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

[Justreally]

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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

Ask agent
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.

TBH I'd rip out all the carpets, remove the furniture and curtains, paint the rooms a neutral shade.

You've the worst of all worlds at the moment.
Not enough furniture to make a good impression, dated and overwhelmingly bright colours, and old carpets. Put the furniture into storage if needed.

It would be better to strip it all back to its shell and then viewers can at least see potential to make it theirs.

Having gone through the photos again, I really agree with this (and myself 😂).

I had the same thought as @CornishCreamTeas about the furniture and feel the same about the art. It probably worked when it was a lived-in house, but doesn't right now.

I would imagine by now you just want to get rid of it - very stressful having all that money tied up in an empty house. I would do the following if I were in your position:

Change agents
Drop the price
Not have that photo of the blackened side of the house included (hopefully if you get viewers in person, the loveliness of the house would overcome that aspect maybe?)
Personally I think the kitchen and bathrooms are absolutely fine and totally appropriate for a period house
Those paint colours aren't the best, particularly the blue sitting room and the bedrooms - but surely anyone with vision could see how it would look with period appropriate colours?
To emphasise - in the end it's always about the price - you have bought another property - reduce the price to get rid of it.

Finally it's coming into the winter, which is a difficult time to sell. Also the uncertainty about the budget doesn't help. Hope you do manage to sell though - it will make an absolutely lovely home for someone with a bit of cash and vision.

Thank you 😀

It's far better to have an empty shell than colours that most people will hate and to take out the furniture that just looks 'lost'.

If it's empty, viewers can imagine what they'd do with it.

Otherwise all they are seeing are bright colours and carpets that are not easy on the eye.

It IS a doer-upper because to make it beautiful all the old blocked up fireplaces need restoring and the paintwork outside.

The 'problem' is it's Scotland. Unemployment, low wages, a few rich people.

In the SE of England this would be snapped up but it would be 3 times the price and someone would spend another £200K restoring it fully.

I agree, it's the sort of house I'd book for weekends away with extended groups of friends! Although it might need more bathrooms for that but the living space and kitchen is better than many holiday lets for large groups.
I'm afraid i agree with all the PP about the paint colours and carpets though, they look truly awful and the walls are reminding me of badly decorated student rentals in the 90's!

We don't have the money to repaint the outside, inside and replace carpets. We spent over £440,000 on our current 3 bed house with no workshops, a single garage and the most hideous bathrooms I have ever seen (red and green tiles in one and brown and green tiles in the other) so the price for the property we are trying to sell seems good value in comparison. Many other properties on the Black Isle have sold for over £500,000 and one in our village is semi detached with a tiny garden and no views at 500K. We cannot do any alterations to the current house until we have sold he previous and that is indeed depressing.
Thanks for all your suggestions, we may even consider an auction as the painters being in for 2 months clearly was a waste of money and repointing the chimneys feels like £8000 down the drain
I don't think renting is realistic and if we moved back in temporarily, I wouldn't want to leave again
All your input has been thought provoking and I guess I'd been comparing how much I loved our family house with how much I hate this one (faded orange, threadbare carpet throughout !)

That's a really tough situation to be in and must be doing your head in. I think it's time to call in another EA for another push and much better pics and updated content.

Really useful post from @Windintrees and @CornishCreamTeas .

Marketed properly you could have a very different set of viewers. I don't have the cash to invest but it sounds like an amazing holiday location and considerably more fun that sitting in traffic in Cornwall. I've looked at the map and even Balmoral isn't that far.

I've looked at the map and even Balmoral isn't that far.

You’ve not been in the Highlands in the winter? It was always a joke that the Lecht prayed for snow and then the road would be closed for days on end.

It’s a beautiful house but who is the target market? A young family? Are there enough jobs to support the salaries that can afford the mortgage & living costs? What are schools like?

If two people have offered and progressed significantly with the sale, the problem clearly isn't the Rightmove listing. I think you've just been incredibly unlucky that for two entirely unrelated situations people have dropped out on you. But the house is obviously desirable enough to attract people. I wish you luck and hope the next set of buyers, who I'm sure will be along before too long, are the charm

Have never been at all but very tempted now. It's on the bucket list of glorious places to visit without hordes of tourists but I can never seem to get a straight answer on midges and where to avoid when.

It’s a beautiful house, I love it. I wonder if people get swept up in the romantic idea of living in such a house, but then the reality- location, winter etc creeps in and the head starts to win?

I always found midgies to be more of a west coast problem (looking at you, Ullapool). I avoided about mid May to end of September. Not so much of a problem on the east coast (too bloody cold).

I've done a bit of digging on your house.

It's the former manse and right next to the church.

Why aren't your agents pushing the historical side? In England this would be marketed as a former vicarage (which always garners interest.)

You've also had it featured in the local paper .
But the same photos as here and they are awful.
The lighting is terrible in the photos , casting weird shadows, or over-exposure, highlighting the worst areas - a child could take better ones!

I think it should be marketed as an historical property (which does come with some restrictions over what can be done) and a do-er upper.

I know that may be hard to hear as it was your home but it does need bags of TLC to restore it.

You could think about marketing it across England (if you aren't already) through someone like Fine & Country, Strutt & Parker.

I think your pool of buyers in Scotland is very low.
But you may get a banker from England who can throw another £200K at it to renovate it and make it their holiday retreat or an investor who wants to create a B&B.

Is it single gazed?
I love the house.

Midges are mostly a West Coast thing between about May to September - outside those times you should be fine.

It hasn't been a good investment money wise but it has been the most fantastic place for our kids to grow up

That's a lovely thing to say about your home. It's not always about the money. Although you obviously need to sell it all the same. Good luck.

OP I am local too and I didn’t even know this house was on the market!

Agree change to Galbraiths, Bell Ingram or Savills definitely. Get them to put a for sale sign at the end of your garden, backing onto the high street if possible.

Families will likely want to move in June/July time to be ready for school so perhaps take it off for a bit and re-market in February/March?

Also of the comments on this thread are absolutely ridiculous and honestly bordering on insulting. I’d hazard a guess that a few haven’t made it north of the Watford Gap 😂

A big project in a remote area. There's a shortage of trades down south so I'd worry about getting stuff done without long wait times and high prices.

Your pool of buyers is small. Not only is there more unemployment where you are, but income is lower than in England.

I think your pool of buyers in Scotland is very low. But you may get a banker from England who can throw another £200K at it to renovate it and make it their holiday retreat or an investor who wants to create a B&B.

@TipsyBrickPanda Some of those comments are mine and just for your info I was born and brought up just south of the border with Scotland. If you don't recognise true economic factors that's your problem.

I think its just a bit too much house for most people. A lot of them will look at this and just think 'money pit' and move on. Plus its in north Scotland, so your buying pool for this kind of money/house will not be large. The right person will come along eventually OP, its amazing so many ways.

I desperately want this house now but the commute would be a bit unfeasible

There will be someone who can work from home who will want it.

I love it and it’s the same price as my 3 bed, one bathroom semi here in Surrey. It’s just waiting for the right person/family to come along and see it. We sold FIL’s house 4 years ago, we were told to empty it, but it looked really bare and I thought it would put people off, it also had blue carpets, various different coloured walls, a pink bathroom, but Estate Agent told us it would sell quickly and it did.