House not selling

[Swx]

My house has been on the market for just over 5 weeks. It’s had 2 price reductions and still we’ve only had 1 viewing. Initially it was listed at 425,000 we then dropped to 399,950 after 2 weeks and now we’ve been almost 2 weeks at 369,950 with one viewing at this price but no offer.

it’s a 5 bed detached house in Ammanford. It’s fully renovated with just under half an acre of garden space.
the only down side is that it’s on a busy road. Should we reduce the price again or just wait? Estate agents advised us not to reduce twice but we feel we are more competitively priced at the moment.

thanks in advance.

The map pin on Rightmove is wrong and has you way up the road.

Lovely house though.

The photographs do not appear to mach the floorplan - I'm guessing the photographer used ?wide-angled? lens to take them, but it makes wide shallow rooms look deep and narrow - and puts me iff. The floorplan is sloppy - missing doors into rooms! What else have they got wrong?

I think you could do with having the photographs done again/better.

The house itself is lovely. I think from a personal perspective

• the main bathroom with the marble effect tiles is too in your face for me
• rooms are narrow and the furniture makes them look very small for the size of house and the price
• floral wall paper on the fireplace wall os dated and makes the room look smaller -maybe blank it out?

-update the floral bedding to something more modern to dress the bedrooms

Beyond that the chicken coop and the thought of having to clean that area would put me off along with the danger of the drop from the patio.

But it is a very slow market currently so it may just take a bit longer.

Dropping the price too fast would be a red flag to me for there being something wrong

It is a lovely house OP - especially the garden with room for animals!

Looking at the sales listing, these are the things that would put me off:

How close the frontage is to the road. There also appears to be very little space for a car.

The bathroom with the back and white marble - its a bit 😳 for my liking.

The patio has quite a drop, and no railings around the edge. If you are marketing this at families with young children, this would be a safety issue.

The big thing is being on a busy road. That would put off a lot of buyers.

I hope you find a buyer soon.

I actually looked a this house (from Cwmtwrch!) and the house is beautiful but the road is so busy that we decided it wasn’t for us with little children.

Thank you all for the feedback I will ask EA to update photos and floor plans and to add the EPC rating on to the listing. and to put the pin drop in to the right place.
we have got railings on order but we have to wait another 4 weeks of them to come as as it stands it doesn’t pass building regs. They have been on order for 10 weeks but have been delayed but it’s something that will be done prior to us selling.

I think the road will put people off. The drive isn't very big. Is the yard space where the pallet is also a parking space? Maybe you could remove the pallet and park a car there for photos or viewings so that people can see there's additional parking space which might be easier to drive in and out of than onto or off a busy road?

I really don't like the main bathroom I'm afraid. The tile pattern would give me a headache and it would be the first thing I'd have to change, so that means I'd be looking at the costs for a completely new bathroom. I also don't like the kitchen. Why are there no upper cupboards? It's too dark and too sterile. Maybe you need to dress it a bit for the photos and put some pictures on the wall. Despite this, I couldn't really imagine that kitchen working for me so I'd be looking at a new kitchen.

I've now got three things I don't like about the property, one of which I can't change and two would be costly to change. I do like several things about the property such as the garden space, the family room with the glass at the back, the additional living areas and the bedrooms all seem to be a decent size.

I think that you will find a buyer at the current price but it might take a while because things are moving slowly.

I think you can tell that it’s a really nice and well cared for house, but I don’t think the estate agents done a brilliant job with the pictures, which won’t be helping to get the initial views. I think little touches like dressing the kitchen a bit more, and plants and flowers (or the same plant/flowers moved around for pictures!) would make a difference. I also think that as you’re sorting out the patio, maybe taking that picture from a different angle so that you don’t immediately focus on the railings - just small things like that could make a huge difference. You can take photos of your own if there’s aren’t up to scratch

Looks great. You need the measurements on the rooms and I'd put a fence or railing around the patio to make it suitable for young children.
There's things I'd want to change but it's a great layout with a decent garden. I would've waited a bit longer to reduce it. I think that makes people think there's something wrong.

The property market is weird right now, estate agents are listing way too high, (some might say that this is so they get the instruction) and then it just sits there not getting viewing, followed by price drop after price drop.

I think the EA still envisage COVID boom prices but that's long past, the stamp duty thing has also been and gone.

Chains are delicate and precarious, I've seen a number, sell STC, only to be relisted in a month or two.

