No viewings on our house - would these things put you off?

[Wallawallawallaby1]

We've had no interest at all...is it the market or is our house just priced too high? We're in the South West (Salisbury), and I'm told by the EA the house is a tricky one to value. It's a 5 bed detached Edwardian house over 3 floors. We bought it for £675k just over three years ago, and it's on for £720k. Interestingly next door is on for £750k, and they've had little interest as well. Identical houses in build, but they have an added bathroom and a much larger garden (although their house does require a fair bit of modernisation).

I'll list a couple of the negatives - could you tell me if the following would put you off viewing?

1. 5 beds but only one bathroom (and a downstairs cloakroom). The rooms are large so there's plenty of space for an ensuite (or two), but my DH doesn't want to do it. I was hoping though that potential buyers would realise this opportunity. Would the 1 main bathroom put you off?

1. Very small garden. Large-ish patio that extends round the house, but grass space quite small. We have a sofa set and a small climbing frame on the grass, with a massive trampoline on the patio, so it's perfectly functional...just small.

1. No garage, and on-street parking (but very quiet road, so no issues with parking)

The positives though: very grand house, massive amounts of curb-appeal, large rooms with high ceilings, close to good schools, 10 minute walk into town.

I desperately want to move as I need more downstairs living space. I could also really do with another bathroom (DH just hates the idea of any work being done in the house).

Please help!

Thank you

This road is no where near as desirable as the one the OP has her property on. It's actually on the main road, cars queued outside most of the day.

The on street parking and no garage is fine for this type of urban Victorian house. I’d want a second bathroom but for the right price discount I’d add one myself. I’d do it where your neighbour has theirs on the top floor.

For me the sticking point would be the tiny garden with fake grass. The 30k discount vs your neighbour who has a lovely long garden is not enough IMO.

You bought in 2022 for 674k. Next door bought the same time as you for 499.5k. Is there a reason why you paid so much more for yours or why theirs was so cheap? I suspect you paid too much in 2022 and are asking too much now relative to the big garden version of the houses in the street. I’d reduce to 695k.

I know this sort of house and have seen the two rooms on the top floor adapted to one big bedroom with an ensuite and a changing area.

Q- Why is no one willing to pay this amount of money for my house?
A- Because no one is willing to pay that amount of money for your house!

OP, if your property is the one I think it is, I like it. It's got kerb appeal, good-sized rooms and the decor is neutral and tasteful.

Even though it's close to the city centre, I wonder if the lack of off-street parking might be more of an issue than anything else, especially as it's a family home. How do you currently manage?

How are people finding the house? Can anyone post a link? I'm clearly inept on Rightmove 🙁

Go to rightmove and search Salisbury with filters min/Max bedrooms=5, min price = 700k. Choose the one that is 720k.

OP, I think reducing to 695 is a reasonable idea - make sure anyone who has a max price filter of 700k sees it!

I like the idea of extending the kitchen to the side, but then I think about things like "where would we put our bins?" I think I can figure that out though 🤣 I do like that idea. If I could manage that, I probably wouldn't be too fussed about moving! I do love our location.

I'm also not against losing a bedroom in theory, but both my DH and I work from home so we need the office space. Right now one bedroom is used for storage, one as an office and then the dining room is used as another working space

@SayDoWhatNow I was thinking similar

IIWY I would get an estimate for the two en-suites and deduct that from the price for a start.

We inherited a house we are trying to sell atm and have had virtually no interest, although a different part of the country. We took the EAs advice of price but my feeling is that prices are just too high!

You've gone up into the attic so where do you keep all your Christmas dec/holiday stuff/mountains of crap? The house is lovely but the garden is small and no parking is too stressful. My garden is actually smaller but (a) it's London and (b) im trying to move.

I suppose if the local senior school is super amazing and the best in the area I would put an offer in

I’ve also tracked you down on right move (sorry) and I think you have photos missing - you don’t show the window in the living room, or the full extent of bedroom 1, and I think you might have a fireplace and storage in the dining room but no photo. Also the kitchen, where is your cooker, where are the cupboards that aren’t your island? You don’t get a sense of the size of that room, what’s down the end by the bifold doors? There’s no photo of the front door or hallway / stairs, which can help give a better sens of how the house works.

it will still mainly be price but the photos on your neighbours house give a much better sense of the flow and shape of the house. And the tree out front needs pruning back!

