Selling house - Agent has sent no viewers

Blackpool_Saver

Please don't be offended but it looks very dark with the dark floors and dark windows, can you lighten it up a bit?

googler

This is brand new, and most of the rooms are empty, but look at the difference a little bit of colour and a couple of accessories makes in the bathrooms

http://www.eastlothianprimeproperty.com/property/12-Shillinghill-EH36-5PX-ap86sl0.aspx

Blackpool_Saver

googler wrote: »

See how the US of A looks at it;

http://homebuying.about.com/od/sellingahouse/qt/WhatisStaging.htm

yes, exactly.

Blackpool_Saver

Looking at it from the front it doesn't match, your garage and front doors are different colours.....

googler

fredmila wrote: »

The drive is made of the usual gravel and the photo was taken at the end of the autumn when there were still leaves on the ground. It is cleaner now. I put a bit of variety outside: only the front foor has a non-neutral colour in the whole house. A bit of spice rather than the usual boring white window frames with white doors.

I think definition of a pathway and driveway rather than wall-to-wall gravel would help. Sorry, I'm not getting 'spice' from a white garage door, mahogany (?) window frames, allied to a Navy Blue front door........

CloudCuckooLand

Think I'd prefer this one for less money; http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-16057225.html

Decent house, good plot. But its been on for 2 years, which doesn't bode well for sales in the area.

Or new build; http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/new-homes/property-24820120.html for even less, with nice plot.

Maybe its a recession problem. Some regions are getting hit harder than other. Is there a lack of work in the area generally ?

Blackpool_Saver

If you gave me free reign i could have it sold in 2 weeks, I can see exactly what the problems are.....

fredmila

Doozergirl: the combination of conventional house and minimalist has been carefully studied. It's like that on purpose. Conventional and homely outside because planning will not allow otherwise and because people are not going to "customise" the outside. Inside white walls etc, let people paint them purple if they want. I have had many people come and look at the house (friends, acquaintances, inspectors and contractors) and they all like it, Note that I am excluding relatives and EAs saying that they like it.

You might be right about house staging but I think that is more for cities (I did something like that in London) where you can organise an "open day" and bring a lot of people in a couple of days but that is not going to happen in the country. So I could have ended up hiring expensive furniture for 4-5 months only to get one browser coming to see it. I am saying that I am sure people will like it once they are there but I have to get them there first. I might agree with the home staging if I had had a lot of people coming and they had just told the agent later that it did not feel like a home.
It does have nice detailing (coving, skirting, textured tiling, door decoration) but you have to see it in person. I repeat, you have to leave the buyers to think that they are the designers in the end so you cannot do too much detailing for them. Yes the two bathrooms have showers, one with fancy thermostatic taps.

googler

If there's any premium housebuilders developing in the area, I think you may want to look at their showhomes and beg/borrow/steal some ideas.

There's reasons they set up showhomes and don't leave the public to look at bare floors and no furniture. See if you can find out if the housebuilders hired someone from outside to stage the showhomes for them, and see if you can hire the same people.

googler

fredmila wrote: »

You might be right about house staging but I think that is more for cities (I did something like that in London) where you can organise an "open day" and bring a lot of people in a couple of days but that is not going to happen in the country. So I could have ended up hiring expensive furniture for 4-5 months only to get one browser coming to see it. I am saying that I am sure people will like it once they are there but I have to get them there first.

If you're unwilling to hire furniture etc for the whole duration, you might want to consider hiring it for a day or so for a photo session...?

That might pull people in from the photos to see it in person.