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 am soooooo disappointed !

You used the word ' gorgeous ' in the title, then the word ' beautiful ' in your opening response and ' Beautifully renovated home, when they bought it it hasn't been touched in at least 30 years. It looks immaculate.'

So I was expecting a modern interior with the wow factor
boy was I disappointed.

1st photo shows a bungalow, with 2 normal attic windows at the front.

Nice wrought iron gates on the driveway and path would look so nice rather than the basic wooden gates there are currently there.

2nd photo of the front, oh fake grass, shame.

3rd photo - is that what a beautifully renovated home looks like, another disappointment

4th photo - oh ok someone's favourite colour is obiv blue, photo makes it look like the kitchen door won't close coz there is a table in the middle of the floor

5th photo - my goodness what a tiny table plonked in the middle of the room

so which photo is accurate ?

6th photo - oh it's a through room that wasn't clear in photo no 3

7th photo, ah so it's a sitting room / dining room and a study

8th photo - ok so it's a bungalow with stairs, so despite no obiv proper windows at the front there is something upstairs

do they own a lot of dogs ? hence the easy to mop flooring throughout the ground floor

9th photo ah a ground floor bedroom, makes sense in a bungalow
they do really like solid coloured walls don't they

10th photo - is that a white bathroom suite ? with a cream bath panel ?!!! what happened ? did it break and they couldn't find a new white one to fit ?
the scalloped edging on it really dates it

11th photo ok attic bedroom in a bungalow, so a dormer bungalow as it has a proper window
the throw at the bottom of the bed needs to be removed, it's the wrong colour and does nothing for / to the room lots of mismatched furniture dressing table seat but not at a dressing table ?

What are the trailing wires leading from the bedside table ( which appears to be in front of some other piece of furniture ? )

12th photo - another study or even an office, described as bedroom 3

13th photo - more of 3rd bedroom but actually it is a dumping ground for surplus furniture ?

14th photo - perfectly pleasant shower room, with a bit more blue in it of course

15th photo - gosh
swiftly moving onto

16th photo perfectly pleasant square back garden

purchased in 2012, I guess that is when they ' modernised ' it - 14 years ago, not quite how you described it in your opening post ' Beautifully renovated home / It looks immaculate. / No it doesn't have the open plan kitchen diner, but what there is, is perfect.

perfect - sadly no. deeply disappointed.

ooofff - this will be putting off anyone with local knowledge.

I don't think that one is nearly as nice as the one in the OP. Really grey and dreary.

OP have you really never heard of dormer bungalows?

The garden is absolutely beautiful but I agree with others that the tiny table in the kitchen and the very bright wall colours may be offputting. It also looks very expensive to me.

I hope your ILs find a buyer soon - good luck.

It's a lick of paint, photos on a dull day. No furniture all have an impact.

Many of us hate the colours on the OP house as too personal

Over 100,000 cheaper too. You can get a lot of paint for that 😁

It's also bordered by car parks on two sides, and that's something you can't change.

@irisetta If they really want to sell they need to reduce it drastically, not in small increments. It's not the most marketable type of property so smaller pool of potential viewers will make it a longer process to find a buyer. The market is awful at the moment and will probably get worse before it gets better.

If this was my in-laws' property I'd suggest to them that they sack the EA and take it off the market, change the decor to neutral colours, put all excess stuff into storage (including the flag if that's theirs), get a new EA and decent photos and relist it at a price to sell. That might mean £500K with a view to accepting less.

If they leave things as they are then it will not sell. You just will not find a buyer who wants to overpay for it. It's a very tough market and the most competitively priced houses with very little to be done in them will sell first. While other properties are available, ones that need more work will linger unless they are priced accordingly. If your in-laws' house was desirable and a bargain, it would have had loads of offers. It hasn't, it's had three viewings in seven months.

Unpalatable facts: it's vastly overpriced, it needs work, the market is hard, it's not the most versatile property type. There's only one thing they can change here...

It's a house that is missing it's identity.

It's not quite a bungalow as it has the rooms in the loft. It's not quite a family home either.

