Can't sell our empty house

clutton_2

""the open farmland at the back, lots of people are worried it will be built upon etc. "" Consult your local authority's Local Plan (should be on the web))- and on there, you will see that every street, field, road, site, has a "designation" - if these fields are designated as Green Belt then there is very very very little chance of them ever being built on - this might reassure your prospective vendors.

fatblokexl

if any of the walls are strongly coloured i would advise going down the "magnolia" route. also if possible arrange a block viewing period.

i.e. take a week off, ask the EA to arrange all viewings for this week and as well as YOU selling the home, giving guide etc it may be worth renting some basic furniture and "staging" your home to show buyers what each room could be like.

you may tell i have watched several home buy shows on t.v. but a little pain for a big gain.

clutton_2

small amounts of tastefully arranged things can "stage" a house quite well - fabric draped over curtain rails (even if no curtains are available); large vases with dried flowers in fire places, or in the middle of a blank wall; towels in the bathroom; a few pictures on the wall; few "kitchenalia" items on the work surfaces, a chest of drawers in a bedroom with an ornament or two all these things give it a homely feel, and wont cost too much. Also, make sure you arrive early and open windows to get that "fusty" unlived-in smell out of the house before prospective purchasers arrive. good luck

have you registered community charge as a "single person occupant" to get the discount ?

Are the carpets still down ? if there any stains, cover over with small colourful rugs.

short of all that - drop the price - how much has it cost you already in mortgage/community charge/insurance/repairs etc ?

kiwigirl

Hi Metermaid

We have a open living room / dining room open archway, but before we moved we realised we didn't have enough room to put the dresser or a wall large enough, so what we did was we put the dresser one side and the other side of wall we got a joiner to make us a purpose built shelves to put items we wanted on.

7 years on, most people - even people in the estate don't realise that there is no wall there behind the dresser, if my parents move they will leave the shelves (custom made to fit space) but the new owners could either remove them or make use of them. Maybe this is an idea for you to deal with the "niggling problem" suggest something like that? Alternatively what about doors on the archway so it seperates the two room? Some of the others on the estate have that? Get a price for shelves to me made from somewhere - a carpenter or relatively good handyman could do the work and maybe help you with your selling problem?

To the right of our house there is land which they've tried to get planning permission for building houses but to no avail so far - think we've got endangered animals residing there, as others have suggested ask your local council.

Good luck

KG

terrierlady

you could hire furniture to dress the home.

aloiseb

Maybe your house is just somewhere nobody now wants to live? - sounds a bit silly I guess but we looked at one today which was in the most useless location - no trains or buses, bad schools and neighbouring Chavs - and it was part of a whole little "estate" of 80s houses. I don't think they will make back what they would have paid out at the time, for their lovely new high-spec detatched houses. It happens, unfortunately.

It happened to us in the early 90s - trying to sell a flat in a part of London which had been up-and-coming but, with the property crash, was going right downhill. We ended up auctioning our flat - which worked well and we made almost enough to pay off the mortgage shortfall. It cost about £500 upfront to have the flat put in the auction but after that there were no worries - whoever has bid highest when that gavel falls, is the buyer - no pulling out or changing minds.

.... although we now half-wish we had managed to keep the flat, as the area has gone upmarket again and it's now worth 4 times what we got for it!
Bah!