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

It is beautifully decorated, OP.

I think, as others have said, it's partly that flats are now hard to sell, it's not a great time of year, you're with an online estate agent and...the price doesn't help. You paid over the odds at the time you bought (understandable), but I think you'll be lucky to get what you paid for it now. The price is far too high.

There are also some for whom the layout just doesn't work. I would never look at a basement flat, and the primary bedroom is in the basement, with no windows (the small skylight doesn't count, for me). It also has no proper wardrobes which, although an easy fix for the buyer, is something I would find annoying. If I were a buyer with a child, I wouldn't want my child on a different floor to me. You only have one bathroom, which is also in the basement. Again, that's not ideal for someone with a younger child, as I would worry about them coming downstairs at night on their own to use the bathroom. If I had a teen, I would think the flat is too small, particularly if I were thinking they may have to live at home well into their 20s. The garden is a massive selling point, but it's not been shown at it's best. In fact, most of the photos could do with being redone.

I mean a normal angled shower head on the wall, and preferably in a partially enclosed shower cubicle. Especially with kids, once kids are old enough to shower by themselves, a normal and enclosed shower are much easier.
I've lived in lots of flats/houses over the years, and stayed in lots of homes too, I've never come across a bathroom with only a rainfall shower and handheld shower head before. Our shower has a rainfall head and an angled head, which is pretty standard in the bathrooms I have been in.

Historically, maisonette’s have been priced higher than ‘normal’ flats, but to all intents and purposes your home is a flat and as we all know the market for flats is bloody awful. If I’m up for spending £700k on a two bed home in London I could get more bang for my buck further out in better areas. Also, Clapton is a bit of a dump and you should have priced the flat accurately from the beginning (always the sign of a shit estate agent when they overprice at the start).

I would take it off the market, bin off Purple Bricks, and reduce to £620k in the spring.

Hi OP, I know this area well. It's a lovely flat- if you were selling it in a couple of years I'd come and view it myself. I have quite a lot of comments for you.

1. While 2 months isn't that long not to have sold in the current market, it's a long time to have only had 6 viewings. That suggests that your flat is fairly substantially overpriced. Prices for flats in London have dropped over the last few years, especially leasehold.
2. I would suggest you take it off the market for now. Get valuations done by three proper agents telling them you want to price to sell. The best agent IME in your area is Castles so I'd include them.
3. Being with Purplebricks isn't helping you. They may be ok in a sellers' markets where flats just sell themselves, but to sell now you need an experienced and proactive agent who will actually come up with a plan for selling the flat, advise you properly on price and manage the process for you. Purplebricks do none of this- they just overvalue to get your business. Listing with Purplebricks also sends a sign to buyers that you are people who like to do things on the cheap.
4. Relist in early spring at a sensible price (I would imagine that this will be no higher than £650k and might be even lower- see what the agents say). Don't say "offers over"- it puts people off and is completely meaningless if you're not getting offers or even many viewings. You want as many offers as you can get- even if they are lower than you would accept it's all useful information.

How do your upstairs neighbours access their part of the property?

The strong point is the garden. It’s not neglected or anything but can you give it bit more TLC, just to really make it stand out? Maybe the view from the end of the garden toward the house rather than outwards?

I don’t think there is anything cosmetic that you can do to your flat. It is just the market. The market in London has been bad for years.

An estate agent told me that you shouldn't put a price on that's just under the next £100k up because on a price band search it will come out at the bottom. I don't know if that's true, they weren't a good estate agent!

Nice flat, I hope you get a buyer soon.

What a beautiful home. Good luck.

I know that folk won’t believe it but flat prices have actually risen over the last 10 years in this area (including most recent years) - see Area360 for evidence. So unless you badly overpaid back in 2021, today's price seems reasonable.

Why are you on with Purplebricks? This makes you look like a novice at this price point and is a bit suspicious. Reducing to a 699 figure also looks daft. Take it off the market now and relist with a reputable agent in the spring.

The floorplan / EPC discrepancy seems odd. It needs to be fixed / explained.

That mortgage and deposit is nightmare fuel! Beyond most of the population.

I'm not your target market in any possible way, but having lived in a flat in a divided up old building before-never ever again. The noise literally made me mentally ill.

• I wouldn’t look at a Purple Bricks property personally - annoying as estate agents are, I’d rather everything go through them (and rightly or wrongly I hate viewing if the owner is there)
• Photo quality is poor - lighting is off and they look grainy
• 2 months really isn’t long for a flat in London at the moment. Friends just sold something similar in Crystal Palace and it took them 9 months and 2 price reductions but they needed to do it in order to upsize. Sit tight and it will sell at the right price.

