How long before lowering asking price?

[BunnyWilliams]

Our house has been on the market for 2 weeks at 475k and it has been crickets apart from one booked but then cancelled viewing and one viewing this coming weekend (someone on the agent's books, not someone who found the house organically and he's got reservations about parking as we've only got room for 2 cars rather than 3).

I'm keen to move because we've seen a couple of houses that we really like and I'm worried that if we don't move soon, they'll be gone and I don't like anything else that's out there.

Our house is valued at 460 on Zoopla. One agent said 485, one said 475 and one said 450. I went with the middle agent, mainly because I got a lovely vibe from her and they're the only agents that are open 7 days a week.

I really want to drop the price next week. DH doesn't want to yet.

We'd ideally like to get 460 for the house to fund our onward purchase but could possibly drop to 450 if we absolutely had to.

Do you think that dropping to 'offers over 459,950' is a sensible move? It puts us in the lower price bracket but hopefully someone would offer around the 460 mark. Or do you think we should drop to just 459,950 without the 'offers over' part?

I'm desperate to get more people through the door and I don't know how else to do it!

The quality of the pictures is dreadful. Get them redone.

Is this noted about high ceilings in the description.

I'm another with extra tall men in the family and I'd assume they'd have to bend down.

It's a lovely house and the courtyard is gorgeous.

Hi OP. I remember this house being posted before and everyone loved your green sitting room. But I do think the photos at the moment may be limiting your viewings.

pic 1: lovely. People will probably click to look.
pic 2: a children’s playroom
pic 3: what is this space?! A sitting room which isn’t being used as a sitting room and has coat hooks in? Doesn’t lure me.
pic 4: narrow galley kitchen. Am not still not feeling the family home vibe
Pic 5: my eyes are immediately drawn to the lurching dresser. Can you prop its front feet up to make it level? It just makes me think the whole building must be leaning. Also some kind of kitchen cabinets fitted on the right hand side?
Pic 6: move the shower switch into the bathroom.
pic 7: fine
pic 8: touch up the bannister chips
pic 9: ?!
pic 10: narrow galley kitchen with a dead end and very little light.
pic 11: for a five bed house this is a very small kitchen
pic 12: another view reinforcing how the cook of the family will be spending their time in a very narrow space with little natural light
Pic 13 and 14: fine
pic 15: I think this is the living room that people loved before? This is a terrible pic. The paint looks horrendous.
pic 16: nice except the paint
pic 17 and 18: ditto
pic 19 to 26: fine. Some relate to rooms we’ve previously seen and are therefore unnecessary or should be put with their pairs, though
Pic 27: either open the shutters to show the view or don’t bother with this pic
pic 28-31: charming garden. People have already said that its size and layout are going to be an issue for families so I won’t bother reiterating all that.

If I was looking for a five bed family home I would have given up around pics 4 and 5 btw. Lovely but impractical.

I realise this is too late now that you have reduced the price, but I sold a flat a couple of years ago and thought my experience might be relevant. It wasn’t getting any traction, but I didn’t want to reduce the price, and in fact I knew I would have to decrease it by quite a lot, as you have done. Instead, I painted the whole flat white and got a staging company in. I paid one percent of the price it was on for, as I reasoned I would have to drop the price by at least 5%, so I thought it was worth a try. Having had very few viewings and no offers, we re-launched the listing with the staged flat and we had people beating down the door . We had offers over asking and people still making cheeky offers after we accepted one. I know people think they can see past other peoples furniture, but I don’t believe they can, and staging certainly made a £huge difference for us in our flat sale.

That’s interesting - what did you do with your own stuff while the staging furniture was in? Staged houses look amazing but I don’t get how the logistics work!

For that flat it was easy as no one living there, but for your own home you just get ruthless and ship everything to storage. Mostly what they bring is a shit ton of cushions and throws and nice accessories. It just works (aka looks good) in a way that your real life living doesn’t.

Interesting feedback. I'll try to take it in the spirit it's meant and not be offended!

The agent switched the photos around this afternoon and I agree that I don't like the order he's put them in at all.

Interesting that you say the kitchen is dark - it's actually really light and bright with a sunny south-facing window. It's also a pretty reasonable size, we often seat 8 at the table. I appreciate the photos may not show it like this though, so I appreciate your input.

I'm getting fed up with asking them to redo the saturation on the living room photos. Today, the photographer apparently responded and said he can't do it. 🙄 I feel like redoing them myself!

