Struggling to Sell our house

[TigersoulBlue]

Hi Everyone.
I hope you don't mind me posting here to get some advice about selling our house, we use an Agent, and its been on the market for 868 days, we have had some interest but nothing enough for anyone to put in an offer. I would be grateful on your views, I have tough skin so please be honest. all the other houses that are very similar in this area have sold for similar prices.
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/148421291#/?channel=RES_BUY

Wonderful outlook and an attractive nicely presented house. But the house looks like a smallish 2 bed terraced cottage with a pretty basic attic conversion which provides two rooms with reduced head space and with no bathroom on the same floor. TBH I think it should be priced slightly higher than a 2 similar sized 2 bed house in that area, not as a 4 bed.

The photos are dreadful, sorry. Beds are not made properly. Squint curtains. Wonky toilet seat. Squatty potties look very offputting. Clutter on coffee table. Random throws/blankets lying about. MASSIVE olive oil out next to the cooker. Put stuff away!! While we think people should be able to see past this superficial stuff, many don’t. You need to sell people a vision. It doesn’t look an attractive lifestyle. This sounds very mean, but you said you have the thick skin, you need to get a professional ‘stager’ in before new photos are taken. Your way of staging your home is falling way way short.
But as others say, after 2.5 years, it’s also clearly priced too high.

Surely the market is tiny for people who want to live rurally in a very small hamlet and totally reliant on a car, and yet packed in with loads of close neighbours and no privacy?

I just think you are fishing in a very small pool.

The bedroom with the yellow blanket on the bed - couldn't someone have made the bed properly? The photo of attic room focused on that very sad green piece of furniture - just does nothing for the room at all.

But those are quibbles really!

I would never buy a house next to open fields
Is there talk of something being planned maybe.

I agree with the person who said its an isolated terrace, all the disadvantages of rural life with none of the advantages and no privacy either.
The photos......the inside ones look a bit AI manipulated to me.....something a bit unreal about them...
I know its personal but I dislike corner baths and, assuming normal baths won't fit, would be planning to change them out for showers so that would chop into what I might offer. There is also the issue about the house being over three floors, which many people won't want.

IMO, the attic rooms seem to have no purpose, make 1 a single bedroom and the other a study/hobby room. There's no privacy in the garden which is a deal breaker for me with a terraced house. The price is too high for what you have.

Description needs to say that high up

The photos put me off. Out of the 14 inside pictures, 3 of them are of a loo.

Thanks for your point of view :) but if they cant afford total isolation and want to live in the countryside then this is for them, like it was for us, and we love it here. everyone loves it here and it is very hard to leave. its has an enchanting hold on you. the pictures don't show this though.
the neighbors sold for over 400k very recently and another neighbor sold for 350k last year in this complex and the house next door is a smaller 3 bedroom, almost sold 3 years ago at 340k, so i'm not sure your figures are correct, but everyone has there own views and i appreciate them. Ill take this into account when thinking out our next move.

When you say the other house was smaller - was it a smaller footprint ? Because your top floor doesn’t count for much which is why some say it’s more like a 2 bed

3 years ago was peak house price in most areas

it’s an incredibly difficult market - I’d still switch agents though

wow yes i feel you on that one. i think they are trying to show outside to divert from the inside. i wish my agent was more honest with us.

But do you not understand that the people who will love it there are a small pool? If I didn't mind a terrace with neighbours but would prefer not to have them, I'd want the payback of local facilities, a decent pretty garden and so on. Similar with the bathrooms. If I didn't mind not having a proper bath, I'd be expecting a decent shower or two, not corner baths.

Totally agree with all you have said. we will look to getting it re-staged and give every room a purpose.

I'm a person who can look past poor decor myself, as the houses ive been looking at buying are right dumps. but as you say not everyone sees that way. which i get now.

Where I live house prices have dropped a lot! I'm selling a flat that was valued at 240k in 2020 but it's now valued at 210k. My work colleagues said her house was recently valued at the same as it was 8 years ago. My friend was in the middle of selling, and the buyer demanded to drop the house price by 15k! It's tough.

Prices are dropping quite a lot in my area, and in other areas too.
Two years ago was a peak I think for many, and there's no point hankering after that price.
I am in the same position, OP, and it's painful, but it is what it is.
Mortgage rates are high, the market is stagnant in many places, and whilst things are selling, they are taking longer.
I get more notifications for price drops than for new properties coming on.

i totally get the a very pool selection of people wanting this type of house. but the other houses selling say there is still an active market for them.
if they want to change the bath for a shower then that's something they can do later, theres a shower in the property already. i hear you on the garden issues. i really understand all your views, if they are a concern to you then they will be a concern for other. so its alot for us to think about.

Flats are dropping much more than houses, because there's a new Leasehold bill that hasn't gone through, service charges have gone up a lot, and people are worried about cladding and resale. I'd still buy a flat myself, but I've never minded some of the flat problems like leasehold that put other people off.

Flats are plunging, houses are dropping 10% in our area, they are being put on too high, then being dropped quite quickly depending on how much the person wants and needs to move.

The market is sluggish as so many people can't sell!

Plus a lot of three bed houses have come on as landlords are getting out of the market, and despite what everyone was saying, large companies don't tend to want to snap up this type of property. Ideally they would go to ordinary families, but mortgage rates have gone higher and that's putting a ceiling on what they can borrow- so landlords don't want them and families squeezed out can't quite climb back on the property ladder.

The government was warned about the Renter's Act but here we are. It's not just that, the whole global economy is struggling due to all the wars, Trump.

thanks for your insight, i can see the drops too. yes the buyer really control the market, its up to them what they want to pay.

For 2 years?

Yopa are not being successful at selling this house - to put it mildly. And some of their photos do nothing to help sell it so shouldn't be included. Plus they clearly overpriced it to begin with.

I would take it off the market now and dress it internally to make it look more appealing (nothing expensive). Then remarket in the Spring at a lower price and with a traditional Estate Agent.

Its a beautiful house with a lovely size garden. Maybe not having a drive outside will put sone off. Maybe it is the pricing a bit having been on the market for so long, but the rise in price since you bought it in 2017 doesn't sound excessive.

Try it with a new agent. They havnt put the EPC up in all this time. Do you even have one? Also the £80 odd charge for the money laundering checks would put me off. This should be included in the seller's agent fees. Buyers are already paying stamp duty on the houses, basically paying the tax on sellers profits. The selling fees should be covered by the sellers, ha
picking agents to try and save some money by passing these costs on to the buyers would put me off and id be worried how competent they are and what other money they be trying to come after

This is good advice. I'd do this.

I have a friend whose house sat for two years but they did sell eventually, they had over twenty viewings, it just didn't ever quite take off but a combination of price drop and keeping it looking fantastic did eventually shift it so don't despair.

Nice house. Must be overpriced for the area.

yes smaller, one less bedroom so they have 2 bedrooms 1 boxroom, smaller foot print, smaller garden.

Yer our top floor is an office space and a Cat play room. they are both big enough to fit double beds in. so they can be utilised as bedroom for youngsters, but not fully functional like down stairs bedrooms.

Could you post a link to that house that sold for 400K please OP, I can't find it on Rightmove Sold Prices. Is their boxroom where your ensuite is? Do they have a loft conversion?

When you search on right move is it marked as a terrace? Wondering if it’s not coming up in the search results as people in that price range will be searching maybe for detached or semi- or something and not ticking terrace @TigersoulBlue