Any tips to get more interest please?

[Whitelight25]

It's early days for this house, but a bit surprising to have had almost no interest when the position and layout are suitable for a young family (safe, quiet, close to the primary school), and there is very little similar in the area either to buy or to rent... Is there something wrong with the house itself or the listing, or is it just cost of living and general slowness of the market? Thanks for any thoughts at all. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/158970503#/?channel=RES_BUY

That house would definitely be worth more. It has the extra room and square footage, is less dated but also has what appears to be a large garden with a proper lawn.
You could, of course, redo your photos, etc but, if you are getting very little interest, it's the price. If you compare your asking price to sold prices in your road, you can see that you have priced it very 'ambitiously'.

It's dated, but doing anything up would cost money and might still not be to the taste of someone buying. It just needs the price dropping to a more reasonable number and better photos. Can't imagine why then estate agents think a picture of a white van parked outside is a selling point!

Well, yes. Not my decision and I was astonished when the estate priced it so high. It hasn't been on long but it's time to drop by at least 20K, I think.

You have taken all feedback on here with very good grace and are actively listening to what people are saying even though it must be difficult to hear. I'm sure it will sell if priced attractively.
Good luck @Whitelight25

Isn’t there any furniture in the house? All I can see are carpets, which look a bit grubby (sorry). Also some pictures on the walls. . It doesn’t look lived in.

A couple of pots with spring flowers wouldn’t go amiss either.

I agree, why all the pictures of corners?

Thanks @rainingsnoring . I'm really grateful that people have taken the time.

@rainingsnoring The OP has taken it with good grace, because she has never lived there!!! She said the property is/was owned by relatives and had recently been rented out.

Its unclear if those relatives have died, the OP has inherited the property or she is simply helping them to sell, but like yourself, I wrongly assumed this was the OP's actual house.

No furniture at the moment and I'm reluctant to do all the lugging around that furnishing the house even lightly would involve, but it may come to that. Actually the carpets are clean, but I agree they look kind of dusty in the photos. I'm adding some pictures and plants to make things look brighter.
I don't know why all the corners! Perhaps I'll find out when I try to take some brighter photos!

I have never lived there, but I love that house! It was really hard putting it on the market. Partly because I spent a lot of time there with my much-loved relatives, but also it has a lovely atmosphere. And I agree that it looks dull and cold in those photos, but it took all these responses to make me realise that.

Forgot to say, it has nice kerb appeal. The first picture of the house is quite attractive.

Well, I like it! It's in a nice location and the rooms are all well proportioned. I don't know how the price compares with other properties in the area but to me it seems astoundingly good value. In my area that house would cost at least £150k more.

I agree, the back yard is definitely low maintenance! 😂 But hey, a few tubs of flowers in the spring and summer and it would be very pretty - and a nice place to sit out.

Can you ask around on local FB or neighbourhood pages for some free or very cheap furniture. Saves lugging around, and they offer it to others for free when sold.

A sofa, dining table, a couple of beds and some garden furniture would make the rooms look bigger rather than smaller. Empty rooms when not freshly refurbished look sad in small rightmove photos and people have trouble envisioning how furniture will fit.

Stage it nicel with some free or very cheap stuff, and have the photos retaken, properly. I’d also lose the shed photo or paint it, as it looks like a mouldy room, didn’t realise until the floor plan that it was a garden shed/store, and not a damp cellar/lean to.

The virtual tour is so much better.
The photos are really very bad.

Definitely lose the shed photos, and take it off the virtual tour unless painted.

Garden furniture, made bed in the smallest room, sofa and dining table, and removing the shower curtain completely would be my minimum to style it.

It looks like a lovely home, no idea on price as I don’t know the area, but the estate agents have done an awful job with the photos.

The virtual tour does make it look a lot better so the photos are letting it down. However, I wouldn't bother with staging anything, the price is 30k too high and that's the reality of why no one is calling to view. It needs redecorating throughout and the garden can't be changed so that lowers it's value. The downstairs outside loo isn't a bonus as it needs money spent on moving the back door to make it part of the house. The biggest thing for me is the third bedroom doesn't fit a bed so isn't a bedroom. It's a decent 2 bed house in my opinion and will easily sell if priced realistically. Good luck!

I LIKE the brown windows, white windows look cheap and plastic and grey look soulless and tacky, brown harks back to the proper and classic look of wood.

The house does look a little 'landlord special' with white walls and grey carpet though.

The 'man cave' toilet is thoroughly depressing though, is it an outside toilet? I would probably not advertise it, just list the space as a boiler room and let people be 'surprised' by the extra but as a selling point it makes me think it possibly attracts rats/rodents (outdoor toilets where I grew up did).

We were told by just about everyone that if you’re not getting footfall, it’s the price. If people are viewing but not offering, it’s the house.

We have eventually sold for 90% of the original asking price so I suspect the agents (three of them!) were over inflating the price at the start. It took 15 months to sell, we reduced 3 times. Zoopla can tell you what other places around you actually sold for (as opposed to what they’re marketed for).

The 'sea view' pictures remind me of the Fawlty Towers episode: 'You CAN see the sea - it's over there between the land and the sky!'

I was going to mention it being ex council - that is off putting to some buyers, rightly or wrongly. It does affect prices so if you’re not getting much interest I would reduce the price down to 220k or 210k bearing in mind the Rightmove bands.

Have to agree with the first poster that it looks joyless & I also think the garden is very badly presented for the family market. Good room sizes though.

I don’t think you should spend much money on improving the house as you probably wouldn’t get back anything expensive like new windows. I would just dress it up a bit with some colour, table & chairs in the garden etc, reduce the price and quite honestly, I think someone will be getting a nice house for a reasonable price.

Thank you, all comments are valuable and show up something interesting, in this case that since all the walls and skirtings were freshly painted by a professional the week before the photos were taken, if they look tatty this must be due to the lighting/photography plus the stripped pine.
You can get a bed into the small room, on the left as you go in, but it clearly doesn't look like it. I don't want to furnish the whole house just for photos but maybe we should put a single bed in that room to show it can be done.
Onward and upward!

That's a great idea to say boiler room and make the extra loo a surprise. It's not exactly an outside toilet because it is within the back porch, and adding an extra door to the porch area would bring it inside. But it does look grim.
So glad to meet someone who likes the brown windows. I wish now that we'd painted the front door brown to match.

That sounds true, what your agent said. I'm thinking that we should knock off 20K at least initially, at the same time as improving the photos, rather than doing it a bit at a time. Unfortunately it's a small town with a generally slow moving rate, and equivalent houses that have recently sold are rare.

Don't know about anyone else but I can't find anything on Mumsnet since the update, so just mentioning that I started a new thread with the new Rightmove listing in case anyone has the energy and time to have a look on this beautiful sunny day. Where would we be without Mumsnet opinions, it has been really helpful. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5299074-any-tips-to-get-more-views-please-that-boring-house-with-the-man-cave?reply=143009238