bedroom 3 is office, or preferably take office downstairs for photos at least, and put in single bed with wardrobe.

Put pretty pots out front, with either flowers or evergreens, to break up all that brick.

I really like the house but the third bedroom is too small so I wouldn’t buy it based on that , even if it was priced lower.

You need to put beds in the bedrooms. If you're clever, you don't actually need beds, you could use boxes/chairs on their sides and brooms/planks etc to make a bed size & shape and then valance sheet & duvet.

Borrow all of the large potted plants that you can and make your garden look more inviting, and open the blinds and the doors to the summer house and have a table & chairs in there.

It's well presented OP, but the photos really do make the bedrooms look small. Obviously bedroom 3 is what it is, but can you put a double bed in bedroom 2? Having the computer workstation there makes it look like its only big enough to be another study.

I really don't like the back garden, it looks a bit municipal and soulless, but it is low maintenance and presumably fairly easily changed so I can't imagine that alone would deter buyers.

It's lovely inside but my eye was immediately drawn to the roof - having spent £20k on a roof previously I'm not willing to go through that again!
Good luck 😊

The first thing I noticed was the roof. It looks like it might have problems (even if it doesn’t). I’d get the agent to do a different angle from the front.

I assumed it doesn’t have parking, because it doesn’t look like there’s room, compared to the neighbours. I would park a car there for photos to show that it does.

get rid of the clothes from the photo in the spare room. Looks cluttered and like storage is an issue.

needs some pots outside or something to make it look nicer and more homely.

downstairs rooms look lovely!

Roof needs a clean and the garden is weird.

The decor is bland and there is nothing memorable about the house. Add flower pots by the front door, plants and few coloured cushions in the living room and a few coloured towels in the bathroom. People need to remember your house not instantly forget it.

Clean the roof
Car in space (for photos)
Garden is fine but the shed/garden room looks very shabby - give ita lick of paint. A pot or two of shrubs with flowers that are in bloom (for photos) would look nice an dcan be taken with you when you leave and if you have a table and chairs for the garden then clean them and put them out for the photos(maybe with cushions)
Beds in the bedrooms - maybe get some cheap or free off gumtree/facebook marketplace second hand and have new bedding set on. New build show houses used to use the trick of small furniture to make a small space seem okay - so a 3/4 bed/small double rather than a double bed, a shorty bed rather than a full size single, narrow drawers etc...

You may think that people will be able to see how a space could be used but many can't - so make it easy for them. Make it blindlingly obvious that:
I can park my car
I can eat out on a sunny day in a nice space
I can have a nice bedroom, another for the kids or a lodger and small one for a baby nursery or office. Family House/Downsizers/Starter home/Young Professionals

It looks like a nice house but perhaps the location is just putting people off. Also, I think given the rise in interest rates and the huge rises in building materials and labour costs a lot of people are nervous of buying and also of taking on "projects"- some may think the house must have a new kitchen.

Agents always tell you to just clean and tidy and not do any works as they just want the house on their books and advising you to make a10 or 20k price drop a few weeks in won't make much of a dent in their commission once you are under contract.

The back garden is curious but I do like the big trees and they must provide some privacy when in leaf. Place a bistro set or outdoor seating plus lots of colourful pots to soften it. Is that astro turf on the circular lawn? Ugh!

How many cars can you park on the front? It looks like only one without shunting things back and forth. You can't do much about that but if on street parking is bad it's an issue for some.

I can't tell which bedroom is which but it looks like the big bed is up against the wall. I know you said it's superking but it's just too big for the space. The clothes should be cleared out of the office/bedroom. Maybe at least present one of the other two bedrooms as a proper bedroom.

Clean the roof!

FWIW I think your interior looks very neat and surely would attract people not wanting to do too much work as soon as they move in. Could you do something really simply with the front like window flower boxes and a couple of potted shrubs for "prettiness".

Agree with PP about making the spare bedrooms actually look like bedrooms for perspective.

Do you get trouble with the surrounding area? Not much you can do regarding that though.

It's difficult in the market at the moment in a lot of places.

I don't know much about your area, but with a three bedroom I'd presume people wanting it would be young families but there doesn't appear to be much space. Not enough for one or two children causing chaos.

The garden definitely would put me off personally as it's a house with a small bit of what looks like astroturf. I think some plants and/or real grass so people can see potential.

We're currently in the process of relocating and there's nothing on the market right now that I would buy. I think with rates having gone up etc I want the next place we buy to be longer than a few years but can't part with the money if it's not ticking the criteria.

Definitely amp it up for whomever you're targeting - couples for example, add a nice two seater garden furniture, and something that looks a little more lived in. I'd want to be able to inside myself and my partner having dinners parties or friends over for drinks.

Well for a start, Zoopla is saying the guide price is £239. Not the gospel, but people look. The old pictures also show that there's been no new bathroom or kitchen and your changes to the house have been cosmetic only.

I'd struggle as a buyer to see what even warrants that level of increase in as you say, a relatively undesirable area.

Otherwise the house looks fine, for the right price. The EAs are having you on. They sell yours lower, they have to start selling everything lower. They're trying to maintain their hold on house prices.

i agree with the people who say the photos of the bedrooms and how they are set up is making out that they're tiny. You need to have a double bed for the photos and set up the dressing room as the office to make the rooms look their best. A lot of people will look at the photos and dismiss the house.

I agree. I think most people buying a 3 bed probably want to use 2 bedrooms as actual bedrooms, and I would wonder whether the 2 rooms not 'dressed' with beds are too small!

I was looking for the bedrooms. You do need to get rid of the superking sized bed - store it or sell or something but it makes the room look like you'd have to edge in past the bed. Get a double bed or queen size bed in there. Dress the second bedroom as a bedroom. The third bedroom looks from the photographs that you couldn't swing a kitten in it and that's why it is being used as a dressing room. I think it might be better set up as an office with all the working at home going on. Also, I can't see the bedrooms properly. I can't see if there are wardrobes built in. I'd get rid of the dark green paint.

Also to me you don't have much work space in the kitchen. Can you get the jug and the toaster over to that unit with the little oven thing on it. Better still if you put the toaster away in a cupboard. That gives the impression of more useable bench space. The wood by the washing machine looks a bit battered. Maybe a bit of polyurethane to tidy it up.

Can you get the roof cleaned because it does look awful. There also seems to be a missing brick on your gate thing. I would think that was an easy fix. Stick a few planters about.

I know it's horrible having your house picked apart by people. In my experience, real estate agents will quote high to secure the listing. It happened to us with our first house. No amount of baking bread will make buyer delirious to buy your house if the price is not right. I am sorry to say that it if it's not selling it is probably the price. Once we dropped our price we had plenty of offers. I think you should do what you can to make the house more attractive - most important is to get the two bedrooms looking like the double bedrooms they are. Then drop the price just so you can get out of there. It doesn't matter what you think you need, the market will set the price.

The eye is drawn straight to the roof in the main picture, why would the agent capture so much of it?? I would ask for that photo to be retaken!
Like many others the box room would hardly fit a single bed in that would be a no from me. However such a small box room is not so unusual and I have viewed many properties in my time.
The back garden layout and design would put me off also. Internally I think it looks great.

First thoughts going through the pictures

oh my, does that house need a new roof?

the place must be smaller than it seems if they are hanging clothing out in the open.

I get that the roof is probably just discolored and you are likely using the smallest room as a closet, but the pictures tell a story that does not inspire a viewing.

The roof would put me off. It looks like it is failing and will need replacing. I don’t know enough about your local market to know if that has been priced in.