Help with advice selling please, it's been almost sold twice with people dropping out art the last moment.

[Justreally]

Property photo 1 of 30.


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Braehead, Avoch, IV9

Offers Over
£575,000
Monthly mortgage payments
Added on 14/10/2023
PROPERTY TYPE

Villa
BEDROOMS

5
BATHROOMS

3
SIZE

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TENURE

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1
+24
Key features
Detached Period Property
Sea Views
Seven Bedrooms
Basement
1 Acre Mature Landscaped Gardens
Garage and Carport
Oil Fired Central Heating
Close To Amenities
Well Maintained
Inverness Approx. 11 Miles
Description
This fantastic Grade B listed period property was built in the early 1800's and has been sympathetically modernised and extended whilst retaining many original features.
It sits in a quiet, elevated position offering extensive views over the Moray Firth and beyond.

This large family home is laid out over four floors and the bottom of the garden has been previously looked at as two potential house plots:
Ground floor, consisting of the kitchen, living room, dining room, and the sympathetically built 20 year old extension with hall, cloakroom and shower room.
1st Floor, split into the front and back areas with five bedrooms, and two bathrooms.
2nd Floor, two large attic bedrooms, and a box room.
Basement, which is mainly used for storage, split into seven rooms with an external door.
It has a gated entrance, lock and block driveway, the one acre mature landscaped grounds surround the house giving it a private feel, and are laid to lawn, and with the South facing fruit terraces leading down to two small paddocks.

The property has been well maintained and retains many original features. It benefits from oil fired central heating and a wood fired boiler, modern bathrooms and kitchen, and a double garage, workshop, and large carport.

The village of Avoch offers a good range of local services, primary schooling is available in the village with secondary at nearby Fortrose Academy, and Inverness is easily commutable.

A 1 acre garden is not too small. 1 acre split between a garden and two teeny tiny paddocks would be too small for me - i have a horse. It looks damp and poorly insulated as well.

This is the sort of house I would go for if it was in may area. The dated decor could be easily and cheaply sorted by a buyer BUT it does suggest the property hasn't been looked after since first being decorated and possibly hiding other issues. Do you know of any structural or maintenance issues, or has anyone got as far as a survey? Old decor is associated with probate sales so suggests it might be a doer-upper. If it's not that, and is totally sound, more neutral walls would be a start.

I’m from Fortrose 🤣 big houses here just seem to be taking longer to sell but a year is a really really long time. You’ll need to drop the price I guess? I would change agent to a local agent too - Hamish Homes and Curtis Mckinnell are both great local agents. Galbraiths or Savills have a good presence here too.

It’s difficult when you can get a brand new 6 bed Robertsons in Inverness for the same price.

Use Strutt and Parker or Galbraiths to sell.

They will properly vet your viewers.

The photographs do not do it justice.

Is the 575k the home report value?

For all the posters commenting on Freehold/surveys, in Scotland the seller provided the home report which highlights any structural issues.

If you change agent make sure it’s advertised on HSPC too.

I renovate houses.

It needs at least 250k and a lot of love.

There has clearly been no money spent on maintaining it for a very long time.

I would be expecting to rewire, replumb and then do all the cosmetic work. You can’t just put new kitchens and bathrooms in houses that don’t have modern infrastructure.

I would also expect someone to be drawn to the bones of the house. Undoing some of the unsympathetic modernisations - the wall removal with large beam, reinstating all fireplaces, appropriate radiators… the external appearance of the extension… these will all be expensive.

It is a grand house and no one is going to put in an IKEA kitchen and laminate/carpet. They will want a high end finish. Plus at least one additional bathroom.

The outside photos are very poor and some of the land looks vertiginous. Also the drone shot shows your land abuts an A road and car park.

I would think your pool of buyers is minute. A massive project and a location in the rural highlands that whilst I’m sure is lovely isn’t particularly sought out…

Your price doesn’t make it economically feasible. I would also expect a survey to flag significant and expensive further issues.

It has been painted for sale and the bathrooms are all new. The carpets are coloured as we had 6 kids!
We were told not to re carpet one bedroom as people want to see the floorboards in such an old house - this was a surprise to me as an easy fix
Everyone will want to put their own stamp on a house. When we moved in the kitchen was all brown and gold with hessian effect units. We installed the Rayburn and wood fired furnace (which takes up 2 rooms in the basement but keeps the house toasty warm) We also put in the entrance extension with the high quality wooden doors, deep skirtings and bathroom.
It's a lot of house with potential to convert the double garage and or steading and there was building consent for the 2 paddocks below the house although ewe let this lapse as we wanted the privacy

I agree and my mind is boggled that some people would spend a fortune on new bathrooms just because the existing ones are 'dated' (they look absolutely fine to me). It's a gorgeous house and I have serious basement envy - the storage!

Spot on post.

You are so wrong Gribbit, we had a completely new roof 5 years ago and the chimneys have been repointed this month. It has been insulated to death and rewired. All issues in the home report have been addressed. The damp proofing was redone in January. It is an old traditional Scottish house which wouldn't suit many folk. We thought Strutt and Parker and Galbraith's were for more expensive properties?

A 1 acre garden is not too small. 1 acre split between a garden and two teeny tiny paddocks would be too small for me - i have a horse. It looks damp and poorly insulated as well.

A 1 acre garden in the centre of a village is unusual up here
Why does it look damp and poorly insulated? It isn't - unlike our new modern house

I don’t think the house looks damp. It’s the walls and the carpets that make it look cold. Not damp.

