Why is my in-laws' gorgeous house not selling?!

[irisetta]

What is wrong with this listing? Some back story - my in-laws have been desperate to sell up for a while to be nearer to us. They live near Portsmouth, we are in St Albans. They have a beautiful house! It's 5 minutes walk from the beach in Lee-on-Solent, it's right next to the High Street but super quiet. Huge back garden. Beautifully renovated home, when they bought it it hasn't been touched in at least 30 years. It looks immaculate. No it doesn't have the open plan kitchen diner, but what there is, is perfect.

For the first 7 months while they were listing the house, the estate agent was effing up the RightMove listing quite badly - they were only appearing for people looking for bungalows, when it is not a bungalow 🤦 I noticed this recently. 🙄 After pointing it out, it's since been amended to appear to anyone looking for a 3 bedroom detached property in Lee-on-Solent.

Anyway, now that it's appearing to everyone who might want it, AND they've reduced the price (too much, IMO), my mum-in-law is somehow still convinced that the lovely estate agent is now doing his level best for them - still no viewings after a couple of weeks. And they've only EVER had 3 viewings, ever since it was first listed those 7 months ago - none of which were even proceedable. Thoughts, lovely ladies of Mumsnet?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/173477669

I'd love it but that's because I know this house from living the next road over years ago and still go to Lee as I have friends there. I've walked past it many a time.

Sadly, it's out of my budget but at just a couple of minutes from the shops and beach would be perfect for me. I love Lee.

Hope they get a sale soon OP. 🙂

I had forgotten about that. We had an artex ceiling in one of our houses years ago, but had it removed.

Yeah after is a pain in the hole.

why are you so determined that it’s immaculate, gorgeous and perfect and not a bungalow @irisetta ? It seems a bit odd to me that you’d look at that house and think that it’s gorgeous and immaculate and perfect? Have you looked at houses in the same price bracket within a 5 mile radius or a 5 min drive for eg to see what their competition is?

Kindly, I think your parents need to adjust their expectations on what they will be afford if they move into your area.

My local area is filled with houses that are priced on the higher end so sellers can afford the upgraded homes they want to buy. All of these are moving very slowly.

You've had a lot of really good advice here. Your parents need to be realistic and either take it off and make improvements or lower the price (after changing estate agents).

In my nasty cynical opinion, the EA has got some mate/family member/developer lined up to get it at a knockdown price once your ILs reduce even further. V likely brown envelopes involved.

I’m only saying this because I have known personally of such goings on.

If it were me, I’d change agents asap.

I think it’s overpriced OP. It also looks a bit dated in places - there’s far too much blue in the decor and the photos have been taken from odd angles. It seems a bit cluttered too - maybe declutter a bit, go for more neutral colours if possible and then have photos done again. I do think you’re going to have to lower the price though.

I had high expectations reading your post of beautiful house and renovated etc. but then looked at the Rightmove link. I agree with others it’s dated now.

Stuff. Too much stuff as well as quite a few different colours and materials in each room so the eye can’t see size of rooms etc. Would suggest stripping the place of some (lots) extraneous stuff, throws, cushions ….. and get new pictures. To be honest it looks like a house which someone has done in a way to be comfortable and work for them but that can limit potential market.
In a slow market you need to stand out and the pictures, combined with layout of the house would make me swipe past.

Most bungalows have at least one upstairs bedroom. Very few people seeking a bungalow are expecting no upstairs at all, they just want one of the bedrooms to be downstairs. Bungalows generally are homes that have one floor of accommodation that has vertical walls and then the roof pitch starts, but for most bungalows the roof is pitched high enough to have comfortable full-height bedroom space in the loft. Dormer bungalows and chalet bungalows are sub-types of bungalow and they can sell well at a good proce in places where supply is lower than demand. The key bit of information is how many people are seeking a dormer bungalow in this area and is it more or less than the numbers that are for sale? I think taking it off the market for a few weeks and relisting with a different agent and new photos would be wise.

I don't think you were correct to get the description changed to stop it being shown as a bungalow. It isn't attractive to people seeking a 3 bedroom house. People seeking to buy a 3 bedroom house are expecting kitchen dining and living space on the ground floor, 3 bedrooms upstairs and a loft that they will eventually be able to convert to make it become a 4-bed place as their family grows. The difference isn't a bad thing and when marketed properly, to the right audience at the right time and when there isn't an oversupply of similar properties, a bungalow can sometimes sell for more than the equivalent size of house.

But tbh as a bungalow it's not grear, because the downstairs bedroom isn't a master en-suite - it's the smallest bedroom. So it isn't perfect for bungalow-seekers either, so it's not going to get the premium price - whoever buys it is goong to be compromising because it's what they can afford

Is this a joke?

They bought it for almost half the price and now they think that their horrible house in the middle of nowhere is worth over half a million?

