Another why is my house not selling post

[Alldressedupnowheretogo]

I have a mid terraced house on the market in the most desirable street in St Albans. Priced at £600k which exactly fits (sold) comps and reflectsw we I spent renovating it + average valuation gain in the area since i bought it.

Must have had 30 viewings. Two offers on the first open house day at £5k below asking. Both fell through. Another FTB then offered and pulled out.

It’s all freshly decorated and staged. It’s a cottage like most in this area - disadvantages of these structures are downstairs bathroom and no hallway - but with the addition of a fully tanked basement with spare room/reception and home office. The moisture levels are the same on each floor so no damp in the basement. The doors and windows are beautifully re-done. The kitchen is De Vol.

It’s been on for three months. What do I do?

I think it’s my target market (FTBs, divorcees) not being able to get their mortgages as they all keep coming and people are offering and then pulling out.

But these are the things that maybe make it hard to sell?

Lack of parking spaces for residents (city centre issue).

Extra 300 ft of basement space not worth much?

People freak out about basements even when fully tanked?

Can’t do the loft as it’s Grade II listed.

Price??? Not sure about this one as the fallen-through offers were v close to asking.

Viewer feedback is mainly that they think basement will flood (not in flood zone) and the stairs need repainting (yes but srsly??)

Help?

For me personally, the lack of parking, downstairs bathroom and Grade II listed would put me off without even looking at the house. But that is just a personal preference thing. Builders charge small fortunes for standard homes so I would dread to think how costs could escalate if Grade II listed.
Many buyers are waiting for the looming budget then things may gradually start to improve for sellers. 🤞 Good luck with your sale.

Unfortunately the system here stinks and it’s very upsetting for the whole chain when people do just pull out of a house purchase unless there is genuinely something wrong with the house. I do wonder if maybe the system used in Scotland would be a better idea.

I’m not sure if the OP’s house has an upstairs toilet? I could live with a downstairs bathroom as long as there is an upstairs toilet as I would not want to have to go downstairs in the middle of the night! Especially if you have young children sleeping upstairs. I would worry in case they fell down the stairs whilst half asleep.

The City misses the Russian oligarchs and their millions. Not so much money to lend in mortgages.

There is also the fact that the Finance houses in the City are desperately trying to make up their losses from the 2008 crash.

PS
whatever it is the labour government thinks it is doing, it won't succeed in producing growth.

I totally agree with you but neither would the Tories or Reform have produced growth imo.
I'm sure you are right about The City & Russian Oligarchs too & the rest of the billionaires. It's no surprise that super prime property prices in London have been hit so hard following the war in Ukraine and the government decisions taken.

This is a bit off topic isn't it?

Op hasn't come back to address the basement.
There is no fire door showing on the floorplan. It should have a door in the hall at the top of the stairs to the basement.
No 'escape exit' from the basement. Window blocked up.
The basement can't be used as a room with these defects.

I hope OP is reading for her own safety and the house won't surely pass a survey now even if it did when she bought it.

Fair point. I was responding to others making similarly not directly relevant points.
If the OP had engaged at all, I'm sure the thread would have focused more on her home.

I'm not so sure about this being a requirement for a house built long before the current building regs were in place. We have an attic which wouldn't meet current regs, but we don't have to install fire doors or a sprinkler system because it was built like that over a hundred years ago. There are doors to the attic rooms.

Where is there a window blocked up?

You can get same size in Zone 2 near Greenwich in London. You would need to find desperate local FTBs for the small expensive house in St Albans. But this won't attract London money for sure, since these prices are available in actual London.

The rooms in the basement wouldn’t qualify as bedrooms as per the UK building regulations as all bedrooms in the UK must have a window that complies with building regulations. As long as it’s not mentioned as being used as a bedroom I assume the OP should be ok. Marketing such rooms as bedrooms is against the law and can get you into trouble as far as I’m aware. Imagine if someone slept in there and there was a fire! 🤦🏼‍♀️😫

@NigelHarmansNewWife I can't be 100% sure of course and I did say that maybe being Grade 11 made a difference BUT I've been in older houses (one built in the 1600s) where there was a cellar and a door from the hall.

