Can’t sell our flat

[Starlingshoes123]

Hi!

Our flat has been on the market for nearly 2 months now and we’ve had 6 views and no offers. We are trying to upsize locally but can’t proceed until we have an offer. We’ve dropped the price twice now (starting £750 which we thought was too high) - we purchased for £690, 5 years ago. It’s a lovely area with excellent schools and great amenities.

When we purchased there was a queue out the door for viewings and a bidding war. It’s the biggest garden I’ve seen in our area (based on friends houses and viewing houses to buy) which was a huge selling point for us post Covid but some of the feedback we’ve had is that it’s too big!

We are a family but we’ve had no families looking, mostly single early 30s with gifted money rather than a mortgage. Not sure what else we can do!

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/93523506#/?channel=RES_BUY

Two months is nothing at all, OP. It's a tidy flat. The location is good.

What would put me off, since the negatives are probably what you're most interested in: leasehold, the master bedroom makes me feel claustrophobic with no window, no apparent stand up shower.

Lots of landlords selling flats, combined with a bad economy mean it's a buyer's market. I'm not sure there's anything you can do.

There's a lightwell in the floor of the living room (in front of the bay window) to give light to the basement bedroom, which has a tiny window that doesn't look like it's big enough to escape through in the event of a fire?

The layout isn't ideal and is a disadvantage in comparison with flats with a normal layout and windows.

Disregarding location, £700k is a lot of money for a 2 bedroom flat and there are cheaper areas of London where buyers could get a 2 bedroom flat for a few £100k less, or maybe even a house.

This is really nicely decorated, I LOVE the kitchen and the feature wall in the kids room. The only thing i was wondering was about the main bedroom and clothes in alcoves not in wardrobes, I’d maybe have some doors over them but that’s just personal preference I doubt it would be a deal breaker. I hope a buyer comes along soon.

My dad's 2 bed conversion in Fulham took almost 5 months to get an offer. Was on originally for £700k and he accepted £550k!
My brother's one bed in Putney didn't sell after 6 months and they were recommended to sell at least than they'd paid 5 years previously. They needed to upsize because they were pregnant, so ended up renting it out. The market has changed in recent years, so you may be in for a long wait.

We've got 2-bedroom flats in our block that have been on the market for over a year. They've dropped from £270k to £240k and still no interest - market town 30mins train to central London. I feel sorry for the owners (young couples wanting to start families) but the market here has been flooded by rentals up for sale (thanks to the Gov mainly) but buyers are bypassing flats and going straight for the new starter homes in the many satellite towns springing up.

Purple bricks is a terrible choice of EA. I would definitely move to a local independent who can properly run the process for you.

Also, note that a neighbour sold for £685k in April. The market is flat atm - why do you think your property is worth £15k (plus stamp) more? (Serious question), because this is precisely what buyers will look at when deciding the value of your property. You almost need to get people through the door.

It could be because for a little hop on the overground you can get this:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/94643898#/?channel=RES_BUY

The floor plan says it’s 93 sq.m, but the EPC says it is 71 sq.m, so which is correct? And why is there a difference?

Hate the bathroom, the illogical photo order, wooden countertops, no dining room?
Also people are rightly wary of basement rooms because of the risk of damp, and in this case, poor lighting.

It’s an attractive flat in a difficult market. Garden is a selling point I’m sure.

We took £100k off our large family home this year. It sold £150k under other similar sized houses sold before the Iran war.
Plenty of requests to rent, only two buyers. We went for the non chain.
We owned a flat once. It took years to sell it. Never again. Young people are skipping flats and buying three beds. My son did this after renting a flat in London. He doesn't want to have to move when he starts a family.
I'm sorry you are in this position. If the government had scrapped stamp duty in this budget it would have made all the difference. British people are conditioned to see wealth from equity. If their houses are not making money they pull up the drawbridge.

This was exactly my thought.

