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?

I really like the interior. I know some people don’t like galley kitchens but I don’t mind them.

I strongly agree with the suggestion to pressure-wash the driveway. Also, get rid of any weeds encroaching from next door.

I agree with this. I think inside is neat and looks well looked after but the front shot of the house and the back garden look abit like they need some TLC.

however I do think the garden could be sorted very easily with a few potted plants and some outdoor decor to brighten it up. I don’t think it’s a huge issue however it depends what the houses your competing with locally are like.

look on YouTube at some “how to stage a house” videos to get some ideas.

I guess I can try and make the dining room feel more like a part of the kitchen by moving the toaster etc out? In practice we basically use it like a kitchen diner rather than a separate room.

Would it make any sense at all to dress the front room like a bedroom? It isn’t, but it has a door and a toilet across the hall, and we have a second reception room. Might help address the too much reception space, not enough bedroom space issue?

£650 for a plain white box. Jees glad I live in Leeds!

I do think the photos make the kitchen look a bit longer and narrower than it is, I think it’s the lens they use. Not sure if the agent might be open to photographing the kitchen and third bedroom again?

It’s likely to be a young family looking at this, I think many wouldn’t want to sleep on a different floor to their children.
I genuinely think your kerb appeal, external areas are the things to focus on. Inside looks pretty fresh , but outside looks a bit tired and fences need matching/updating.

The rear garden looks neglected compared to the rest of the house. Fence needs painting and the front lacks kerb appeal. It needs some colourful plants/ hanging baskets etc. The driveway and patio both need jet washing. I wouldn’t be interested from your photos. Obviously the Estate agents were not enamoured by the front otherwise it would have been the first picture.

Sorry if this is obvious, but do you mean the back garden fences? They are mismatched - the family before had stained them brown, but as I’ve replaced I’ve kept them in stained as I like the sun silvered wood texture, but can easily stain them all a uniform brown colour?

Did you get as far as planning the loft extension? Could you make the plans available?

I don’t know anything about the area, I just think the market is slow right now. My parents are trying to sell and will probably take their house off the market at the end of the summer and try again next year.

It's a shame, you have a large L-shaped kitchen/diner, but the kitchen is crammed into the long narrow bit and then you have a huge dining space. There's potential there for the next owner to change it around (if they want the expense) and have the larger area as the kitchen, with maybe some internal doors to the open plan reception room to stop any kitchen smells.

Kerb appeal.

I’d get some colourful planters, pressure wash, welcome mat on doorstep.

and the back garden looks very unimaginative. Again, I’d put some colour in (maybe lots of varieties in a single colour palette?). If I were viewing this, I’d be thinking I’d need to spend lots of time/£ on the back garden to make it more cheerful and somewhere I’d like to invite guests to.

you’ve staged the interior pretty well. But not the exterior.

I think it's also the relative size of downstairs (e.g. large, suitable for a family) opposed to the number of bedrooms and the size of the smallest bedroom. Obviously, the loft conversion would have rectified that but...

Also as others have said, lack of kerb appeal. Outside all just looks a bit tired. Not uncared for, but not eye catching. In a good market, buyers would overlook that. But right now it might be having an impact.

This is all very fair - I actually have only lived in flats before this so the front/ back garden stuff has been new to me and I guess I’ve undervalued the difference it can make to buyers. So plan so far is; paint front fences dark grey, stain back fences dark brown, pressure wash front and back, nice (I’m clueless on this) plants either side of the door, maybe with hydrangeas in them?, tidy back garden?

Ahh the problem is I am not a gardener, so I’d spend money on plants just to kill them. Can anyone make recommendations for a few plants?

I think it's a really nice house, and well looked after. Bonus points for a kitchen which isn't grey and doesn't have one of those awful island things!
You certainly don't need to do anything else to the property.
Perhaps inflation is misleading you, house prices have dropped, or at least plateaued.
Leave it for the moment maybe and think about a price drop?.

Not really, I think we’re too far away from the roundabout for that but I know what you mean, it happens a few doors over. Maybe the secondary school catchment isn’t the selling point we thought it was, if it’s younger families who are the target market

Sorry, few roads over

I don't think so - it might just give the impression of a really odd layout - but this is the sort of thing your agents could advise you on?

I think it's a nice house, generally well presented, but the things that immediately struck me were the carpet in the first bedroom looks like it's stained? Well worth spending a few hundred pounds on that, and the rear and front gardens aren't great.

Looking at the size of the rear garden, I think a lot of people who don't know anything about gardening would assume that it will need a lot of time and money to sort out. Actually it's usually fairly easy to replace that type of fence panel - you can buy new panels reasonably cheaply and slot them in - then power wash the patio and really mow the lawn well, add some nice planters.

Good luck op!

The garden is fine, it's a blank canvas, people can change it to suit them. I wouldn't waste money on plants at this stage.

@Dandelionkiller definitely get the kitchen re photographed if they've made it appear smaller. We just sold a house and the EA made ours look so spacious.

my Opinion is that it’s lacking in curb appeal and garden appeal, and the 3rd bedroom is just tiny. I bought my current property based on the look of the garden and the curb appeal. Possibly the wrong thing to do but that’s what sold it to me. I wanted me ( and my friends and family) to walk up to the house and say/think ‘thats lovely’ before they even walked through the door.

for ‘2 bathrooms’ I would be expecting a shower room (en-suite maybe) and a separate family bathroom.

I think new builds are probably smaller but like mine, have a bathroom, en-suite and downstairs w.c. Once you’ve had those things you don’t want any less in a future home. I think I would start by making the frontage more appealing.

Thank you for the kind words. I really didn’t want a gray box so I chose natural materials (wood, marble) but now I’m thinking I should have just gone with glossy and modern, as that might have sold better and we wouldn’t be in this awful position with our life savings tied into a house that won’t sell

I think the house is lovely and realistically priced for the area, but a lot of potential buyers like myself are nervous about buying in this economic climate - interest rates and job insecurity. A minor but valid point that won’t be helping you is ‘offers in excess of’ as that will confuse buyers or just irritate them. If I were wanting to buy a three bed house in your area I wouldn’t even bother getting in touch with your EA because I can see plenty of other turnkey three bed houses for £650k or less that aren’t ‘offers over’ or ‘offers in excess of’.

These are all small cosmetic fixes and won’t make the difference it is always the price, I’m sorry,

on saying that your pictures look stretched, if they are then the rooms could look a lot smaller than they appear in the images, and if the agent says lived in, then it would indicate the pics show it in almost pristine condition but the reality is not this,

so if the house looks smaller in real life and not in as good condition, viewers will think it is not worth the money