Why has no one viewed my house?

[CinnamonSwirlLatte]

Previous marital home has been on Rightmove for a month. Thousands of clicks but not one viewing.

Already reduced by 15k.

I'd love to know what's going wrong - although it's going to be very difficult to amend/improve anything as my controlling ex husband lives there!

Thanks

4 bedroom semi-detached house for sale in Maple Avenue, Keelby, DN41 (rightmove.co.uk)

There’s no mention of access to bedroom 4 in the description.
No 4 th bedroom on floor plan unless you count playroom as 4th? think you need to go back to the agent and ask for a far better, more extensive description.
Also the garden photos are awful. What is the hole in the paving?

The irregular rooms would completely put me off. I viewed a house like that once and dismissed it for not having right angled corners.

Dismal decor and awful photos are very off putting. It's one thing to say people would want to put their own stamp on a house but most won't have the energy, time and money for a complete overhaul when they move in.

Eg garden photo where foreground looks like a pile of broken concrete. Photos of empty rooms so you can't see what might fit in there. Bedroom where beds seem too large for the room. Awful wallpaper. Even the empty hallway looks drab. Sorry OP, I wouldn't bother with a viewing, even if location, price and size were perfect.

Practical advice…have photo 12 removed from the listing, have one of the single beds from the ‘twin room’ put into bedroom on room 13, turn the remaining single bed in that room lengthways under the window as the current set up is making the room look quite narrow, and perhaps remove the wardrobe in there, or move it so it looks less like it’s obstructing the bed. The floorplan needs editing the show the 4th bedroom upstairs more clearly as at first glance it looks like 3 beds upstairs and one downstairs which is the playroom. Finally, ask your agent to get price related feedback from every viewing when they do come. Even if the house isn’t right ‘ok mr smith, not right for you, but what do you think of the price?’ Hope it helps

Doesn't surprise me that the person selling is a single man.

The house looks neglected and he clearly hasn't bothered to try and present it attractively.

The photos are really bad. Agree the floor plan is misleading.

It is CLEARLY semi-detached, where are you getting that it's a mid terrace???

Sorry to say it looks quite scruffy! - but with lots of children that is a given really.

Could the estate agents reorder the photos, perhaps the kitchen one first. The lounge looks a bit dreary with the large sofa and the big light on. I would just say to add a few accessories to add interest.

Too much wallpaper. The bathroom wallpaper being her worst, I was put off by that.

I suspect, if you paint everything white/off white it would look much more ‘clean slate’ for people to visualise how they would make it their own.

There isn’t a problem with the house you have a problem with your ex. He obviously doesn’t want to sell the house or is getting back at you by dragging the sale out. Why else make the garden look so unloved.

There is no door to the shower room shown on the floor plan so you can't tell if it is en suite or accessed from the landing. Also I find it much easier when the photos say which room they are - those are both things the agent can change. I appreciate you can't physically go to the house and move stuff, but surely the agent can tell you ex that it would help (ie the idea comes from them, not you) For example separate the bunk beds so the smallest bedroom doesn't look so cramped and the empty one has a bed in it. I never understand why Estate Agents don't do things like this as a matter of routine

There does seem to be a lot of room in the house, notwithstanding the odd shape of some rooms.
The large dark furniture is off-putting if you were looking to rent it furnished but I am sure that someone looking to buy and with a clever eye could make it look lovely.

Do people not see past ugly furniture and wallpaper that is not to their taste and think about what it could be? After all, you are buying the house, not stuff in it it.

You do need the 4th bedroom labelled clearly or maybe market it as three bedrooms plus a box room/study.

Would you consider putting in on for offers in the region of £200,000?

The original listing from 2017 has a much better floor plan and the photos give a better idea of room sizes / usage.

www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/details/england-49484085-55513364?s=d17c848c0f27c4f868ca2d070723c9003885063cc91931f1c75393096564292f#/

Took me 3 tries to spot the 4th bedroom on the plan.

also I hate room measurements in metres only - for some reason I can only visualise size in feet/inches, so both sets of measurements would be good.

the photos look dark, and the house has been decluttered to the point of no personality. “Dressing” for a sale would help, but I appreciate that it’s difficult if you are not living there.