I like your house a lot more than next door.
What do you require in extra downstairs living space?
Playroom for children? (yours are obviously primary age)
Office?

For a thousand pounds, I'd be inclined to sit down with an architect to explore how an extension on the side of the house might look. It is hard to tell how much free space you have along the side but I am guessing that side bit of patio must be about 3.5m wide and 7m long. Does it get the sun at all round there? It looks to face south.

I would also enquire about doing what the London Rd property did and pop a bathroom in the end of the master bedroom.

Where could you fit two ensuites though? The whole house looks to be around 170 m2 based on the floor plan. That's only a little over the average size of a 4 bed. It's really a very modestly sized town house.

Havent bothered to search it out - but dividing bedroom 1 and having a bathroom there might not be too expensive, depends where you could put the soil pipe. I wouldnt make it ensuite, more useful as a family bathroom and easily converted to ensuite if they add another somewhere else. Or possibly an ensuite shower room and a separate shower.

Take trampoline down and move seating onto patio.

It has 2 living rooms and a decent size of kitchen so although you say you want more space downstairs that isnt bad.

5 bed might mean families with adult or are at least older teenage children, so people looking to park more than one car. And with older children you definitely want more than one bathroom, sorry. Three floors, no parking, small garden - not great but only one bathroom the deal breaker.

The attic rooms are both small so presumably there's built in storage in those.

So you bought a house, lived in it for 3 years, haven't done anything to improve the obvious drawbacks, now demand more living space - yet expect a 45K profit! Can you see nothing wrong with your expectations entitlement calculations?

Lower the price to what you bought for, lower again for 3 years wear and tear and a depressed housing market. Lo! it will sell.

Your garden looks really tiny because you've put a garden furniture set and a play set on what's already a tiny piece of grass. Id lose the furniture and submit another picture of your garden looking far less cluttered.

Talking on garden's...have any houses in your row requested a drop kerb and turned what is in effect a redundant garden at the front of the house into a parking space?

I think having only one shower/bath accessible to eveyone is an issue.

If I were going to live there I would add en suite shower in main bedroom and put a shower room on the top floor between the bedrooms ( so that they both lose a bit of space).

Not sure I would bother doing the side return but I would look at reconfiguring the kitchen space so you can fit a large table by the patio door. It looks like there's a fair bit of dead space in there because of where the island is.

Wouldn’t it be the stuff you mentioned in your post?

eapecially not enough downstairs living area

I think one significant issue is that you’re probably not even coming up in a lot of searches in people are filtering. If they want 5 bedrooms up to £750k, they’re probably filtering on at least 2 bathrooms, so they never see your house.

So I couldnt resist seeking it out - seating would not easily relocate to the patio, which isnt really that large so would be better in storage really. And you said masses of kerb appeal but the tree is too large. I'd get a tree surgeon to give it a nice trim.

@Wallawallawallaby1 I too found it on Right Move ( sorry).

The first thing that would put me right off is the big tree in the front garden ( I presume that one is your house). It must cut out some of the light from the front facing rooms. It would worry me that it would cost a fortune to have it removed for starters (it would also worry me if it had a preservation order on it and I couldn't have it removed). It would also worry me how much damage it would cause if it came down in a storm.

Like others though, I agree that you really need at least one more bathroom/en-suite on that top floor

Lastly, I think the photos aren't the best. You can't really see things like the cooker in the kitchen, storage space in some of the rooms. Maybe get them redone? Possibly get a 360 degrees video walk through?

According to Nationwide House Price Index, average house prices in Salisbury since Q2 2022 are -4.06%.

So £675k then would be £647k now, all other things being equal. Sounds like list price may be the issue as you’ve added 7% instead of taking off 4%…

(Haven’t read thread, apologies if I’m repeating anything)