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?

It's much nicer on the inside than it is on the outside so it might not be giving the warm fuzzy feeling. But I'm not convinced that's your issue.

I think that it is probably your box room. And there is really very little you can do about that. You could present it with a single bed if it will fit or as an office as it could be a lack of imagination as to it's use.

Lack of utility or downstairs bathroom I don't see as these are clearly not on the floor plan. These are wish list nice to have things but you can't always get these things within a budget and I'd say most people don't have them.

Semis like that have always been regarded ‘three-bedroomed’. I was looking at my parents’ purchase details for the house I sold last year. Dated 1966, it lists three
bedrooms, one of which is roughly the same size as OP’s third bedroom (one inch longer and two inches wider). My brother slept there for some years until my parents build a fourth bedroom.

The market is really tough at the moment. I think your home is beautiful OP. It could be the kitchen, I don’t like a galley kitchen with no window. Perhaps the estate agent could take some photos down the other end of the kitchen nearer the window and open plan dining room. But that doesn’t explain those who have come to view it. Good
luck!

In my opinion it’s a terrible layout for the kitchen… it’s tucked away and cramped. You should have opened it up to a much better kitchen diner layout. I’d want to change it so therefore wouldn’t make an offer, too much effort/cost

I like the gold and think it looks less dated than chrome/silver. It's much warmer too.

But why would anyone bother to view when the room dimensions are on the floor plan?

No one gives up time to view a house they have not looked at online and realised the room dimensions.

I think it's the kitchen which is really in a hallway and the online pics make it look more spacious than it is.

I'm far from an expert but the interior looks absolutely fine, floors are lovely being wood! But I wouldn't see it as a feasible 3 bed, because that one bedroom is too small.

Also, have your driveway jet washed, remove any weeds from the paving and put a planter pot near your front door with some colourful flowers (ask the garden centre for an easy one not to kill, leave it behind when you go if you really don't want it!)
The colour of the fence at the front is off-putting, not actually sure why I think it's because the red on the front of the house really clashes with it. Go for a reddish brown to blend the driveway and house together, rather than the arguing colours going on.

The back garden is fine! Maybe put some grass seeds down to blend in the patches but almost everyone prefers a blank canvas.

I was flicking through the pictures thinking what a nice house then saw the front and it was a surprise. The interior doesn’t match the exterior

People are not buying the lamps nor the furniture.
Just the basic structure of the house.
People generally expect to decorate to their own taste I would hope.

Perhaps get quotes for moving things around, installing a door etc to show what's possible

But I'm not sure I'd want to incur the costs of actually doing that work. Perhaps say to your viewers "I love this layout because...."

i don’t mean to talk down the agents at all, they’ve done a great job but we haven’t really had much feedback at all (other than one saying it was ‘tired’ and one that it was too far from the station). I called the agent last week to ask them to try and get better feedback and in fairness they have since then - one mentioned the carpets and desk upstairs, one said they would have to gut the whole house to ‘more modern tastes’ and the agent themselves gave the helpful advice to try and stage the garden better

This is why I feel so uncertain, for some reason I can do interiors but exterior styling is really hard for me, I agonised before painting the fence green, which I now agree does clash

We have a galley kitchen, for us it's a necessity as our house is so small and there's no other configuration that worked. I'm not against galley kitchens in principal.

But it's a really odd choice, you could've made a really beautiful kitchen/diner as you have the space but instead the kitchen feels like an afterthought. I missed it on the photos at first I thought it was a hallway/corridor.

Future buyers will see it and immediately be thinking about knocking walls down and getting a new kitchen put in which is more practical.

@Dandelionkiller when we were selling recently I didn’t find the feedback from potential buyers very helpful at all. A lot of the time I think they just feel like they have to say something. We had “the kitchen is too small” (same size as it is on the floorplan); “we don’t like their style” (as advertised in the pictures and nothing remotely outrageous, just modern traditional); “we liked it but we thought it was too small” (can’t do anything with that and again, it’s the same size as advertised on the floorplan)

I think this is why you got the feedback that they'd need to change the kitchen to modernise it. Your kitchen clearly has expensive fixtures and fittings and looks beautiful, but galley style kitchens are not popular. People want big open plan kitchens with seating areas and big islands. I think some buyers might be thinking that they're paying for a high end kitchen that they'd want to refit.