Biggest price drop I've seen was an old lady's 3 bed detached bungalow, clean & livable but dated, needs everything done to bring it into 2025. It went on at £575k and is now down to £400k and still not selling.

It's just a stagnant market currently and tradesmen are very expensive and hard to find.

Houses will always sell if competitivly priced.

The photos don’t do much for natural light OP. Most windows seem to be covered with blinds, or non existent (eg in kitchen area). I’d raise the blinds to show you’re not hiding ugly views and somehow get a photo showing the kitchen flowing into the light family room area.

It was overpriced to start - I'd be looking and thinking where is the justification for an 100% price increase in 7 years. Apart from the busy road there's not major issues I'd get some new photos and a new listing when current one expires you will probably get a cheeky offer with the massive price drop suggesting desperation

Unfortunately, it's a buyers market at the moment. Every house is being reduced, and many houses remain on the market for a while before being bought. Look at house many houses were sold around your area, the price they sold for, do your market research and make sure you are not under pricing.

That was my first reaction, but I can see that OP carried out significant "improvements" (these are somewhat personal though) since they purchased it.

When I look at all previous sales for that postcode (on houseprices.io), this property stands out as potentially being over-developed beyond it's potential value.

A tricky one. The only consolation is that they paid £35K less than the previous purchaser.

@LibertyLily - your old house was fabulous (love your taste). How could you bear to leave?

@Londonmummy66 that's really kind, thank you so much 💐
We desperately wanted to move back closer to family and resigned ourselves to starting over with another project and it was so worth it!

Location is everything. It'll be the main road factor. My house took 3 years to sell because it was opposite a river. Which floods.
It's just a waiting game.
It'll sell sooner ir later.

I'm jumping on this thread. I put my house on the market at the end of April. It's been reduced twice and now it is at a competitive price for the area; going by the last viewer's feedback. Getting viewings is like gold dust, and they tend to be people who aren't proceedable. This house has become somewhat of a burden now. I resent it for not allowing me to move onwards. I can see myself still being on the market in December, and crying next to the Christmas tree.

@daffolilly I hear you and I feel for you.

We are in an area where houses are just not selling. Some stunning well priced properties have been on the market for more than a year and still have not sold.

We accepted an offer on ours in May after 9 months on the market after thinking we were never going to sell it. Fast forward to now and our buyers still haven't made any progress with buying and we feel we are going to have to go back on the market. I literally feel sick about it and to be back at square one.

Honestly I get you, its soul destroying. When we accepted an offer back in May we were so excited and now it seems we are still going to be here at Christmas when we thought we would be well away by then.

I may be joining you in sobbing next to the Christmas tree.😕

if something is not selling it is ALWAYS THE PRICE

Its location and price I’m afraid! The EAs seem to be clinging on to Covid crazy prices. Our friends are selling a house down the road from you and it’s been reduced 3 times, they have had maybe 5 viewings in total. It’s been on the market for months!

@DIYQueen93 I've reduced it twice to what a viewer now described it as "competitive for the area". If I reduce it anymore, I might as well give it away for free 😞. What part of the UK are your friends in?

so competitive that no one has offered on it ,,,,
people can see 2 reductions, they are now waiting for the next one...

Carmarthenshire, Wales

I went to a view a house not long ago, it’s been on the market 5 months with not a single viewing. It was up for £600k, reduced 3 times and now on for 500k - I offered £400k. They obviously rejected it because they were told 5 months ago they would get 600k for it but the reality is, it isn’t worth it. If people are not able to sell their own properties, they are not going to pay over the odds for a house purchase either.

Does your house need modernising? The one we viewed hadn’t been touched in 40 years so there’s no way we were going to be paying over the odds for a house that needed total renovation.

@ErlingHaalandsManBun My house is now reduced to 10k less than everything else in my area of the same build. It's a steal now, but STILL no interest. My house is not overlooked at all, it's been extended so bigger than houses of the same build. It's on a very quiet, tree-lined road, less than 2 mins walk from an outstanding school. Houses on this road used to fly off the market within weeks if not days. The only viewing I got which was very positive (apparently the viewers fell in love with it, and couldn't stop talking about the house for days after viewing it), turns out they hadn't even got their house on the market to sell. I'm at a total loss as to what to do, but it's reassuring this seems to be the case for a few of us on this thread. It's sounds like you've been through a lot with your house, and I'm really, really hoping you sell it by Christmas. It'll give me some hope too.