Advice - Selling our house

genuineplacebo

Hi,

Our house went on the market in January, so has now been on the market for 5 months. At the start we had roughly one viewing a week and we are now down to one viewing every 3 or 4 weeks.

Our house isn't in the best of areas, but it's a 'popular' ex-local authority housing estate. Houses do tend to sell within the first couple of months and new houses locally are always going on the market.

Our house is in great condition - good kitchen and 4 piece bathroom, decent extension - majority of the other houses locally have a pre-fabricated bathroom unit stuck to the back, ours has got a full width extension with dining room/bathroom in it.

Also, we've freshly decorated the hall and lounge, the bedrooms were replastered and decorated a year ago and we have decluttered over the last few weeks and boxed up things ready to move and put these into storage.

Only negative (that we can see, and from feedback from viewings) is the fact that we don't have off street parking - and we're not able to put the a driveway in as we front a green so there is no direct access from the road. However, there are plenty of bays on the road that are free to park in - no permits etc needed and we never have a problem parking.

I was basically wanting advice on anything people can suggest to help us sell our house? The house is priced realistically for the area considering the extension etc and the estate agents seem baffled as to why it hasn't sold.

Thanks

jockosjungle

Is there a rightmove link?

R

poppysarah

How many have sold in your area recently?
http://www.houseprices.co.uk/
will tell you how many and what for.

Is your EA baffled why just your house isn't selling?

genuineplacebo

Thanks for the replies.

Our Estate Agent is updating our photos on rightmove tomorrow to show the decluttering etc! Here's the current link:

(Sorry guys, now deleted)

Things that have changed -

Lounge - footstool has gone, photos on wall gone, throws gone from on top of sofa, radiator cover clear, floor lamp gone.

Kitchen/Dinindg Room - work surfaces are clear, all photos gone, radiator cover clear, top of kitchen cupboards clear, lamp next to patio doors gone, hat on stool under breakfast bar gone, drainer empty, oven gloves, tea towels gone.

Bedrooms - Throws on bed gone, teddy gone, photos gone, windowsills clear, bookcases emptied apart from DVDs, Desk chair replaced with smaller, compact chair that fits under desk, under beds clear.

Garden - Better weather for pics! Table uncovered, bikes behind shed gone.

Bathroom - Toiletry bag gone, toiletries on bath gone.

I've looked at houses that have sold on the link you provided poppysarah and most in the estate our house is on have sold for between £180k and £220k. A lot are on the market at £180k but are very run down compared to ours and require a lot of modernisation.

Ours is on for £212.5k and I think it's priced right... Let me know if you think I'm wrong :-)

The Estate Agent is selling houses, just ours isn't selling :-(

DVardysShadow

Problem with ex LA is that they do have a ceiling price in their area - your price has to come in a fair bit under the non LA alternatives. Yours looks good on a superficial glance, but I have no feel for the values in the area. It may be that the condition of the place puts a price differential on it relative to other ex LA property which takes it over the ceiling which ex LA properties will fetch.

googler

Your pictures sorely need updating.

Down my way, something similar to your home would barely fetch £130 - 140,000 ..... so I'm gobsmacked at the asking price. However.... get those pictures changed.

genuineplacebo

I hadn't thought of that. It makes a lot of sense. I really hope it isn't right though....!

The ex-LA area here covers the whole area, the house prices outside of the LA area rise to £350k+ and look completely different, so it's hard to guage values etc...

silvercar

I would be put off by a downstairs bathroom. You've extended the house nicely, so you have a lot of living space downstairs, enough for a family, but a family will want the bathroom to be near the bedrooms.

genuineplacebo

Googler - Greater London prices are ridiculous! Can't get much for your money!

Estate Agent should be updating our pictures tomorrow, we've just had two weeks off work to sort the house out. Wasn't that bad before, just needed staging!

genuineplacebo

Silvercar - I know, a lot of families prefer upstairs bathrooms. However, the whole of the estate here has downstairs bathrooms, standard layout here I guess. In our next house I would prefer an upstairs bathroom too.

azkaban420

Hi there, we had a similar situation with a nice enough house, but no on-street parking, apart from further away, and can't make off-street either as our house fronts a steep bank. Ultimately parking has been the sticking point, I note from your house, people would have to walk a fair distance with shopping/kids etc. This has been the 'show-stopper' in our situation, so we had to drop the price considerably (at a loss) to get a sale, and in the end some bikers have offered.

Others suggest you may still be over-priced despite these issues, so you may need to look at your pricing and drop if necessary.

Good luck.

Az