If there is no door, it's usually a trap door.

Again I can't be sure but I'd imagine that if it didn't comply with fire regulations, it couldn't be used as a room like a lounge or bedroom. (Another poster before me mentioned this too so I'm not the only one.)

That's because there is no escape exit if the fire was on the ground floor. Basements are supposed to have an exit apart from the stairs to the ground floor.

In the photo it looks as if the window has been blocked up. if you look carefully there appear to be bricks behind the lamp/ plant on the window sill.

I imagine this would be picked up in a survey and we don't know what the basement was used for prior to the OP buying the house.

Thats if you're building from new.

There isn't a blocked up window, it a coal chute that's had a window installed.

The 'den' is the old coal cellar.

Not according to what's online.

There isn't a blocked up window, it a coal chute that's had a window installed.

The 'den' is the old coal cellar.

How do you know?

Looking at the sale history on Zoopla it appears that a previous owner prettified the cellar to make it a more pleasant storage area, but the OP has had the unfortunate tanking done to try and make it a living area.

But there is no way that cellar passed building regs with no fire door and no fire detection system. Without a secondary exit the den is an inner room, and the office is an inner room to an inner room. That's just not on.

Tell me you grandparents didn't have a coal cellar without telling me your grandparents didn't have a coal cellar...

I know, because that's what a coal chute looks like.

Which is what?

Your house doesnt have to (and wont in any case) comply with any current building regs or fire regs because they change constantly

Lots of houses have this layout, ive seen tons of them and they're usually old cottages. The basement isnt claiming to be a bedroom but you can use basements and lofts for storage, they dont have to have windows, you can even set yourself up a home office or tv room or whatever you like, tons of people have 'movie rooms' in their basements.

Some basements dont have any windows at all, some like this one have a teeny tiny bit of gap between the ground level pavement and the top of the ceiling which is often glazed over, others have much bigger windows.

Theres nothing in particular unusual about this cottage, they're ten a penny (although not in this case!)

I would be careful about making assumptions from photos online about who did what

When I google our house and the 'sold' history on rightmove, it comes up with the pictures that were taken when we were selling it around 10 years ago, not the pictures from when we bought it, even though the sold history is from when we bought it. We didnt move in the end, we couldnt find anywhere to buy but if someone looks at it now and thinks 'oh they didnt do any work to the property' whereas we put in the current kitchen, bathroom, utility room, current decor, flooring etc etc

The pictures from when we bought it are disappeared.

If you had found this house on Rightmove (I have) you would see the stairs go into the basement and the basement is used as a den and home office and the plans show a window. Doors obviously not shown but it is not a bedroom. It’s very normal to have this arrangement. Plus many houses are listed in this area. Yes, you cannot do exactly what you want but it’s not unusual. The area is expensive. The fact it’s not London is besides the point. Buyers in StA don’t want London. Its main issue is no loo upstairs and bathroom off kitchen. The kitchen is an extension or use of outbuildings looking at the plans. Huge shame no bathroom upstairs.

It's very carefully described as not a bedroom.. yet there it is, presented with a bed in it.

Good luck trying to crawl out the coal hole (the window) in an emergency.

Yes we can read a floor plan.

Hence the posts about it.

The entry to the basement is down some stairs that are entirely open in the hallway. Great if you have a child! (Assume some kind of stairgate would be rigged up.)

No, it's not 'normal' to have this 'arrangement'. Older houses like that have a door or a trap door.

I imagine that originally there was a trapdoor, or maybe even a door that has been removed for other reasons.

It appears to have a sofa type bed in it.

The window is tiny and maybe there is a blind that I'm seeing.

I think that the pp is correct about it being a former coal chute but I also think there’s no window now- if you look at the street view pic it looks as though there’s a brick on this house where others (which have a bit more height) have a window.

It’s correct that it’s marketed as a den, not a bedroom, so nothing illegal is going on but as it’s not only open to the stairs, but also the kitchen, I would be very reluctant to spend much time there on any premise. I certainly wouldn’t sleep there. My previous point was just that if the price OP had agreed with the estate agent was on the basis that this represented additional living space I think this possibly needs revisiting.