I don’t mean to offend OP, I’m just giving you what it looks like for someone coming to it completely fresh. I’m sure it isn’t all the awful things I thought it was. I’m just telling you what the pictures told me. I’m sure they can be fixed. Your agent needs a better photographer.

@BunnyWilliams Lovely house, I am sure a buyer will come along. As others have said, the forthcoming budget will have a lot to do with people currently stalling on jumping into buying houses. Good luck and fingers crossed.

It is a nice house, but for me the location kills it. It’s on the A56, has all the inconveniences of living in the country, without any of the benefits. Street view shows cars parked on the pavement outside, and enough cars driving past to put me off.

That's our car on our driveway actually, not the pavement!

Why are you moving? You bought it only 3 years ago?

@BunnyWilliams every time someone on here notes "the ceilings would be too low for my DH" you Chris back that actually the ceilings are very high. Kitchen too dark, "no it's really light" road very close "no it's quite far from the house because of the garden & parking" so either your listings/photos are shite or you are a pathological optimist/lier.

Get new photos done if they are so misleading. I think your home is lovely but I don't think the photos do you any favours

Not Chris - autocorrected from 'chirp'

I think if the living room ceiling was white not green the ceiling would look higher in photos.

Have you had some interest since reducing your price @BunnyWilliams? I'm hoping it generated some viewings.

We had one viewing on Wednesday last week. They were very positive whilst here and asked tons of questions. They seemed to really love it. We had a call from the agent the next day to say that they had loved it but had decided it was too close to the road. Nothing we can do about that of course.
Now back to radio silence!

I would take the time to repaint the living room. With the green walls and red couches it's a lot. Plus likely everyone viewing it will be thinking what a pain it will be to paint the ceiling.

I love the garden. The bones of the house are nice, it just needs some warmth and calm.

Sorry the viewing didn't lead to an offer Bunny and it sounds like the road is the big sticking point - possibly for many potential buyers.

I think you do now at least know the reasons why your house is struggling to sell - the proximity to the road, the small garden (for some people this is an issue, not everyone) and some of us Mumsnetters are suggesting the green paint is a bit overwhelming (in the photos at least), especially the green ceiling.

The only things you can control are the paint and the price. You have already reduced the price, which is positive for buyers. If the house doesn't sell by the end of November say, I personally would take it off the market and get the green living room redecorated to a more neutral colour.

Relist it in the Spring at the same price you now have it on. Your garden is lovely and will look lovelier then.

Edited to say list with a different EA and you will get a different photographer - make sure you are able to check the photos before they go live. Look at other EAs in your area to see which EAs have the best photos - it will probably be a more expensive one but worth that to present your house in the best light. After all, you only have to pay the EA fees if they actually sell your house.

Just a message to say we're in the exact same situation (and approx same price point - dropped from 500k to offers over 475k in second week)... there's one particular house we love, so if we don't get it we'll take it off the market. We've had 2 viewings (and radio silence from both after they seemed keen) and basically crickets. Hoping a combo of budget tomorrow and half-term??

Very disconcerting as ours is a beautiful house too (albeit not period). It's all consuming, so just wanted to say I completely understand how you feel, and am crossing my fingers you get some resolution and an offer soon! 😘

That's disappointing @BunnyWilliams. I seem to remember you saying that you don't actually need to move though so will you take it off the market if you don't get further interest within a few weeks?
There does seem to be a lot of anxiety about the budget. The right wing press are working overtime to try to destroy confidence in the new government!

Yes, we're happy to take it off the market at the end of the year if nothing has happened. We'll try our luck again in the spring. Grateful that we love our home and we don't NEED to move.

It is crickets isn't it. Deathly quiet.

I know it's not just our house now, after watching the market here so closely since we listed. In the past three weeks, only 2 new houses have come on the market in both our house's bracket and the bracket of houses we're looking to move to. Ours is still right at the top of the list when filtered by newest, even though we dropped the price well over a week ago.
Out of the existing properties that were already on the market, only one has sold. The rest are just sitting there. It seems everyone is in the same position.
My Dad is in South Devon and said his neighbours and friends who are selling have reported the same. No viewings at all.
Budget today hasn't really told us anything we don't know. It wouldn't put me off moving. I don't know what needs to happen but clearly something does!

Yes I don’t think the budget speech revealed anything too concerning for buyers.
Apart from those buying a second home with the extra stamp duty but that hopefully won’t affect you.