No offers after months on the market, are we house blind?

[Dandelionkiller]

Been on the market for a few months now, loads of viewings but no offers! I honestly can’t see the problem and I’m worried I’m house blind at this point.

this is the listing: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/88856211

i honestly don’t think it’s the price. There are unextended, unrenovated houses on for £20k less the next road over.

it’s also a fair price - we paid 550k in 2017, based on inflation it would be 750k now but that just isn’t supported by the area.

weve done lots to maintain it in that time - new boiler, washing machine, dishwasher, fridge. We replaced the laminate floors downstairs with wood. We changed the purple vinyl bathrooms to nice tile. It was meant to be our forever home so none of this was to make a profit.

bits I know are of; we’re a bus ride away from a train station, but I think this is reflected in the price. The carpets upstairs need to be replaced - this was the case when we moved in but we kept putting it off as we were planning a loft conversion.

tbe feedback has been perplexing - one viewer said we’d made the house too traditional and they would have to redo the kitchen / bathrooms to modernise, but I think they are pretty neutral?

what can I do? Is the market just a bit rubbish at the moment?

@LibertyLily, I don't think the decor is "older person" at all, although I'm not sure what you mean, exactly.
You may be "arty" but that kind of thing is very subjective. The interior is very neutral, any buyer's taste can be accommodated, at least temporarily.

why is it listed as 2 bathrooms?

Downstairs loo

It’s a silly thing estate agents sometimes do and pointless because I don’t know anyone who counts a downstairs loo as a bathroom.

Is your favourite colour white? House has no character.

Honestly there's nothing wrong with the house. I know people will be picky about decor, garden etc but the house itself is fine.

At the moment, the market is slow - really really slow. It's a buyer's market.

I'm sure you could sell it if you dropped the asking price. I don't think the price is crazy, but it's just not attractive for the current market.

I think you have to decide whether you're prepared to stay put and hope for that price when the markets become more confident, which is an unknown timeline, or whether you just want to sell and move, in which case you should (in my opinion) cut the price.

You're not doing anything wrong and the house is fine, it's just a difficult time to sell across the board. It's unbelievably slow out there.

For me the kitchen layout would be the deal breaker. It’s almost as though the extension is a wasted space. I would have preferred a more integrated kitchen and social space so as the cook I’m not out of sight in the narrow kitchen. I would definitely have gone for utility area in the corridor and kitchen diner in the lovely square room. Is there any way you can rejig the movable furniture to make the kitchen area feel more like part of the room instead of separate? Maybe that is what is meant by traditional? The kitchen very much is the original layout when it was just a small room without using the benefit of the large extension rather than referring to the actual style of the cabinets.

You asked for blunt - the front is depressingly ugly next to the bright and sunny and tidy interior.

Is there a downstairs loo? Or am I not seeing something?

That would put me off.

Being listed as having 2 bathrooms when there's only one will affect the price. People will be expecting 2 and possibly be put off when they discover there's only one.

Is it possible to put the desk in the smallest bedroom and both kids in the same room (I'm assuming you have 2 from current set up!)? I wouldn't want to spend £650k on a house where I had to work in my bedroom.

I'd also change the listing to one bathroom rather than 2, as a loo isn't a bathroom.

Kitchen and bathroom look nice, completely inoffensive and easy to clean. I wouldn't change those as if a buyer is fussy about a kitchen you are never going to be able to predict what would be to their taste.

I would definitely up the kerb and garden appeal.

@Dandelionkiller here is the reality about house sales at the moment. we went up for sale in March 2025 - large 1880s built 5 bedroom farmhouse, annex, acre of garden. Lovely house, bit tired but massive high ceilings 3 big living rooms downstairs office etc - you get the picture. we went on for £725k with 8 acres which we thought was about right based on inflation since we bought and the area.

It wasnt. we had no viewings. we dropped to £650k then £625k then £599k still nothing. so we changed agent. by this time it was obvious that prices in the area were dropping like a stone. we took out the land and eventually sold for £499k and no thats not a typo - £499k, we needed to sell and I am no doubt the buyers got a bargain but its only worth what someone will pay and the market is incredibly tough if you need to sell. we were lucky financially as we had sold some other properties not our main home in the pandemic and made much more than expected so what we gained on the swings we lost on the roundabout and overall are happy. we wouldnt have felt like this had this been the only property.

this is the market you are in and this is the reality. houses arent going up with inflation they arent cash cows any more.

Ok, I admit I was a bit harsh - generally speaking the overall look is just bland rather than particularly 'old person'. I guess it's more lacking in personality, which unfortunately is how many EAs suggest houses are presented for sale.

Specifically though, I was thinking of the 1960s/70s staircase bannister (something a lot of the older generation installed when it was trendy to rip out original features) but now looks very dated unless you're going for a full on mid century vibe. Which @Dandelionkiller is definitely not.

Also, the textured wallpaper in the hall - very 1980s and doesn't set the scene well as this and the staircase are the first thingsyou see on entering the house.

