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.

I think it’s a lovely house!

The cornicing is beautiful. The stairs grand and classic. The old portion of exterior warm yet imposing. I understand why you chose it and I think others will also see its elegant beauty.

The Georgian period was wonderful for house building. Big windows, square uniform rooms and symmetry.

It’s all well and good someone saying “the kitchen is perfectly fine” but realistically your buyer pool are unlikely to agree. Surely you’re aware most will consider it a significant and expensive restoration project. The sums don’t currently add up in my opinion.

It’s a great house but it doesn’t look very cosy. The photos really aren’t doing you any favours - odd angles, lots of empty rooms, no flow. It’s so empty looking it’s hard to imagine what the rooms could actually look like, eg the dining room could be amazing but the dining table looks blank and lost.

The agent really isn’t doing you any favours - the brochure says 5 bedrooms as well as the RM listing.

You should include all the key improvements that have been done in the details.

I’d worry that oil central heating will cost a fortune to run.

Definitely look at one of the big agents - Savills, S&P, Galbraith etc - as they will have a national reach.

It’s absolutely beautiful and just where we have been looking, but sadly way beyond our price range.
I can’t explain why people have pulled out, but I just wanted to say how absolutely lovely it is.

Not practical for me as a wheelchair user, but a dream house of sorts nonetheless.

Obvious question for you @Justreally but what have the agents told you?

I know they often lie but usually there is some 'reason' for pulling out, like a bad survey, can't get a mortgage, seen something nicer.....

which was it?

It’s all oil heating here, no mains gas 🙂

IMO it needs a lot of work.

The rendering (or pebble dashing) is black on one side of the house.

There is a mix of 'modern' 1980s style pine doors and frames, and original(ish) windows.

A lot of the rooms look as if they have their original character knocked out of them (ceilings, boarded up fireplaces, etc.)

One of the bathrooms is awful (sorry) the all white one that is bare.

If it were me wanting it I'd expect to spend at least £100K to get up up to standard.

New kitchen (pine is dated)
New bathrooms
Renovate old fireplaces in bedrooms if possible.
Make window frames match
Paint and repair the outside.
Decorate the whole house in colours that fit the period (Farrow and Ball type)

We don’t even have oil, gas is something that most people just don’t consider an option.

I feel a lot of people commenting here are being rather unrealistic, I also wouldn’t consider this as rural.

Threads like this make me think we will never sell our house, despite two of my neighbours (houses within two miles of us) having sold within a week of putting their houses on the market. 😞

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with the kitchen?? It looks really nice!

It's very dated

I know. Friends had a similar house and in a cold winter were spending thousands a month on oil.

There is sometimes very little difference between oil and gas prices.
If you have oil you try to fill the tank when prices are cheaper over the year, often in the summer months.

Sure - but if you empty the tank in a month you don’t have much choice.

Bigger tank?
I don't understand why anyone would empty it in a month.

One of my family had oil for years and it was cheaper than gas at some point. Filled the tank 2 x a year.

We have ours filled probably three times a year. You can save into a scheme like BoilerJuice, so when the time comes (or, ideally, when oil prices go lower) you just tap into that and fill it up. It’s usually about £650 for 1000 litres, which we consider a “fill up”.

Four bed detached here and we don’t spare the heating.

Sorry OP for digressing, thought it might be helpful to you here.

Large and very old house, two huge boilers running flat out to keep it habitable. Absolute money pit but they liked it.

Dont forget oil hit $140 a barrel a few years ago.

It depends how much time and effort you're willing to put in for a sale OP.

I'd decorate all the bedrooms in a neutral colour.
Buy new (cheap) carpet the same colour for every room upstairs so you have 'flow' . You've got a mix of carpet, what looks like laminated wood- or is it soli d wood?

The issue is it doesn't all hang together as as a character house.
The lovely cornicing is offset by modern knotty pine.
The windows need to be original sash or top notch double glazed sash.
The wood work and doors should match on all floors.

Outside it needs painting.

Helpful

The kitchen units are limed oak, the dresser and pantry doors are pine. The worktops are Corian. The floor Amtico. The kitchen lights were bespoke. It looks empty as we moved out to declutter

Honestly this stunning house would look so much lovelier if you’d painted it in Farrow & Ball type colours. Hardwicke White, Setting Plaster, Old White & a snug in Picture Gallery Red etc and had bare floorboards. That cold, dated lilac is awful - I’m sorry but it is. I agree with marketing with a national agent. A rich person may fancy a beautiful Scottish party house/family gathering house/bolthole with stunning views for less than a pokey cottage in St Albans .

I liked the kitchen. I’d make more of the Rayburn.

I absolutely love the house OP.

I’m not sure you’ve been well advised to move out though, honestly when I saw it I thought that it was being sold because someone had died. Would you consider moving back in and getting some stuff into the bedrooms?

In an ideal world you want to make it look modern and loved as people will look at the photos and think it looks like a cold money pit. The things which are dating it is all that lilac and blue, the coloured carpets and as others have said one picture of the outside makes it look damp. Could you get it redecorated in neutral tones and get a decent neutral carpet in some of the rooms (maybe bedrooms). I’d also consider getting rid of some of the vases in the kitchen, replacing the light for something more neutral and having a really lovely set table in the window.The aerial photo does it no favours. As others have said if it’s got a new roof, reasonably efficient heating etc advertise this. If there’s the potential to earn some money from an outbuilding then make this clear (maybe even get plans done)?

The photos below are the sort of look I’d be going for in the kitchen- yours isn’t far off at all but the colours and accessories make a huge difference.

Some huge flower arrangements or plants might fill it up a bit.
Somehow the ceilings look low to me.
?try for some better photos.
Is the land adjoining it down to the road yours? It’s not clear.
It would cost a lot to heat but you could install wood burning stoves in some rooms, do you own the woodland beside your house.
it’s a big family home -are there any private schools in the area? Mention them if so. Where is the nearest airport and train station. Big them up.
Being b listed might put some people off as it restricts alterations.
im sure someone will want it. With so many people working from home but schools are important imv.

I also expected to read you were selling it because someone had died and it was no longer lived in. To be brutally honest it's incredibly dated and whoever busy it will need to throw a load of money at it. Maybe they had time to sleep on it and do their sums and decided against.

@Justreally personally, I love it - it would tick so many boxes for me. I'm a bit gutted the location wouldn't be feasible for us (central belt commutability needed) because otherwise I'd be looking for a viewing myself.

The price is very reasonable for the amount of house and garden/land. I'd want to redecorate but if the home report and survey are good then cosmetic stuff is trivial really when you're looking at 5 beds, a full basement and a good amount of land plus change from £650k, within commuting distance of Inverness. What's the home report like - mostly 1s?

It's maybe just the market at this time of year - fewer people looking to move in the North in winter?