House what should we do to sell

[Vs123]

Hi,

We want to sell our house. We have been there 15 years and the house has lots of good memories. We now want to sell it but not getting a lot of traction. The houses in the neighbourhood have sold for similar price or more. Any suggestions of where is it We are missing the trick here?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/159203675

Thanks
Vanya

I agree with others wrt the atrocious floorplan. Attention to detail clearly isn't the atrong point of your EA.

That needs to be redone.

The grouting in the bathroom photo needs to be steam cleaned.

As a potential buyer I'd be looking at knocking a lot of walls and creating a large kitchen/ dining room instead of the separate, redundant reception rooms. I'd also consider a full downstairs shower room and a utility room and pantry.

The textured bedroom ceiling would have to go too.

A certain amount of redecorating is only to be expected so your clean, white walls are fine. But the cost of reconfiguring the downstairs to create a decent sized kitchen/ dining room and adding the shower and utility/ pantry would give me pause.

That on top of removing the astroturf...

I'd relist as a four bed with office, and take the desk out of the bedroom with the wood floor. Desks in bedrooms suggest the opposite of 'peaceful retreat'.

I think the 2nd set of photos are vastly better, if only because you can see the end of the kitchen where you'd sit and it looks really nice. In the first set of photos it just looks long and dark like a corridor.

So #1 get rid of the first listing and stick with the 2nd one.

Keep the outside tidy

Move the beds in the two rooms where they're tucked into corners, so that they back onto a wall and have space either side for getting out

Move the L shaped sofa slightly more into the room, so again its not backed into a corner

As an aside I absolutely love your carved chair and love-seat - gorgeous.

Also consider re-listing it with the 2nd set of photos but under price it slightly. you will get interest and then competition which can push the price up.

I would resist it as 700-750k to be honest, and that's mainly because you'll have noise from the motorway. I would also include that in the description - "conveniently close to major roads"

It seems expensive looking at other properties

I say that as our house in London suburbs is size sq footage has 5 actual bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms (one is ensuite and we have a walk in off master) nice garden, nice bathrooms - solid wood kitchen with quartz counters.Its worth £1.1m...

London is definitely cheaper these days & Im quite surprised at some of the prices I see linked on threads like this. Maybe what has happened in London hasn't filtered out yet?

Your house is lovely but it’s definitely a bit tired. Anyone coming in would have to redo bathrooms and kitchen. The wallpaper is also not cheap to replace. I wouldn’t bother doing anything. Drop the price and be realistic about what sellers would be willing to pay.

the market in that area has been saturated with houses for sale for months - its a buyers market

For me it's the faux wooden beams in the artexed ceiling of the kitchen .

Looks a bit soulless, try to add character with colourful accessories

1. Error in plan - no door to kitchen from inside?
2. Ground floor does not flow and has 4 reception rooms.
3. Only one bathroom for 5 bedrooms is a big no no.
4. It is very near the motorway so will get noise and pollution.
5. Some furniture is very elaborate and heavy looking.
6. PRICE TO HIGH.

I think there were some basics that should've been done before the photos were taken e.g. drive cleaned/weeds removed, front lawn mown, the large shrubs/small trees in the pots at the front don't look good, the garage door is dirty. Almost every room has things simple things like that.

Really though it is the price - others on the street may have sold for similar/more but it looks like your house has been left and not updated for a long time, even down to simple maintenance like replacing old yellowed extractor fans and grout. I would be totting up how much it was going to cost me to update it - even fairly easy fixes like removing the Artex adds up but it looks like it needs much more than that. I think you could easily spend £100K on it just to modernise the same layout, but I would imagine most people would ideally like to move the kitchen...

Sorry OP. I know that is harsh 😳

We are buying a bigger house and were considering staying in SW London or moving to Maidenhead. Basically, your house is far too expensive! Sorry to be blunt, but I’d be looking to pay no more than £650k. Like others have said, it needs new bathroom, lots of work downstairs - I want an open plan kitchen and dining room for entertaining at that price. Utility room also.

