Please take a look at my house .... Honesty required!!

TrickyDicky101

I guess it all comes down to location: in my neck of the woods, 3 bed semis sell at most around the £200k mark unless they have something unique (eg a very large garden). I didn't realise the North would be so expensive, but if that's the going rate then...

CloudCuckooLand

Peak price for a semi in that street was £243,500 in late 2007. It would now be worth £217,932, according to Land Registry figures which record a 10.5% drop since the peak...

Your's may be worth a touch more, with the impressive interior. But £20k? You would have to have visited No.31 in 2007 to know the accurate differential.

Some buyers would shut the front door, and be wowed by the interior. Others will look at the different brickwork of the porch and shudder...and house price websites and scratch their heads.

Pigster_2

It's beautifully presented internally although, as others have said, perhaps a little stark. Is the garage usable? It looks to be slightly offset from the centre line of the drive and looks as if it could be awkward to get a car into - although almost no one uses a garage for a car these days. It is pretty small, too.

Looking at Streetview I also think it is being dragged down a bit by some of the more modest houses nearby, although I don't know the area at all. Again, as others have said, I think it is probably overpriced. I am on the south coast and even here I would expect to get quite a lot more than that for almost £250k.

beautyqueen88

Some have said its too bland but i think its lovely i would much prefer to move into something thats a bit of a blank canvas where i can throw a bit of colour where i want without the need to first paint over lots of other colours or strip wallpaper for hours.
The back garden is very neat, the front of the house looks a little ex council ish to me.
Cant really comment on the price as i live just outside sheffield and my 3 bed semi cost £115,000 so yours sounds incredibly expensive but obviously it must just be the area.

Hope it sells for you soon

lincroft1710

How many other 3 bed semis of this age and in a reasonable location are on the market in Harrogate. Because that's what you're up against.

Where I live nearly every 3 bed semi has a rear extension or at least a conservatory, plus some with porch/cloakroom extensions.

Although it's nicely finished and well presented it isn't offering anything special and the garden is small. The only thing I think you can do is reduce the price.

Slinky

Could you find a little money to put something like a white picket fence along the front to create a boundary and maybe dig out a border in front of the porch and put some maturish bushes in to break it up a bit? The inside looks much classier than the outside front suggests.

I agree with the suggestions about a dining room table, and also some patio furniture. Have you tried taking a picture of the garden from the other end looking back at the house? This may make the lawn look bigger and the patio smaller. With hindsight it may have been better not to have had a straight edge to the patio, but that's too late now.

Can you hang that mirror that's lying against the wall on the wall in bedroom 1? I also agree that you'd benefit from some curtains or voiles just to soften the edges a bit. A few bits of artwork on the wall would help too.

It looks very nicely done, but does just look like it's been 'dressed' rather than being somebody's home.

hazyjo

Pretty much what some others have said - but I think what a lot of people might be thinking is that a developer's bought it and done it up (not sure if you did do that, ie develop it - it does look a bit like that with the decor and items left in it - the sort of stuff you'd use to dress a property - or whether you've owned it for a while and done it up as a home rather than a project/development - you mentioned doing it up 3 months ago. How long have you owned it? That might be your problem. If it's years, fine. If it's months, people will be wary.

The pics, I'd say gave off these impressions:

front of house - not great - as others have said, but I don't know what houses in the area look like.

lounge - great pic. Nothing to add.

kitchen - again, great.

Dining area - too bare. I'd include a table, or at least put a mirror or picture on the wall. Too many pics - personal ones, especially - are wrong, but it's just so bare in there and smacks of developer (I know you're not, and have done a great job with it, but it just needs 'something' IMO to show someone actually lives there.

Bed 1 - again, very bare. Are there bedside cabinets/lamps? Might have been better taking it from the other side (still showing the window, I mean). Looks like there might be blinds, but I'm not sure.

Bed 2 (wooden bed) - pretty much same as before, but doesn't look like blinds at all.

Bathroom - great.

Garden - again, very bare and looks like a developer's come in and just turfed it. No flowers, beds, shrubs, nowt. I know some people like that, but it just has a developer look about it. Def too much patio for the size of garden, but can't do much about that now apart from make it look like nice useable space.

People don't mind a developed house, but they're probably worried in this market that they're paying a premium. A lot of people aren't wanting to pay any premium for an immaculate house (yes, I know this contradicts other advice about redecorating and updating before selling) - I just think there's a very fine line between the two.

Something on the patio would look better - bbq, table & chairs, etc - but only nice stuff, plastic chairs aren't gonna help sell.

It's a shame as it's done really nice, but I just think people will worry they might be paying a premium - plus it depends on how long you've owned it as this can put people off.

Jx

Flibertigibit

I don't think this is going to be of help unless you want to change what looks like a perfectly good fence in the back garden BUT I had a small garden once and painted the fence a similar shade of green - as soon as I'd done it I realised how much smaller the garden looked afterwards and regretted it, but had to live with it.

Catblue

OP, if you put in your postcode into the Price Comparison Report on the House Prices tab on rightmove, then it throws up a lot of houses like yours on your street that are no longer on the market.

These were on the market at around the 220K mark, but were subsequently withdrawn from the market.

From a buyer's point of view, it looks like these houses did not get an offer at or near £220K and so the vendors have decided to stay put. Also, next door (a very similar looking house to yours) sold in September 2008 for £176,500. That's a difference to yours of over £60K.

Unfortunately, these two things make your house look overpriced in comparison - particularly when, although you have made the house look really nice, you have not added any square footage to the house.

jonewer

Not to my liking but very well presented for someone to whose liking it is.

Dont think theres an awful lot more you can do other than the price.