Yes, I was flicking through the images and thinking, hmm, not my taste but all looks good. Then I got to the images of the front and thought Woah! If I was in the market for a house in the area, at the price you're at, I wouldn't bother setting up a viewing after seeing the outside. Sorry. Total mismatch. The back isn't so bad, something can be done with the garden, but the front is not good.

Also, it's not really a three bedroom (if I needed a three bed) it's a two bed and an office/study. The downstairs loo isn't a bathroom so after seeing it described as '3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms', I'd be totally disappointed upon seeing the reality in the pics, and again, wouldn't bother viewing. And the kitchen, also disappointing, all that space at the back and the kitchen is squeezed down a galley (which could have been a great utility space), although that in itself wouldn't be a deal breaker as I'd imagine I could change that - but the price would have to be reflective. Also the huge desk, chair and screens in the main bedroom should be something people can see past but the problem is, by doing that, you're highlighting how much space you don't have.

It can only be the price, OP.
With houses it is always the price because if you put it up for £400k it would be snapped up in seconds.
Potentially you could start by reducing down to £635k and see if that gets a little more interest from viewers, but it might take a bit of tweaking to find the sweet spot of what someone is willing to pay and what you are happy to sell for.

I’ve not RTFT so sorry if already mentioned
my first impressions were that the interior looked really nice. The living room could do with being cosier though, could add fluffy rugs/throws/some lamps. However the outside just isn’t as nice..but easily fixed! Jetwash the front, take those planters away, put two tall planters with bay trees (symmetry) , wall lights by front door. Front of house would benefit from painting a fresher lighter colour but that would be pricey. Back garden, jet wash, add a sunshade/sail thing can get these cheap and attach to house/fence/pole. Festoon lighting on a couple of poles. The garden needs to look inviting so that you’d want to sit out there eg an outdoor rug and outdoors cushions. Good luck!

Don’t bother
Just lower the price

I think the inside is beautifully presented but it lacks curb appeal for the price (however, I live in North Lancashire which is considerably cheaper than London). Personally, Im not a fan of galley kitchens and that would put me off but you can easily see that from the rightmove details.

If I was looking for a house in that area, I would be interested. A galley kitchen is practical to use, and you have plenty of space for kitchen storage and for a dining table. I would like the garden because you haven't concreted it over or covered it with bloody plastic grass, so some proper gardening can easily be achieved. But many viewers like things to look smarter, so I agree that some power washing, mowing and trimming need to happen outside, and a few planters with colourful flowers. Could you borrow some newer and more attractive garden furniture from a neighbour, just for the photos?

If I had to be honest I would say front of house/ front garden looks like it could do with a clean, jet wash the block paving just give it some curb appeal (being picky por s an easy job) the only other thing for me would be something your unlikely to change if selling and that's the kitchen it's so small like a galley kitchen yet you have a big spacious dining area seems a real shame not to have the kitchen there. Hopefully you get interest or could reduce the price a bit

It looks lovely. I do wonder if the estate agent has done the sort of photos that make rooms appear a lot bigger than they are? We moved recently and some houses we turned upto were so disappointing as they were so much smaller in real life. One if them looked amazing on it's photos and had back to back viewings but was literally tiny in person. It then stayed on the market for months.

Go to B&M buy two tall plastic planters. Plant either matching bay trees/ olive trees/ Salix trees ( can get them in B&M too). Put rocks at bottom, then compost, then plant, then bit more compost, then cover the top of the compost with pretty gravel. Can buy solar powered up lighters there to stick into the pots too

I know you’re not keen on doing much to the back garden, but I’d stain all the fences the same colour, it will make it look more uniform and as a gardener, I’d want to know that the boundaries are fairly structurally sound and maintained, planting etc is a joy for the next owner. I’d also get the grass cut regularly while it’s on the market. Two fairly simple and basic things that to me would make a big difference. Good luck!