For £550k, we are buying a 4 bedroom with open plan living, utility room, 2.5 bathrooms in Richmond borough - with zone 4 train/zone 5 tube in walking distance. It needs work - new flooring, new kitchen, new bathroom and work doing to the extension roof - BUT it’s a lot cheaper so is worth it. Your best asset is the sq ft (our purchase is 1600 so considerably smaller) but in a more desirable location and needs similar work, if not less as yours needs walls knocking down. As your flow doesn’t work, it’s putting people off who will buy smaller sq ft but done. We were looking at nice 3 beds, reasonable 4 beds in Maidenhead for £450-550k 6m ago (our chain is long hence not moving yet!)

The photos really aren't good unfortunately, and it generally looks a bit unloved. While I can see a lot of potential and other houses in the area may have achieved that figure, I think the kitchen, bathroom and slightly odd layout will be putting buyers off. Also it looks to be right next to a motorway/ dual carriageway, which would put me off. Have loved on a busy main road once and would never do it again!

I don't know the area so can't really comment specifically on the price, but my first thought when looking at the house is it ought to be priced as a "project". There's a lot of expensive work to be done - kitchen is particularly going to be problematic because of the artex on ceilings and walls and beams. The spotlights in every room is a load of mess, annoyance and cost to sort out. Big problem is that sort of property people are generally going to expect a bit kitchen/diner/family room and the layout is a long way from that.

So the question is what would a house of this type in this (compromised) position be worth in good condition? This one needs to be priced significantly below that.

It looks as if you have been trying to sell it on and off for several years and have chosen unrealistically high prices and have then been chasing the market down. A quick look at RM in your area suggests that there are lots of similar homes on the market, a lot are being reduced, including the new builds. It looks as if your market is falling. As others have said, a potential buyer will look at your perfectly nice home and see a rather unworkable layout, a small kitchen for a 4-5 bedroom and only one proper bathroom. They will therefore be doing their sums about how much it might cost them.
If it was worth this figure, it would have sold by now. If you really want to sell, reduce it significantly to attract plenty of interest and move on. I would try at least a 10% reduction, although I noticed that @Entertainedforever above has suggested a much lower price, having been looking in your area. Bear in mind that a lot of markets are falling at present and the economy continues to worsen.

Declutter the kitchen and get some better quality photos done and add a virtual viewing video. Get rid of the heavy dining furniture, the posters and desks and drop the price.

I am local to you - £800,000 is a lot when the house looks like it needs alot of work

Yes, but if you knock off £100k for a small 5th bedroom and only one upstairs bathroom/no en-suite, you still have to knock off a bit more for the dodgy layout, tired decor, Artex ceilings and astroturf.

The kitchen is internal. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen and having a window under the sink is essential. A door to the side doesn’t cut it. Did you do the extension yourselves?

The main problem is the internal kitchen with no view.
Second is soulless garden with astroturf.
the rest I could live with / rework

From what I can see it needs work and with the asking price being £800,000 I imagine it doesn't leave much room for many people.
The astro turf in tne back garden would put me off massively. It is quite an area of it to be replaced.
The two listings say the garden faces different directions. One says north and one says south.
I love how many reception rooms you have as that gives options. I think it would be great if the kitchen could be knocked through into one of them

I wouldn’t go to the expense of putting in an
en suite. What I would do is get plans drawn up for an en suite, so buyers can see where it would go. Again I’d get plans drawn up to make the downstairs more open plan. Any estate agent will tell you the first thing a buyer changes in the majority of houses is the kitchen followed by the bathroom!

Won't repeat everything that's already been said as those issues are clear, but just to add - it usually rings alarms bells for me if a house is on with more than one EA. Maybe ditch the one with the bad photos and duff floorplan and go with the other one at a reduced price to reflect all the modernising work needed. You may get more people willing to consider taking it on if you get closer to 700k.

We are buying a much better looking house with a better kitchen, better bathrooms in a nice, quiet, well connected area in London with good schools for a bit more money than this. For that price and in Maidenhead, I would expect an all signing all dancing kitchen, bathrooms and garden and away from a main road.

I live close to you and it’s far too overpriced. You can’t expect Elizabeth Line prices when you’re 1.5 miles from the station, with a garden backing onto the a404. It also needs a lot of work doing to it.

You need new pictures and new floor plan- a virtual tour would be even better.

I think it's a lovely house with plenty of potential. When was it built?