Ditto the fitted carpets in the bedrooms. We inherited the same here and they were gone within a month or two. We're DIYing our reno project (as always) so it takes a bit longer, but things like manky old carpets are some of the first things to deal with imo. I know the OP said they'd been intending to do a loft conversion so hadn't replaced the carpets, but if hoping to sell at a good price I'd have done this ahead of marketing.

I think its worse than silly, it will annoy buyers and I'd wonder what else was being lied about. Apart from that I think the interior is very attractive and welcoming, also light and spacious. The front could do with a spruce up and the back garden isn't attractive but those are minor things. I think the unrenovated unextended houses for less might be more attractive to some people that the finished job because you can put the money into what you want. I mean there is nothing actually wrong with your extension but its not what I'd choose.

It’s lovely inside. Looks grim and dirty and old outside. Needs sprucing!!

I think the interior, price and location make your home a really great option. It's cosmetic to make the front and back look nicer, and lots of poeple will be willing to do that to a property to make their mark on it. I think this is just a weird time in the housing market and you need to be patient. You have a lovely home.

Many people will not consider a house priced as “offers over”

I think it’s a lovely house. People are probably being extra fussy as they have the time to wait until (cos house prices are stagnating) they find what they perceive to be their perfect property. I think a few pots with colourful flowers would help but that is minor. Price seems reasonable to me.

I don’t see the point of the extension - huge space for a dining table, but the kitchen is tiny and cramped. I can see why a buyer would say it needs to be redone - I would want it to be in the extension, with an island. Third bedroom is too small.
as you get people in for viewings I don’t think there is anything wrong with your pics - however, they are discounting your house because others offer better value for money. And nothing is moving in the market

Is there a bus stop directly outside ?

If so that will be an issue that devalues it.

I think if this is the case then you are better off showing that in the pictures which will mean people are prepared in advance for that eventuallity and people not willing to accept that won't bother turning up.

The inside is lovely and to my taste that would sell it to me BUT I wouldn’t be happy with the outside I think if you were to just paint the back garden fence it would look much better
The gate looks strange that would put me off and the front of the house needs sprucing up

Especially not when its "offers over 100K more than what we paid for it, please"

Hmm interesting. I live in London and that seems on the surface like very good value.

Here is my list of possible reasons - lots of which you can't change.

I don't like suburban 30s roads - they always feel drab and down at heel, and this will be exacerbated by the contrast with some of the very lovely Georgian areas of Blackheath. I think when the market was buoyant, people would scramble for what they could get - but might be less likely to downgrade their fantasies now.

UPVC. I really, really hate it, it's tacky and ugly - horrible blue-white, lumpen and visually jarring, especially when windows which were designed to all be the same don't match each other (ie yours with top opening windows have a different outline of crossbars or whatever they're called ) and they don't match the fenestration that the house was designed with. You could change your windows to posh aluminium ones which are identical to one another and reflect the original design for £££s, but you obviously can't change the rest of the street!

Jet wash the front garden and spend £500 on at least five good planters with tall-ish mature planting. i would seriously consider replacing the fake-stone concrete slabs with something else, but this would be £££.

I would seriously consider buying a mature climber to go up one side of the porch and across it, to break up the expanse of deprssing pebbledash.

Those hipped roofs are difficult to extend into the loft - nothing you can do about that.

The photos are super wide-angle and might lead to disappointment with the size of the rooms

I think the decor is fine - not to my taste but neutral. You could move in and change it gradually.

The back garden is pretty awful but I don't think you could change it dramatically for under £15K. Might be worth thinking about though. You could buy more modern 'classy' slot-in fence panels for the side you own, and buy some mature shrubs for the other side if you can't persuade the neighbours to let you replace the fence. Definitely jetwash it though and get some bright flowering things for the patio area. Cut the grass. Wash the covers of the sofa.

The inflation model you are thinking about is the old one, when wages and wage rises had a meaningful effect on property values, that is out of date by a few decades now, since house prices became all about how much people could borrow, and the cost of that borrowing, any moves upward in inflation make your house less valuable because people can borrow less. If you look at interes rates when you bought the house compared to now you will see that the house will not have gone up in value. Inflation basically makes it harder for people to afford mortgages because of other rising costs and this puts downwards pressure on house prices.

https://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/property-statistics/uk-interest-rate-history-graph/

What actual suggestions did they have? Its their job after all to know this stuff. If they think you should be “selling a lifestyle” they should also know which lifestyle and what people buying that lifestyle expect to see.

You are paying a lot of money to agents for their expertise in presenting and selling houses in your area. Go back and ask them what lifestyle and what changes you should make if its a problem.

I hate offers over. People generally know how much money they have and know they can’t get into some bidding war.
You need to fix the price. Agree about tiding up the front and refiguring smallest room, it doesn’t look useable just now.
I wouldn’t look at somewhere with a bus stop outside though so you need to be aware of that.