I think it is the type of flat young professionals would like, but then the garden is a lot of maintenance. I would not be able to live somewhere like that with two children (floor space of actual rooms is more like 700 square foot).
I think if it had a side extension and a large garden office it would be much more livable for a family.
The trouble with trendy areas of London is that the type of people who can now afford those prices aren’t those who will compromise readily on space/practicality. Tend to be people working long hours in professional jobs unless you find someone whose parents buy them the starter flat. But then they might be put off by the garden maintenance. I wonder whether you can somehow suggest a garden office etc and is a side extension possible? Also any EPC below C I would not touch with a barge pole right now as cannot be let out (if they go ahead with this EPC C for rentals, the way the Government are going for landlords it is conceivable they might do it).

8 weeks is no time at all @Starlingshoes123 I wouldn’t have dropped the price yet. As others have said, the market is very slow, people would want to have been in by Christmas, families won’t want to move schools etc and the Purplebricks office quoted is in W10 not local at all. I’d take it off the market for a bit and wait. Then go with an agent with a local physical presence.

It’s a smart flat but a quick look on rightmove and there are a number of very smart two beds for 650k and below.

I wouldn’t touch Purple Bricks having had an appalling experience buying with them a decade ago. Maybe speak to a local agent? They’ll know the market better and more likely know what the issue is

Depending on how much you need to move you may have to consider making a loss on your flat as you bought around a peak. Probably best to sit tight. I remember the negative equity trap in the very early 1990’s where millions of home owners had to stay in their properties or lose money as hey had bought at a boom time in the later 1980’s.

One of the very big houses on my road sold during Covid for 500k It needed a total refurb, they will have spent at least 150k. Some folks from London bought it. People were shocked they paid that much. Fast forward 4 years the house next door which is exactly the same is put up for sale for 500k but it is immaculate, a real show home.

Median flat price in 2021 here was £454k. Median flat price now is £450k, unfortunately for OP. In real terms that's a drop of over 20%. Houses have done better but they're still down in real terms. https://area360.uk/postcode/E50EX

Over 10 years the real terms position is even worse.

Get it off Purplebricks and find a kosher local estate agent.
A friend of mine is trying to sell her studio 29.9 m sq flat in E17 with PB and she hasn't a hope. And hers is overvalued too.

I think the problem is that a lot of families would compromise on area/ finish to get more square footage/ storage (I dont understand where all your stuff is and lack of dining table would make me discount instantly), and young professionals would like the flat (dinner on laps or knock the second bedroom through) but not want the garden or be prepared to pay a premium for that.

Purple Bricks is off-putting- this is probably unfair but I can't shake off the feeling that people who skimp on EA fees also possibly skimp on maintenance/ DIY.

Thank you for all the responses!

To reply to a few things, yes it’s a weird layout! We had a dining table in the living room (and lots of eating outside in the summer) but removed it for photos. The kids room would be the natural dining room/study if you didn’t have kids.

There’s a walk in shower. The basement bedroom is actually lovely and temperate in the heat, and cosy in the winter.

So my thought with purple bricks is that people just look at Rightmove and what more can an estate agent do? Happy to be proven wrong!

I'm afraid that you are not really up with EA'ncy. A good EA sells the price of the property, secures the best offers, gets it sold quickly, ensures that the sale progresses to completion. PB wont help much on any of those scores.

I should show my "working out" on PB.

Take ANY weekly edition of the UK Property Market Stats show on YT. Scoot over to the end section where they compare EA's for a given local market. PB will not be near the top.

So my thought with purple bricks is that people just look at Rightmove and what more can an estate agent do? Happy to be proven wrong!

This is definitely wrong. A good agent advises you properly on price (inc strategy if you're mispriced), has potential buyers waiting on their books, vets buyers to make sure they are serious, actively markets to people who may not find your house in a search ("so you can't quite afford what you want in area X, have a think about this flat in area Y only 2 stops along" etc), does the viewings for you, helps you assess offers, proactively manages the process post-offer etc etc.

People do look at RM but that's only step 1.

Step 2 is viewings, offers, chasing vendors and buyers. A good estate agent will smooth the process

Everyone knows that PB are shit. I've never used them and it put me off even looking at properties marketed by them. I've heard enough horror stories from friends. When there's a glut of properties available people can take their pick so why would you do something which is unattractive to almost all buyers except the naive?

Is there an EV charging point directly outside the house ? That along with bus stops is the kind of stuff that puts people off, as you are never going to be able to get a parking spot there and the one that is will be blighted by various randoms charging up cars.

2021 the interest rates were low. Now they are high, so affordability has collapsed.

You say that there were queues of people in bidding wars before. Now there is none. That pretty much tells you the state of the market.

The solution is to drop the price and also work on the price of the house you move to.

Estate agents can help pick out stuff that will sell the house and take better photos. For example some people omit details that add value or leave stuff in that puts people off. They also (generally) only get the money when they deliver.