As kindly as possible there is no way you will get back now what you paid for it during the peak madness of 2021. Its a lovely flat but quite overpriced for the market currently.
You have to remember that when you bought it mortgages were still ultra cheap. Since 2021 we have also had huge changes, not just in borrowing costs, but in affordability generally - caused by inflation and massive cost of living increases. Add to that the fact that leashold has become a much bigger negative than it was then.
You need to re price starting with a 5 not a 6 in my opinion. If you really want to move I would do that asap as next year it may get considerably worse.

On a flick through the pictures (which as a buyer is all I would do before moving on to the next property):

• no wardrobes in main bedroom - too small for wardrobes?
• main bedroom is poorly lit. Basement bedroom would put me off.
• second bedroom is very small, no wardrobes again?
• no shower (I've looked again since seeing the comments here, but as a buyer I would have already moved on - but a lack of a conventional shower would put me off anyway)
• home office set up in a hallway screams "this flat is small so we have nowhere else to put a desk"
• is that a filing cabinet in the garden in the last picture? Have they had to move furniture out of the flat and into the garden to make the flat look bigger?
• photos are in an illogical order, very confusing to scroll through
• no dining table?

I then looked at the floor plan and realised that the second bedroom is where I'd expect to see a dining room, sandwiched between the kitchen and the living room.

And then I saw you were using purple bricks and suddenly the photos made sense. I would suggest speaking to a real estate agent about how best to market the property, and have a professional deal with the photos.

There's a walk in shower shown in one of the bathroom photos.

Why reduce it after 2 months, that's far too soon.

You seem to view it as a family property - I don't, It does not look a family space to me so I would focus on professional couples or singles, or somebody older downsizing.

I wouldn't view or buy a property marketing via purple bricks so that is an immediate barrier. Use a proper agent that a buyer will have confidence in.

It’s flats, nobody wants them. At the moment anyway. Not much you can do about that except reduce the price until it’s cheaper than anything else you can get, but you probably won’t want to do that. Sorry op it sucks.

I think it’s stunning btw, beautifully done.

Purple Bricks. I wouldn't consider a property on with them.
Also overpriced, because prices have gone down rather than up since 2021.
Gorgeous flat.

Agree with all of this, the photos are bad. Think of your target market who are probably first time buyers, you need to appeal to them with the right layout and pictures. Also just thinking that there are so many shared ownership schemes in the south east that might appeal to first time buyers, albeit completely different properties but there are an awful lot of schemes offering 2 bed apartments all shiny and new, en-suites, fully fitted with incentives such as free appliances etc.

Well presented but flats aren’t selling well at the moment. It’s not a family flat, bedrooms are on different floors and there’s no where to put a table to eat. The layout is odd too as there’s a bedroom between the kitchen and living room.

I can’t see a dining table ?

FebruaryUsername

what is a conventianal shower? the shower is a rain shower and hand held, walk in shower I fail to see why this is unconventional? Many properties have weak in showers with rain and hand held

The finish and decor looks lovely but I agree the layout is a bit odd with the children’s room on a different floor - but then if it’s couple with no kids then I can’t see why it would put them off and this could just be dressed as a guest bedroom/office
only bathroom is on the basement level and the utility is down there rather than being up by the kitchen. No space for a dining table seemingly. The garden is great though.
the price is outrageous for a flat but presumably that’s market tested. You perhaps need to accept that 5 years ago was height of the market and if you were in a bidding war then you over paid. You may have to accept reducing further

It's beautiful. I love it. What a gorgeous flat. The market is awful and people can't afford expensive mortgages because the cost of borrowing is high. You haven't done anything wrong, you are just, like us, a victim of Trump's war in Iran. Two months is not long. Have a good think about what you could afford to accept and what you could afford to spend, remembering that interest rates may well be north of 6% for a long time to come. If I were you, I would wait to see if there is a market adjustment and the bigger properties start to come down in price. It doesn't matter if you don't make anything on your flat, so long as what you buy has come down proportionately. The other option you've got is to stay in the flat and build something in the garden to have a bit more space. How many years will it be before your children could make use of a big garden pod playroom without your constant supervision? If all the toys were in there and they just needed the second bedroom for beds, could they share longer term?

I think in a rising market you could defend the use of an online estate agents like Purple Bricks, however I still wouldn’t, but in this falling market I definitely wouldn’t!