Boomer entitlement at its finest. I would pay 350 for that tops

“I live in a house. If I look at the ceilings of the upstairs rooms, I can see that they are flat. Above the upstairs rooms there is a loft with sloping roof space. In your in-laws house, when you look at the ceilings of the upstairs rooms, you can see that they have sloping walls. This is because the rooms are built into the roof space. There is no loft/roof space above the rooms, because they are already in the roof space.”

OP ignore stairs - they are a red herring. This ^ poster puts it well and here are photos from your in laws house which illustrate the point. The pink bedroom is the downstairs one, but in a HOUSE the walls & ceilings would be like this too, and not sloping like the one with the brown bedspread

I don’t know the area but sold my grandparents house in Portsmouth around 10 years ago for considerably less than this.
If I were looking at this house I’d be thinking it’s only a 2 bed as I’d want to knock the kitchen into the downstairs bedroom to open it up.

I’d say they need to look at how much they’d likely need to pay for a house near you that would suit them at their stage in life, then price their current house accordingly. So if they need £500k, adjust the sale price to £550K. If they’re thinking - we’ll get as much as we can for our house and have a wad of cash in the bank then they could be waiting a long time.
From looking at the listing, it IS a bungalow, just one with bedrooms in the loft. It’s very dated, I’m guessing would need £50k spending on it to completely modernise it. It’s cluttered with too much furniture, the sun room gives the impression that it’s hiding from the sun with all those curtains and fabric on the ceiling. Yes, the garden is lovely but it needs more photos of it to sell it.

Some of these posts are just rudely worded.

Perhaps the house seems lovely to her because they have spent happy times there as a family. It LOOKS like a house that has been loved.

Yes, we all need to take a step back and depersonalise when listing a home for sale, but I do think people could steady on with the insults.

There are similar properties on the market nearby for £200k less!

😂 I was thinking the same!
Also it’s clear to everyone that this house is horrible. I wonder if this is some sort of weird reverse where OP knows her in laws house is vile and can prove it to them by showing all these comments

I’m not at all discounting the idea of an estate agent with a plan to sell at a knockdown price to a mate, but I have to say that the estate agent isn’t behaving like that at all at the moment. I can believe that the estate agent is about to go bankrupt, is desperate for listings and has taken it on by massively overvaluing it though.

I’m afraid it’s not a chalet bungalow - those have planned upper floors, with windows in the wall plane, reducing the loss of head height inside. It is a bungalow with an attic conversion and some dormer windows and otherwise roof lights as windows, so the very definition of a ‘dormer bungalow’.

The first floor here is a converted attic, and the usable, full height space in each of those upper rooms is very limited.

If they are selling as a family home then having the main bedroom on a different floor from the children’s rooms is problematic while they are young.

A big mature garden is difficult to keep up when working with a young family. Conversely, older people will be future proofing and considering whether they can maintain it in their old age.

Unfortunately it falls between a retirement prospect and a family home, so has a smaller market to appeal to anyway.

Then add the fact that they are asking £250k more than they bought it for, and the other more desirable family homes available for much less in the area, and it looks as though nobody is being realistic about the price.

Artex does not automatically contain asbestos, so please stop scaremongering. It depends on the age of the artex. It’s always advisable to remove a tiny amount, and send for testing. Very easy to organise online.

I know you keep saying it is not a bungalow - but it was a bungalow when initially built? I only see a bungalow when I look at the details. It has just had its loft changed into rooms.

I have been recently looking to help my mum move from 4 bed detached in a sea side town - into a bungalow, and we selected a bungalow just like your in laws but 250k less. Estate agents in other areas would see this property as a bungalow with a loft conversion.

I also see that property as over priced. The advice from our estate agent was not to do cosmetic work, clear clutter as a priority.

Ot maybe the deal is her in-laws arr giving them a wad of cash from the sale to help them move up the ladder, so OP has a reason to be quite invested in how much this sells for

This!! I can’t believe the denial. It was built as a bungalow and looks like a bungalow. It has a loft conversion. It is still a bungalow.

I agree with this comment.
Otherwise they need to drop the price if they're not even getting viewings.

Loads of bungalows are converted, extended upstairs. I would still think of them as bungalows but with an extra floor- I guess it’s a distinctive style. They often come with particularly large lovely gardens like this one.

Take a look at other listings on rightmove filtered on “bungalow”. I’ve just done this for broadstone Dorset as I know the area has a lot of bungalows / ex bungalows. Quite a few with a large second storey like your in-laws one come up. Look around and see what descriptions they use - they definitely vary.

I’m afraid it is a converted bungalow.

In St A almost all of them have had the same done. It puts them in no man’s land for pricing, huge footprint, but gone into the loft. As bungalows are always expensive due to ground size, this leaves these conversions in a tight spot.

FWIW my FIL moved to the area and 3 bed actual bungalow was £1.3m….