Struggling To Sell Inherited Property

[AgitatedGoose]

I'm trying to see my late parents' property. It's well maintained and after my Dad died I had it professionally decorated in neutral colours throughout and bought new carpets. I've cleared the house of all the furniture as most of it was in a poor state or very dated. The estate agents (a well known chain) have been a nightmare. I had to re-write the entire property description because there were so many inaccuracies and glaring grammatical errors. The photographs are mediocre which I've complained about with no response. I've had four viewings in just over two weeks. I don't think the price is too high as it's well below comparable properties in the area. I live over 100 miles away so can't afford to keep travelling to check the property and maintain the garden. Most of the money from the estate is tied up in the property so I'll probably end up having to maintain it out of my own funds if this drags on. Should I cut my losses and sell at auction or am I being too impatient. Where I live property doesn't stay on the market long and there's far more interest. A friend recently had an offer in 18 days.

Maybe it's priced too low and the perception is that there must be something wrong with it?

Would you be willing to share a link to it? I think you may need to pick the phone up to the manager and complain forcefully about the photos.

Can you take it off the market, wait a few weeks and go back to market with a new agent and new photos?

If you dont want to post a link under this username, you could name change and start a new thread with a link asking for advice on the listing. I've seen posters get really useful information on why something isn't getting viewings. Is there a proper floorplan on the listing?

Change agent get new photos and relist. What price is it on for? Is it falling just outside people's search criteria. Eg if a house is £205,000 a lot of people will miss it as they are setting their max price as £200,000.

Two weeks is too soon for all this.

@parietal I'm tied to this agent for now.

@Littletreefrog It's on at £250.

Four viewings in two weeks doesn't seem too bad at the moment. Usually I wouldn't think that was very good.

However, two homes in my road have been for sale, one for about 4 months and one for 8 weeks. Between them they've had very little viewings, a couple each. Just seems to be the market at the current time.

When I've sold houses, I've always got a sale agreed within 2 weeks, but that doesn't seem possible in most cases at the moment!

Oh hang on I missed the 4 viewings in 2 weeks. That doesn't seem too bad and it always tends to pick up in the summer months. I wouldn't panic just yet.

Four viewings in two weeks is fine. Give them a chance. But if you think the agents are useless, change as soon as your are able.

Our neighbours have recently put their beautiful house in the market at a reasonable but ambitious price. They’ve only had 3 viewings in 2 weeks. I think the market is difficult….

DH and his siblings sold his MIL's house - probate sale.
They paid for someone to keep the lawn tidy etc whilst it was for sale and I seem to recall an empty property has to have a regular check for insurance purposes but being a similar if not further distance away a neighbour did some of these for them. What they did though was get the seller to do an open day to which they got a fair number of viewers and it sold from that. I don't know if this would work in your area. Mil's house was a complete doer upper but it was cleaned and emptied. One thing in its favour was it was in a very good 2ndary school catchment area ( more by luck than judgment) and that definitely helped.
Any one experience for what it's worth

Good luck - I know it's stressful.

I know you've said it's comparible in price to similar properties but how is it priced for the area? Is it the most expensive house in the village? The bottom of the market sells fast, the top hangs around.

Also how long did similar houses take to sell?

I'd say if it doesn't sell by end of summer drop price significantly then auction.

@IReallyLoveItHere It's in a small market town. It's the cheapest 3 bed bungalow and is less than some of the 2 bed ones. There are a lot of properties which have been on the market for months. I imagine bungalows are a niche market and it's on an estate populated by elderly people.

2 weeks and 4 viewings is good, but it's a tricky time of year to sell as schools will break up soon and the market goes a bit quiet until sept.

Rooms often look smaller with no furniture. If it doesn’t sell it might be worth the effort of light staging. Eg my friend recently used wardrobe boxes to fake beds and dressed them with duvets and bed linen. Just having a bed in a room means that people can imagine where they would put other things. But I think property is taking a while to sell at the moment so probably will take a bit of time

@2025ishere That's a good point about the rooms potentially looking smaller with no furniture. My parents had too much furniture in poor condition which made the rooms look cluttered. The combined lounge/dining room looks the worst in the photos as it's long and narrow. The photographer obviously failed to use a wide angle lens so it looks like a corridor.

You have just said some of the properties on the area have been on for months. It is clearly a different market in that area than where you live.

How long are you tied to the agent for?

Well two weeks isn't long. However, you have said that lots of properties in the area have been on for months and are not selling. This is the case in many areas and has been for some time. The market in many areas is slowly falling/stagnant. There has also been a big monthly drop reported after the end of the stamp duty holiday in April/May and Rightmove says that asking prices have fallen in June. It's reasonable to wait another 2-4 weeks in your case but, if nothing is selling, the agents in the area are over pricing everything relative to what people can afford or are willing to pay and that is why the market is 'difficult'.

It's obvious folk have little experience of so called difficult markets. Not saying it's their fault but no offers in two weeks doesn't mean a difficult market. Try taking two years to sell a house. Now that's a difficult market.

That's not a difficult market. It's a very over priced house!

On average it takes 5 to 14 weeks to get an offer on a property.

People motivated to sell often do drop the price at 2 weeks but you don't really need to reassess until 5 weeks (after that you should do something to refresh the advert like a price drop).

You say you wrote the description, that is usually not wise. One of the whole points of EA is they know how to write descriptions and sellers don't. That is why many descriptions on purplebricks are laughable and flowery/rambling. People often think they can sell their house better but you are paying a professional company to do it and they sell hundreds/thousands. Overbearing, impatient and unrealistic (thinking 2 weeks is too long) sellers tend to get sidelined.

Probate houses are usually priced up to 20% under market value (and can get bidding wars) its often quite obviously probate (no furniture, empty and unlived in). It sounds like you did a referb (so will want that money back) but I'm guessing you didn't do a reno? many buyers will assume a probate property needs a rewire or other big jobs (which they often actually don't but it puts off 'normal' buyers and mostly attracts 'developers' but you likely took that market out with the referb, you might catch BTL market but thats on the downturn).

Summer is a famously hard time to sell, people are in 'holiday' mode not house buying mode. You might catch some of the 'fast move' crowd who want to move before Xmas though but usually post Xmas/spring is the best time to sell.

Personally I’d go and retake all the photos and email the replacements. Is there a setting on your phone you can use? Also declutter

How do you declutter an empty house?

Everything sells at the right price.

Although I think it seems early days at the moment for you.

If the property really is competitvely priced it will sell, but you need to be more patient.