I would turn the downstairs bedroom into the dining room - list on the floor plan as dining room/ bedroom. Make the lounge/dining room look like a big family living space.

Get rid of the table in the kitchen. It looks like it ruins the flow of the room. It looks like it has an impractical triangle - sink-oven/hob-fridge with the table in it's position.

The sun room looks cluttered.

I would look at getting a replacement bath side as the cream one makes the bathroom look dated even though the other items look newer.

I would be interested to know what the agent is saying to viewers and I would be tempted to see if there is a friend who would be willing to give them a call and ask about the property.

Yeah the little table in the kitchen is a bit tragic and needs to be removed from photos.

Is the flag PILS? If so, they need to remove it as most people will assume they are racist or that it’s a right wing environment. If it belongs to neighbours I guess they either accidentally destroy it or at least get new photos done that don’t show it.

Personally I wouldn’t even consider living in a neighbourhood where people were flying the flag like that, particularly as PP have explained it’s near a refugee centre?

It really really does not matter what it's "marketed" as e.g. chalet bungalow. Most people just whack the number of bedrooms into search on Rightmove and filter by newest, and people who use EAs to search will see it in the window or get a phone call to say there's a new 3 bed gone up.

My neighbour got a firm in who specialised in staging houses after not selling. Think it was couple grand, used rented furniture etc. Sold within a couple of weeks

I don't know the market in that area. I was just responding in general terms to a point a pp had made about not bothering to change houses at all just reduce them in price. In many cases you can achieve the desired price by spending a fraction of what you would need to reduce price by. It depends on the issue with the house and the local market.

In this case you could see fairly significant improvement for relatively little effort.

That's true for people looking for a house on the whole, but people looking for a bungalow most definitely tick the bungalow box.

It isn't really a 3 bed house. It is a two bed house with restricted ceiling height. People who want a bungalow won't want to pay for the extra rooms that they can't use and people who want a 3 bed will want a proper 3 bed rather than a loft conversion.

The plastic grass out the front is off-putting.

We should be the target market for this as we want to downsize to a property where we could just live downstairs if we needed to. But:

We’d need to replace the kitchen and both bathrooms
New flooring throughout
Do something about the conservatory sunroom

All of that is a lot of money and we wouldn’t be expecting to pay over £600k with all that expenditure on top.

How recently was this?

Yeah my friend does this as a side gig - I don’t know what she charges though.

So what price would you suggest?

I'm only offering an opinion on why this might be seen as overpriced.

If you don't get them through the door they will not buy and price puts people off more than anything.

The problem is with bungalow conversions is that they only appeal to a limited number of people

Our in laws are looking move to a bungalow, but they would want all 3 bedrooms downstairs- 2 for each of them eventually, and 1 guest and grandchildren room. Mil struggles on stairs so carrying up a 2 year old grandchild would be a nightmare.

We on the other hand would be fine with a house. I would want all bedrooms on same floor though. And even if we compromise and used downstairs as guest/ study, why would I want our main bedrooms to be in a cramped loft space with no way to stand at the sides. If I chose a place like this I would expect it to be cheaper than a house with proper height bedrooms.

Also yes, both bathroom and kitchens are very dated. So in my head I auto think £50k (10 per bathroom, 20 kitchen, and 10 to do other basic decor)

But way more spacious, and with a bigger, nicer conservatory. And sold for £140k less!

You can be rid of grey carpets in an afternoon. Try adding an extra bedroom and a new conservatory in that timescale and for the same price.

Absolutely this.

That is 4 miles away. And a detention centre. You can't come and go from them, they are essentially prisons with no freedom of exit. Saying it would put people off is a bit like saying you wouldn't live in Kensington because of Wormwood Scrubs.

Even less need to have it the photo then. Take the shot from another angle. Simple step to make it look less like a place that may have racists, XL bullies etc.

Bunged a low roof on it hence bungalow 😂. The origin of the name is Indian but what your inlaws have is a dormer bungalow a 1 1/2 sized house.

That flag was the very first thing I noticed. Even if it’s next door they’re not the sort of people I want to live next door to.