The coloured carpets and lavender walls scream ‘not been touched since the 1980s’ hence the concerns about upkeep. What a shame you didn’t go with floorboards and Farrow & Ball! Are you getting many viewings?

£575k is expensive for the Black Isle I would say! My folks friends house (in Inverness) was on the market with Galbraiths and it was about the £500k mark. There’s no harm in reaching out to them anyway to see what they say.

Rewired but you have sockets in the skirting etc?

I am categorically telling you that your house looks a little unloved. Your carpets do not look new. Your bathrooms do not look new. It does not look like it has been painted for sale.

If you have had a new roof 5 years ago I would tell people! Put it in the ad.

If you have recently rewired you need to tell people! But I would caveat that your rewiring is rather peculiar and most will want to address it.

When you say insulated and damp proofed? Both are a bit concerning to be honest… chemical damp proof? What kind of insulation?

If I was interested in buying I’d be costing the new bathrooms and kitchen I’d want. Costs to include period fireplaces and radiators, reflooring/carpets and decorating. A substantial amount.

Surely if a socket is already in the skirting people don't move it up the wall and leave an ugly hole/patch in the skirting?

I would say your house is absolutely perfect for S&P/Galbraiths. I have seen as low as £280 for sale through them, it's more about the character and unusualness of the property.

I think your advert is doing a massive disservice, if you have a new roof etc it needs to state that in the first paragraph.

What a great house, with lovely bones and original features. It's really very nice.

However, you said you've freshly decorated it, but I'm afraid the style and colours are quite dated, which makes it look like it's not had any work done to it in some time, and that once you start you might uncover horrors under the textured paper. The green walls are quite a nice colour imo, but unfortunately the carpet isn't. The blue and purple walls are quite 'in your face' and make it look a bit cold.

The 2 pics attached make it look like there is a damp problem / something wrong with the roof - it would be vastly improved by repainting the white parts of the exterior. I'd also be concerned about all the boarded up fireplaces and the potential for hidden damp within the chimneys as they look unvented as far as I can see?

The other pic attached of the bridge looks a bit unstable, although I'm sure it's not - the loose stones/blocks leant up in the walkway below look like they've fallen from somewhere and the top of the dry stone wall looks a bit jumbled like it's been stacked back up after falling down.

The carpets all look worn out and are quite dramatic colours that would be quite hard to 'live with' so a buyer would probably want to replace them asap, which is a big expense in that size of house. The kitchen is dated and people will want to replace it, again, expensive. Also the bathrooms, particularly the one with the victorian style sink and a bath, and the shower with the red tiling / shower board.

It's a beautiful house, but it would need a fair bit spending on it to do it justice. I think the kerb appeal is a bit lacking, too, which maybe puts people off? The garden side of the house is gorgeous, but the driveway side looks a bit underwhelming and maybe could be prettied up a bit? I think a house like that needs to make you feel you've 'arrived' somewhere nice, iyswim.

In Scotland the seller does the survey and it usually says all this in the home report, which any prospective buyers would see before viewing.

Unless there’s a good reason electricians usually rewire to current code - no low sockets, no sockets in corners. Sockets in skirting is dated, lazy and ugly.

You can sand and fill or replace the skirting. It mostly doesn’t look original. It also doesn’t match from room to room. So if you were renovating properly you would be changing it when you do the floors.

A rewire is messy. Lots of making good after channelling in the walls. I am skeptical that it has actually been rewired - literally every piece of wiring changed throughout a 4,500sqft house is a hell of a lot of upheaval and the house does not look like it has had that. The sockets also look really old.

Part of a rewire is thinking about how you use your house. None of those sockets are in remotely useful places. It needs electrical work.

God, it's absolutely gorgeous, OP! It's a mind-blowing amount of house and land for the money. I wish I wanted to live up there ... in fact, your beautiful house is a good argument for moving north.

I can never understand all these people on MN who say that things look dated, and as if they need re-doing. The kitchen and bathroom look fine to me. The walls and carpets are not going to be to everyone's taste, but they at least look clean and in good condition.

I am aware of the Scottish system and home report. It’s comparable to a level 2 survey in England.

It’s not sufficient for a property like the above and I would want a structural surveyor to evaluate things like the extension and the supported paths to the entrance. Plus the loft. Which looks like a very old modernisation - I would want to see those joists!

There are hatches to view the joists in the attic
Clearly not a house for you Gribbit :)

This reminds me of my house before renovating without the views sadly l. It’s clear it needs entirely new electrics (now in skirting boards which isn’t compliant, old layout of ceiling lights, spur ceiling in utility room (?)), coloured carpets are old and lifting, no bathroom on the 2nd floor, the boiler looks like it mounted on wood (or asbestos?) panel..
None of these things matter if the property is well priced because it is expensive to renovate especially in remote areas of the UK. This means that drop outs are more likely as they get the survey results and rethink expenses.

So what to do to improve chances of a sale? First the photos of the outside do NOT do this beautiful house justice. There’s a weird photo of the moat like drop which looks dank and dark and should be removed, the steeped garden sounds lovely in the description but looks inaccessible from the perspective of the photo, it’s unclear what both lane views are showing and even if that is your property. Indeed from those pictures it’s hard to see the garden or entrance to the house. Weirdly the inside is photographed fine but I’d lose the photos of the boiler room and workshop )assuming that is what it is.

Remember I bought one like it and spend lots renovating it. You’re selling a dream so the description must match - long term family buy, needs renovation for the modern family to enjoy for decades, beautiful views, X acres a family to enjoy etc. The agent should be marketing this house better.