Flat not selling - next steps?

[Posieralmer1]

Good morning all. Advice please! We left London for our new city a year ago, rented out our flat and rented up here to test it out before making the plunge. We are now trying to sell our flat in london so we can buy in our new city but it's not going well and I don't know what steps to take next. We secured a buyer off the market with our first EA, he then pulled out after 7 months (because he viewed a different one in our development). We've since dropped the price and changed agent but no proceedable offers in the 2 months since it's been on the market, although a couple of offers where the buyer still needs to sell. Meanwhile we are paying our mortgage and bills on our flat plus rent up here. Our tenants left, understandably, when we tried to sell first time. I just don't know how to get it sold. We reduced the price again on Friday and I thought it would be the silver bullet but it's only brought in a 4 more viewings. IMO it's a gorgeous light flat in a good location. I wish we'd started at a lower price rather than reduced twice. We could give up and get tenants in again but that feels to be kicking the can down the road and presents risks. Equally, we can't afford to keep paying for 2 homes. We have done the sums on renting it out and we would make a small profit each month, enough to cover some repairs. Any advice anyone?

Here is the listing. It's a bit niche as it's set in the woods but easy access to stations. That's why we loved it!

[Rightmove link redacted by MNHQ on OP's request]

It’s a lovely flat. One thing you could do is get one of those furniture hire places to deck it out so it looks lived in. My brother did this for his house in Chiswick years ago. The photos then gave viewers a sense of what it looks like with beds sofas etc. the house sold almost immediately after that. I would have the photos redone to show when the sun is shining by annd floods the rooms. Others will hopefully come on to give extra advice. Good luck.

I agree, furnish it so people can see the space properly... I love Wanstead, used to live there 20 odd years ago!

Agree the flat looks lovely, no issues with the actual flat.

I guess it can only be the price? I would get rid of the OIEO tag and just call it 450k. Potential buyers could be put off looking because it appears you can't go under 450k but maybe you can.

Edited to say I just looked at the history of your price reductions and it was a mistake to reduce from 475k to 465k - no one is going to be enticed by a price reduction so small. TBH you should have reduced it from 475k to 450k at that point as reducing by lots of small increments just looks bad and means the property takes longer to sell.

Is there a service charge?

It looks lovely but it needs dressed. Were there no photos from when you lived there or the tenants?
As soon as I looked at the floorplan I thought, why isn't it a 3 bed then seen it had been changed. The lounge looks huge and the kitchen small and disconnected.

Don't hire furniture, it's a waste of money.
It's a really nice flat, light and airy.
Have a look at similar properties in the postcode. You may need to drop the price again.

Share of freehold is good. Is the building etc well maintained by the directors? Is the area ok?

whats the service charge like?

Price and above X looks like a non-negotion floor

Pics give the impression of mold aroumd the rads.

Proper lighting to get rid of the shadows

The wrinkel in the carpet says an outlay and delay for move in

The kitchen left cabinrt door front looks blown/damaged
kitchen light is dated but better than the unloved lightbulb look

Furniture to give viewers a sense of space

The gardens dont look well maintained (leaves) and are winter ones.

The cars parked on the pavement is an impression not the parkstrip, grass and then path

The outside space is nice but it is unusableb public space

There are quite a few 2 beds on the market in Wanstead some for a lot less than yours, the one in Victory Road, for example. You have a nice location, but If you need to crack on, maybe drop the price a touch more?. Sometimes that gets interest and you can go from there.

I would put furniture in, it looks so bare and empty and viewers seem to need rooms to be furnished. Have you moved the kitchen to a bedroom - it looks in a strange place?

It looks gorgeous. I don't know the area but looked at the map and it looks great, surrounded by green spaces. It seems to be such a reasonable price for London. I'm surprised it hasn't been snapped up.

I agree that you need to get furniture in as I can't really get any sense of how the rooms could be laid out, especially the one with the wooden shelves and cupboard.
Also the windows look odd. Do they slide or tilt open? I don't like the look of the black frames so the hassle of painting or replacing the windows would majorly put me off.
Just looked again and I guess you couldn't change the windows because the whole building is like that!

I saw this flat on Zoopla myself!

It looks very nice but the windows make it look like it will be freezing and there are newer flats on the market for less.

I can also see that you bought it for 415 in 2019 and I see no justification for it having gone up by 35k since then. The only thing that looks new is the kitchen.

Market for flats is pretty dead right now, think you will have to adjust your expectations re price. @CraftyNavySeal is right, hard to see the work which justifies a 35k price increase.

Is there parking available? Apologies if I have missed that? It does look a lovely flat.

Is there a lift?

It’s a lovely flat, could you go for £425k if you need to offload it? I know it’s always nice to make money on property, but sometimes you just need to bite the bullet so you can move forward with your life.

It's overpriced compared to others in the area. The problem with viewing an empty flat is you see all the potential problems (not saying there are any). With a furnished flat it's easier to hide grotty decorating etc

Re the listing, I would have fewer photos. There are a lot of photos for a flat and you start to lose the feel of it after the first few as it's just different angles on the same room. The aim of the listing is to entice people to view, so you need enough to pique their interest, but not too much so they feel they can make a decision not to proceed without stepping foot in the door.

Regarding the reductions, the advice is normally to drop hard and fast as opposed to frequent and small reductions over a prolonged period. At this point, I'd consider taking it off the market and re-listing with a new agent in the spring at the lowest price you can accept.

I agree with pp re fewer photos, you don't need that many of an empty space and as they are mostly white walls it gets a bit confusing what you are looking at after a while.

Personally I don't need to see furniture in a property to buy it (we viewed and bought a house that was empty when it was listed), but others disagree so something to consider.

Has your EA obtained any feedback from the latest viewings? Low/no viewings is nearly always price, but viewings and no offers could be something about the property itself.

Tell the estate agent to get rid of that dreadful waffly AI generated description, and write a proper description.

Dress it.
And I think you are asking too much, £435k sounds more reasonable for the area.

Don't waste money on "dressing" it.
Lower the price.

I know nothing about prices in that area, but it looks to me like a family home, and the fact that it only has 2 bedrooms would be off-putting for me, unless the price was dropped.

That's a very lovely flat OP - my son is going to be looking in around 11 months and he is after something exactly like this- I do think it will sell - it's just a bit great market sadly at the moment and lots of choice- most of my sons friends ( late 20s) are going for shared ownership developments simply because they can't get mortgages or deposits up to that level - even though in practice they are paying similar money for smaller places