On market for nearly 5 weeks but no viewings

Doozergirl

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Never underestimate the stupidity or lack of imagination of the great British public, particularly when they're first time buyers!

I wouldn't even single out first time buyers. People are generally odd. I've discovered that Doctors seem to have brains so full of doctor-y stuff that common sense flies out the window.

Doctors that don't know what allotments are. Doctors who think there is a bedroom missing because one upstairs room has a sofa in it; therefore rendering it another reception room, forever.

Don't ever give people the benefit of being able to work something out for themselves when you're selling a house. If it's a double bedroom, it must have a double bed. If it fits a wardrobe too, it must have a wardrobe in it. If it's a home office, it must be set up like one.

DPJames

Rubbish. Knock £20K off and the bird cage and kids toys will become invisible all by themselves. And that glorified shed will become a summer house or work office.

Doozergirl

DPJames wrote: »

Rubbish. Knock £20K off and the bird cage and kids toys will become invisible all by themselves. And that glorified shed will become a summer house or work office.

I'm sure that's true but it's not MSE to leave the conservatory set up as a full blown aviary and price the house as if the conservatory doesn't exist.

Better to set the conservatory up as the additional reception room that most people would want it for and sell the house at the best price for the OP. On a viewing, most people would walk straight through something like that without stopping to see where furniture would fit, because they would immediately assume it either totally uninhabitable because it once had a bird in it (going on the premise that it's a doctor viewing ),consider it to be another overpriced shed, or be unable to judge the space available because they have no sense of space. To be fair, even I'd struggle to picture that conservatory as a reception room with that mass of black in it.

Catblue

Of course you have to present things well in order to get a decent price.

Successful car dealers do not sell cars with packets of fags and fast food wrappers strewn all over the interior. And these car dealers don't then whine "Can't you use your imagination?" if you point out that their Ford Focus is a mess and ain't worth 7K.

The big property developers do not sell new houses full of dirty dishes, broken furniture and an old mattress out in the front garden. And they don't bleat "It's just cosmetic" if you point these things out.

And if I pitched up at an interview with unwashed hair, crumpled clothes and last night's dinner on my face then I would not say "You should be able to see past these things" when questioned about my appearance.

Why do we think that when it comes to selling our houses (the most expensive thing most of us will ever sell) that the most basic rules of selling should not apply?

kr15snw

KaratePigeon wrote: »

lol, a grey and a sun conure. not sure why the pic of the grey ended up on rightmove, it is a bit strange! will definatley move them for the photos, though they will have to stay for the viewings unfortunatley!

A sun conure? Jesus, that could be funny for viewings.... (Although does your gray have any funny sayings? The stuff my dads comes out with would scare off a lot of buyers...)

BUT being sensible, we were worried about our bird as he can be bloody noisy but apparently no one even blinked at him.

AND we became the 'house with the parrot' meaning we stood out in peoples minds

Pupnik

Doozergirl wrote: »

Doctors who think there is a bedroom missing because one upstairs room has a sofa in it

Priceless! :rotfl: It always winds me up on these property programmes when you see people viewing a house and come out with classics like 'it's nice, but I don't like the curtains' as if they would be forced to use those curtains forever.

Some people can see past 'stuff' but a lot of people can't. When my other half and I were viewing properties he kept insisting that the empty magnolia cube we saw was bigger than the cluttered house with dark walls- it was actually much smaller (and certainly too small for us) but he genuinely couldn't see past the clutter to appreciate the size of the other property. I had to draw our furniture onto the plan to convince him that we could fit it in. It is best to make it as easy as possible for people to imagine themselves living in a place by either having a blank space or an almost showroom style layout.

FATBALLZ

DPJames wrote: »

Listen man, it's nothing to do with moving bird cages, hiding the kids toys and putting picnic tables in the garden, All that is horse !!!!!! and totally unnecessary. Serious buyers will see straight through all that and will picture the place empty and then visualise what they'd do to the place. So don't worry about that. Defo tidy up the front though to give it more kerb appeal to passers by. And other than that you're in the same boat as the rest of us. The market is painfully slow and only the real bargains are getting sold, so maybe drop the price as low as you can afford to stir up some interest, that's the only thing that makes houses stand out at the minute. But that's about all you can do i'm afraid, if you can't lower the price you're just going to have to sit tight and wait for things to pick up.

Good luck amigo

Tend to agree with this, when I was looking before buying 2 weeks ago I only took a brief glance at the pictures, main criteria was price, size and area. Unless there was a dead body in the pictures they were unlikely to put me off if the other 3 criteria were in place.

We made a list of 12 places fitting our criteria which we viewed, visualised the place empty and chose what we thought represented the best value for money of the 12.

Looking back, the rightmove pictures were terrible of the place we bought, and didn't even cover half the rooms, but as a serious buyer I evaluated all the options of the table rather than writing off potential purchases because there was a phallus shaped cloud in the background on a rightmove picture.

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Never underestimate the stupidity or lack of imagination of the great British public, particularly when they're first time buyers!

I'd imagine pretty much all of the 'stupid buyers' can't buy because they are also too stupid to save the sort of deposit banks are asking for at the moment.

DianneB

FATBALLZ wrote: »

Unless there was a dead body in the pictures they were unlikely to put me off if the other 3 criteria were in place.


Finding out there had been a dead body in the bath for 3 WEEKS deffo put me off the property we were buying!!

googler

Catblue wrote: »

Of course you have to present things well in order to get a decent price.

Successful car dealers do not sell cars with packets of fags and fast food wrappers strewn all over the interior. And these car dealers don't then whine "Can't you use your imagination?" if you point out that their Ford Focus is a mess and ain't worth 7K.

The big property developers do not sell new houses full of dirty dishes, broken furniture and an old mattress out in the front garden. And they don't bleat "It's just cosmetic" if you point these things out.

And if I pitched up at an interview with unwashed hair, crumpled clothes and last night's dinner on my face then I would not say "You should be able to see past these things" when questioned about my appearance.

Why do we think that when it comes to selling our houses (the most expensive thing most of us will ever sell) that the most basic rules of selling should not apply?

Well put, and very quotable

Thefunkygibbons

DianneB wrote: »

Finding out there had been a dead body in the bath for 3 WEEKS deffo put me off the property we were buying!!

You can't make a statement like that without spilling the whole story

:eek: