House has been on for sale for nearly a year with no offers. Would love some feedback and advice!

[Veebie86]

We bought our 1850s 3 bed cottage in 2021 and although we absolutely love it, we got pregnant last year trying for our second and ended up having babies 2&3 in January! We have no family too close by (my parents are an hour away) so we sadly put our house on the market in early August last year to move closer to my family for support and to have more space than what we have currently for 3 under 3. In 9 months we’ve literally had just a handful of viewings with no offers. People constantly tell us how beautiful our home is (and we honestly love it, just wish it was bigger and closer to family)! We’ve tried two EAs who have both said it’s priced right for the area and the market and we can’t afford to drop any lower anyway to avoid making a loss (we’ve done work since moving including adding a downstairs toilet). We’re honestly getting so down about it now as our babies are just getting bigger so quickly and starting to feel like we’ll be stuck here forever. Link below and if anyone has any tips or feedback I won’t take anything personally and would just appreciate the help!
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/146014529#/?channel=RES_BUY

Thank you so much. The velvet one is old from when we were in London and was from Made.com, the cream in the orangery are just DFS (bought back when we moved in) and the chair in the sitting room is Dunelm and bought v recently.

I love the house OP and agree that it will be the price. It's just not a good time. Floor plan should be included, yes, but it's easy enough to find if you really like the house.
The other listing with the floor plan really is a much nicer one so not sure how you feel about finding a better agent?
I know you want more room but this house looks a pretty good size for 3 small children so it may be that you wait until the market is better though I know you want to move for support.

It's a hard place to be in but, unless you can drop the price and try that, I'm not sure you have any other options other than to wait and hope the market picks up. Doesn't help you with the family support but an hour isn't far.

Good luck! I would LOVE to live in a house like yours :)

Your property loos overpriced to me. The parking I guess is far away

Lovely house, there seems to be a lot of houses up for sale in the area or near that are 4 bedrooms with driveways/on street parking for very similar prices though

Are posters not seeing all the previous posts? Everyone is just repeating the same thing as if it hasn't already been said 100 times before!

I don't have anything useful to add but it's a beautiful house and one I would be happy to live in. When you said that you were so down about the lack of space I clicked on the link expecting to see a tiny, poky house that can't cope with a family of five and was surprised to see such a decent sized house.

Your house is gorgeous, I love unique houses with lots of interesting features and a cosy cottage feel and your house has that in buckets. I had a Quick Look at old listing, and your prev pics and floor plan make it much more appealing. Can you not use those pics now? I’d be looking to emulate them. The fact is there probably are bigger houses on the market for similar price, but not as unique as yours! So that’s what you need to capture, make it look as cosy and magical as possible! Hide things like the computer desk in the bedroom and make a real cosy feature of the mezzanine. A video tour of one of those 3D walkthrough things would be good too. Get people imagining themselves in there. Good luck xx

Thank you so much - yes we only changed agents recently and are starting to quickly think the old local agents were so much better; pics, details, constant communication etc. it’s honestly not unbearable for 3 tinies as small as they are currently and we love the house and the area. But yes, just wanted to get nearer family asap.

Oh my gosh that’s literally us. Changed our agents in March and quickly thinking that was a mistake as we’ve gone from minimal to no viewings whatsoever. Best of luck to you too!

No floor plan? Why? It says it’s been on over a month with this agent and they haven’t done a floor plan?

It’ll be price. Inside is lovely but you bought for £564k when the market was a lot more buoyant. It is a lot slower now. If you want to sell reduce.

Thank you. I’m a bit overwhelmed from the response tbh! Was expecting just a few replies maybe! Goes without saying from the replies floor plan and some better front of house pics. We live on a tiny cobbled mews with just 3 other houses. So we have space for just 2 cars outside and the garage is our neighbours. But yes without private parking for the house and visitors spaces (or if you have more cars) we knew even when buying the house it may be a sticking point for some.

We’re on a tiny cobbled mews with just 3 other houses so we do have space for 2 cars outside but no garage (the one in the pics is our lovely neighbours who’ve lived in one of the houses for over 40 years)! We always knew tbh when buying the house the parking may be a sticking point for many as visitors parking is tight but we have a great relationship with all our neighbours so it’s never been an issue for us really.

Your home is lovely, @Veebie86
Add a floor plan.
Do people do open houses in the U.K? Our house wouldn’t sell either, and then we had an open house with a few refreshments (coffee, tea, biscuits) - our estate agent advertised it.
It sold that afternoon.

Thank you so much. I’m honestly overwhelmed by the number of replies so have just had to pick one to come back to and i love a bullet point 😂

Noted those as it’s really handy to know those aren’t clear from the listing.

We had to sell our house when our kids were all under 2 and we had to take a loss. We'd bought at peak and sold thereafter. Unfortunately not every house move results in a profit.

Power washing. That whole front of the house needs a good power washing. It's making me slip over just looking at it!

Partly I think it is the market. It's a lovely house, in a good location and has brilliant catchment schools. As others have said you need a floor plan, it's a hard layout to get your head around when you envisage using the space.

-Do you park on the pavement in front of the house?

I think a lot of people would put up with the limited parking for the school catchment but it would be problematic for a 3 car household. Apart from the nearby layby you can't really park on most of Hulme Hall Road. Visitors to those new houses on the site of Hulme Hall School wont have helped either.
-Agree with one of the previous poster's view that the old pictures on Zoopla are better. They create a neater and more positive perspective on the house. I definitely get your agent to re do them.
-Have you thought about adding a post about the listing to some of the local Facebook groups? Cheadle Hulme, Cheadle, Bramhall, 'Woodsmoor and Davenport' and Poynton, all have groups. Also 'UK Gossip Girls, Cheshire and South Manchester'. I have seen a few people post about homes they have for sale. It does generally whip up a bit of interest.

Good luck.

I know that location is everything, but the price is crazy. That's a £250k property where I live, £300k max.

It’s a beautiful house op. I’m really not sure who the target market is though tbh.

The initial issue that would stop me viewing it, as others have pointed out, is the price. For that price, I would definitely want more than 3 bedrooms. It is quite niche and you may need to depend on someone who wants a property with style over practicality.

No front garden is an issue for privacy.

Parking is also a big issue. I can see you may have 2 spaces for residents, but I’d want to see where guests park.

I personally don’t give a toss about how much clutter someone has in photos as that won’t be a thing when they move out. But to me, i get the impression that your house would be quite cold to live in and need a lot of heating. I’m also not a fan of brick wall in the bedroom.

I hope you find the right buyer op. It is a tough market. I live in a nice residential area with good schools and commutable to London, and my neighbour took 52 viewings, a change of agent, and 2 price drops to sell her house.

I’ve read to the bottom of page 2 of the comments and gosh, you’d think someone would have mentioned the lack of floor plan by now! Heavy sarcasm sorry. Might start an AIBU thread about giving the exact same advice as the 20 people above you

Could you combine the shower room with some of the bedroom and make it the main bathroom and that would give you a 4th bedroom. It'll be small for both rooms, but if it's doable maybe worth it if it gives you a 4th bedroom.

Where do you get that information from?

It is a very nice home.
A virtue tour of the house.
Remove the oversized dining table.
All the green around the house, damp and slippery.

Looking at the damp on photo 12 and the roof tiles being a bit uneven on photo 20 a buyer might worry about the roof

First and foremost, a house is only worth what someone is willing to pay. To me, even if well priced, it's too high because your buyers have spoken. A 25k price drop would have been wise when changing agents. What was it on for with the last agent? Never leave the price the same when switching agents.

Other things

1. Main photo should not include the home (?) next to you with the black wall. It needs painting and really impacts the look of your property.
2. Much more attention needs to be paid to photos and details. They need to include more descriptions siting charm, features, school catchment etc.
3. Must have a floor plan and maybe a 3D tour or video?
4. Address anything that could be an issue - parking, price - what's been done in the last 4 years.
5. Get some planters and flowers outside the front on either side of the door columns, or a hanging planter.
6. Power wash house to make it be brighter and have photos not taken on a rainy day.
7. Power wash the pavement around the house - get rid of the green underfoot.
8. Post, post, post on local FB groups. I know several people who sold their homes in that way in the last 6 months.

Your house is lovely. I hope all this feedback helps!

My first thought: parking. You don't want to pay that much for a house and have nowhere to park.