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

It will have an extremely narrow target audience. It’s an older person’s home but older people will be put off by the large garden and stairs. It would be better in my opinion if it was a bungalow. It’s also really too small for a family without very significant work. Couple that with the fact it seems very overpriced based on PP’s assessments, it’s not going to sell. I think your PIL will have to rethink their approach.

This comment is gold, thank you.

There is nothing terrible about the house but it is dated and most potential buyers would want to do some work to it and would therefore need to add this cost to the budget.
Looking at other homes for sale in the area, it looks very over priced.
Here is a basic search for homes in the area max 650k. As you can see, the homes that are actually marked as STC are modern so don't need £££ for renovation work, have more bedrooms and are also a lot cheaper! For a propspective buyer, especially families, it's a no brainer. Clearly you and your ILs don't want to hear this and you got very snippy with the local poster who said that it was signficantly over priced but they appear to be correct.
If a house has 3 viewings in 8 months, the market is telling you that it is very overpriced 99% of the time.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?searchLocation=Lee-On-The-Solent%2C+Hampshire&useLocationIdentifier=true&locationIdentifier=REGION%5E786&minPrice=475000&maxPrice=650000&minBedrooms=3&includeSSTC=true&radius=0.0&_includeSSTC=on#prop170340449

Of course you can try the staging option if they want to do that but I still think it needs to come down in price a lot.

It always comes down to price. To sell you need to drop the price

@irisetta My in-laws bought it for a little over 500k over 13 years ago where did you get that figure from? According to Zoopla this property last sold in 2012 for £370k so if you PIL's expectations are based on misremembering what they paid to the tune of £130k difference then it's no wonder they are overprocing it now.

I live not too far from here, that’s very overpriced. Can get a detached new build 4 bed for £100,000 less then that!

Its bloody hideous
It doesn't flow
Decor would all need re doing
Kitchen and bathroom ripping out. See through kitchen doors are honestly awful.
On top of over 600k For a house/bungalow with an awful conservatory, albeit nice garden.
600k plus is a forever home. I wouldn't want to live here for a day!
Take it off the market. Take 14 to 16 weeks to tart it up and modernise it. Find a new estate agent, and re list
Good luck

Thank you so much for this. Yes, the photos are absolutely dreadful. When I pointed it out, they just zoomed back in from their original (misjudged) wide angle focus, making them even worse...! Now we get poky rooms, thanks guys 🙄

I’m confused, I would class this as. bungalow, a dormer bungalow.

"the porch seems to harbour darkness" good god 😬😳 🤣

I'm noting the common ground here is "Find a new estate agent"

Am I losing my mind? It says three bedrooms, but there are only photos of two (get rid of the doll on the bed!). There is a hint of a third bedroom in the photo of the hallway and stairs, but not picture of it. That seems to be the ground floor bedroom and would be important for a bungalow-purchasing type, surely.

I think they need to fix the astroturf front, and remove half the furniture and most of the "decor", especially dolls and random stuffed animals, etc. The paint colour choices when they occur are very strident, and I like a bold colour.

And even though you insist it's not a bungalow, it looks like a bungalow.

@irisetta Leaving aside why you’re so adamant about this….if so many of us here think it’s a bungalow then obviously the photos make it look like a bungalow. So I would change the photos to show the non bungalow aspects. And by the way it is so clearly a converted bungalow and some people might not be able to see past that…If it’s not a bungalow now, it clearly was originally hence it has no proper upper floor. It’s a loft conversion. Perhaps this denial is not helping!!!! You need to look at this from buyers points of view

Lovely garden which isn’t emphasised with one photo but it’s looks considerably overpriced for the local market.

It does look like a bungalow when you initially look at it.

Interesting! I'll ask them.

@silverrobot it clearly is or was a bungalow OR even if it isn’t / wasn’t as you say it looks like one and their denial of this fact could be the reason it’s overpriced and not selling

“A dormer bungalow is a one-and-a-half-storey home where the upper level is built into the roof space. It features dormer windows that project outward to provide headroom and natural light. They offer flexible living—typically featuring bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and living areas downstairs”

This is better value for money https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/170340449

Just a point on price - lots of sellers seem to get price wrong.

They think that price is relevant to starting price - e.g. we have already lowered 50k, so its more than fair...

or its relevant to estate agents evaluation - they said 600, so that is the fair price...

or relevant to comparisons - that house sold for X, so mine must be X.

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In reality the actual fair price is relative to one thing only: What a buyer is willing to pay. Your house is worth exactly what people are actually willing to pay for it, no more or less. And if no one is paying you what you want (after enough time to reach a majority of buyers), your house is not worth what you think it is.

Your options then are either:

A, drop your price inline with what people are going to pay
B, Take actions to increase what people are willing to pay to meet your expectations
C, wait and hope to get lucky and find someone who will be the exception and pay more than everyone else, and give you what you want.

But there is no "my house is worth X, but people won't buy it"

You actively hate it! That is something to work with, thank you! Boom, thank you for your honesty 😘

Again, GOLD comment, thank you thank you ❤️

Other examples of dormer bungalows

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/171590327#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/171370781#/?channel=RES_BUY

there are loads of them

Ok I'll bite. So apparently it's a "chalet bungalow" (no I didn't know what that was either). Same thing as a dormer, just sounds posher.

Still doesn't mean it's a bloody bungalow though 🤣

But it’s a type of bungalow…

They are very common as in typical.