Has he deliberately made it look drab to sabotage a sale?

The floor plan is definitely an issue but I’d also point out the ‘offers over’ is really off putting

This is such terrible advice. It's trotted out on MN on every thread but objectively can't be true when some many property developers/flippers exist. There is clearly more to a house's desirability than just it's location or price.

OP, I think the other advice you have received on this thread it good. The pictures are off putting and the floorplan is confusing and appears deceptive. When you initially wrote it was a 5 bed, I honestly thought you were deluded because the floorplan seems so at odds with this. I actually do think it's a 5 bed now I have looked more closely at the listing but I imagine most prospective buyers won't bother to do this.

It will be the price, the fact the fourth bedroom is minuscule and also you have to loop round the whole house to get to the playroom.

The photos aren’t great but if people are interested they would view anyway IMO.

Bedroom 4 is not a proper bedroom it is the size of a study or walk in wardrobe or en suite or something not a bedroom.

The downstairs room is labelled as a playroom and should be labelled as a reception room - many many people will not consider it a proper bedroom downstairs and in a house of that size. The house is the same size as a normal 3 bed house which is what people are seeing it as which is why you aren't getting viewings.

The photo of two single beds looks like there is not comfortable amount of room at end of beds. This is awkward and would put me off. If in real life the space is better then get a different photo. If it is as the photo then move the furniture around.

It’s definitely the photos/estate agent, it looks a bit depressing. I had an estate agents take amazing pictures of my house when it was selling and they moved things round and used wide angle lenses to exaggerate the room sizes slightly but it looked beautiful and my wall colours really popped online!

The floor plan does look confusing and they haven’t even done it to scale. Like someone said the twin beds look like such a squeeze. I’d take one out even just for the purpose of the pictures and move the other one 90 degrees. Can you switch estate agents to one handier with a camera/better at floor plans?

No curb appeal, doesn't need to be a lot of money spent,a couple of tubs of flowers. It's not warm or welcoming, people make decisions within 60 seconds of entering a property. Floor plan is confusing. Says beautiful garden, nope it's definitely not! Lots of clearing up to do out there, people realise the cost of skips and the amount of heavy work involved in moving rubble. Bedroom 4 office or study. Estate agents details are not doing the property any favours.

Sorry. I see Bedroom 4 now.
Not sure if it’ll help to put measurement in imperial as well as metric? A lot of people still think in feet and inches for beds, furniture so might help for agent to put dual labelling.
Has your ex deliberately made it look cold/ bit drab to stop it selling? If so I think the only thing you can do is work with the agent to do all they can to make it sound good online.

I think this is the problem. I completely overlooked this and thought it was 3 bedrooms. It looks like a cupboard yet from the sizes and pictures you can tell it’s not. They need to redraw that plan.
Maybe also change playroom to living room and living room to dining room.
I agree that the photos aren’t great either. Weird angles and the colours seem off slightly.
Can you also tidy the garden? Clean the slabs and weed the part shown in picture 24 as it doesn’t really look like a “beautiful private garden”.
The room in picture 14 - move the beds so it looks like you can actually walk around the one. If you move the beds closer to the door and move the wardrobe closer to the window that might looks less weird.
Some pictures to make it seem more homely, more linen etc might help too.

There is - get the EA to redo the floor plan. You dont actually need to access the property for that and i think itll make a big difference.

The other issue is the oddly shaped room with two twin beds in appears to be the master/largest bedroom but doesn't look like you could comfortably get a double bed in it with a decent bit of clearance round, which for a lot of people will be off putting. I generally wouldn't consider a room less than 3m wide to be a double room. My own master room is similarly long and thin and at only 3m 20 wide theres not loads of space at the foot of the bed, so at under 3m i think yours would be very tight.

The market is really picking up now, it will be sold before long.

It's remarkably cheap for a four bed house.