What is wrong with this house?

[ButterPiesAreGreat]

Saw this house on Facebook last night.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/160791941#/?channel=RES_BUY

Sent it jokingly to DS as it’s not far (15 mins walk) to our team’s football ground and that was highlighted as its selling point. Then I looked through the pics and realised it’s a hell of a house.

Now the area it borders is not great but it’s not awful and a good mile from the really rough parts of town. It’s well away from the ground with most fans staying well away from the house taking different routes back into the centre. It looks out onto the park so it has a lovely outlook and the road in front is not a through road so doesn’t get loads of traffic. It’s also about a mile from the uni, where there are a few purpose built student accommodation places.

The more I thought about it, the more I was curious about the price because the house is in apparently good condition, even if not all of it is all to my taste. You could easily move straight in.

So I looked back at Zoopla price history and discovered it was listed 3 years ago, for £800K! Then it was listed last December for £650K, then listed again in June for £590K. There’s been 4 reductions of price since then, the latest just last week. It’s not sold any of those times, it was last bought in 2006.

Now I completely get that the area is not completely salubrious, and that interest rates have affected house prices but a 50% reduction in 3 years seems excessive. As it stands now, the owners are selling it for £50K less than they bought it for 20 years ago so they wouldn’t get back what they have clearly put into it.

I can only think that there is something structurally wrong or there is a legal problem of some sort, because if you wanted a 6 bed house in Preston, surely £400K sounds like a bargain. Our house is not much cheaper than that and it’s an OK size in a nice but not super expensive area.

What do you think? What do you think is wrong with this house?

No sense of humour on a Friday?

It's worth a look, OP. I drove 8 hours to see a house that aroused my curiosity, seemed to tick all the boxes, and was mysteriously affordable. We are now living in it, and have never been happier!

It looks lovely. So I bet the survey has thrown something up and buyers have pulled out.

Go and see it ? It’s neighbours probably or structural .
I don’t know if you believe in this sort of things but just from the photos it’s made all my hairs stand , the energy in that house is bad too .

I rather like it, apart from the startling blue everywhere - I couldn't live with that and it would take a lot of work to get rid of it all! However, my absolute dream is to have a real fireplace in the bedroom so that would tempt me to go and view it!

Maybe it's haunted! 👻

I thought this too. Looks like the lawns are possibly astroturf ? The bricked over garden is horrible and a huge amount of work to fix. Still, that doesn’t explain such a huge reduction. The house looks well looked after and it’s large. It really needs a beautiful Edwardian garden though.

I really liked the garden, can imagine sitting out in that with DH on the bbq! But, it would be boring if we all liked the same thing!

I grew up a few miles away from Preston so have a nostalgic fondness for the place, but DH isn't keen. I guess if I look through his eyes I get it, but for me the area that house is in wouldn't put me off. Its not really any different to most inner cities these days.
I do recall a body being found in Moor Park not to long ago, and potentially a violent attack, perhaps thats what's off putting.

I wonder if its just too big perhaps and too expensive to be bought as a hmo. There's a lot of new build estates springing up around Preston, that might well be more appealing for those with young families.

I love old houses, ours is a similar size and what we dreamed of for so long. But it costs a fortune to run and takes a massive amount of maintaining. Weve been here over ten years and this last couple with interest rates and bills going up have been difficult to say the least. In the current climate I have to be honest and say I wouldn't even look at it. Despite it being gorgeous I just see a money pit.

Unfortunately up North??

Unfortunately?! There are literally plenty of nicer places up north than down south. Live in London and you’ll probably get stabbed.

There’s nothing wrong with it per se…it’s absolutely not to my taste though. The staircase/banister is hideous, the fireplace are not my taste (I prefer our log burner), it’s hard to get a feel for the house from the pictures and I suspect if you visited you’d have a different view of it. The kitchen for example, there’s two different worktops, that leads me to think there’s other weird and wonderful things going on.

Also, you said it’s 1 mile from a really rough area, that’s nothing distance wise and would really put me off.

This. Nightmare neighbour vibes on the aerial to the top.

The house looks nice but the décor isn't to my taste. I am not sure what the issue is. There was a house we looked at when we were buying and it was really nice, massive, decent area, short walk from the shops and a big garden. We went to see it and it just felt awful to be in, just wrong. I said to my husband there is something really wrong with this house. He was keener but listened to my gut instinct.

I asked the estate agent if there were issues with the neighbours and she said no and that the current owners were selling because they needed to downsize unexpectedly. When I got home I saw that they had only ever been in house for about a year. Anyway we didn't put an offer in, bought something else but someone did buy that house and about year later it was back on the market again. It had been done up really well and in the very specific taste of the buyer as a family home with personalised kids bedrooms and so on. It must have taken them the year to do it up and now they were already selling which I thought was strange. It sold and again about 18 months later it was back on the market. I haven't looked at it in ages but I'm convinced that house must be haunted.

I noticed this too but if you change the position on Google street view you'll see it isn't actually wonky - think the camera went a bit funny.

Beautiful house! Although the views of the field would be lovely when no one was on it, I wouldn't ever live opposite a sports field again (and I can see markings and nets in the photo).

Did it once and at weekends you'd be listening to screaming kids all day, in the evenings it would be grown men playing football and swearing at each other. Then when it was really late crowds would gather with loud music.

I'm sure that's not the reason it's not selling though, but maybe one of many factors. I would never have thought it would be an issue before moving in to the house I lived in.

Small kitchen for the size of the house.
massive family house, barely any garden and the driveway / garden is an odd set up and not ideal.

the house is stunning, but I can see why it wouldn’t be quite to everyone’s taste.

Book a viewing and report back?

Im thinking - big house, not much call for them these days
Old roof/structures/original wood floors, possible structure or damp issues
no insulation/high bills/high council tax
Garden overlooked, no privacy
Neighbours issue - what is the building with the long slate roof next to the garden: is it something noisy and industrial?

The kitchen and bathrooms are nice but the rest of the house is ugly.

The stairs hurts my eyes. I’d want most of the fires ripping out. The awful cornices would want taking off so probably a would need replastering.

Views are lovely and nice garden.

I would just look at it and see all the work it would need doing.

Gosh, it's a really beautiful house. All those original features! I can't believe anyone would say 'awful cornicing' or remove it. Taste is very individual I suppose.

I guess the area has changed around it in the last 20 years, especially if it wasn't the best area to begin with

I live about 30mins away from there, it’s a lovely house but on match days those roads are at a stand still! With the match day traffic and that retail park you can be sat around for at least an hour!

It looks really nice and amazing value but I don’t know what house prices in Preston are like. Is there a doss house next door or something?

It's in Deepdale. Like any place anywhere, it has its good areas and its areas that are known as 'bad'. Deepdale is known as a 'bad' area so prices are lower. It's actually not that bad, but that's the impression. It's also quite a studenty area with a lot of those houses being converted to student flats. I am from Carlisle and went to Uni in Preston and lived in Deepdale and I am sure our neighbours didnt love us! I recently moved from Milton Keynes and Bletchley was the same. House prices way lower as known as a 'bad' area but actually it was fine to live in.

The decor is a bit "Liberace redesigns the hotel in The Shining"!

😂😂