Reason for lack of viewings...

warehouse

twirlypinky wrote: »

I will never be involved with the purchase of a new build again. Hubby admits now that buying this house was the biggest mistake he's ever made.

Don't be too hard on yourselves, our first purchase was in 1988, just before dual tax relief was abolished. We sold it 8 years later for a loss of £11,000, but in the long term we're well up on our bricks and mortar investment.

puddy

twirlypinky wrote: »

Duplex means it's on two floors - we have a far bigger sqare footage than the one level flats. I think ours should be called a house, but the agent won't let us.

I think it's worth £10k. I fail to see how a couple could live in one of those flats, but they can in one of ours.

We both have fairly fuel efficient cars, it's the milage that's the issue. It's a 54 mile round trip. Luckily we work at the same place and can car share most days, but it's getting harder and harder to do that as they're changing hubby's shift pattern.


I think we're going to have to stay here until we've saved more money and can afford to make more of a loss.

I will never be involved with the purchase of a new build again. Hubby admits now that buying this house was the biggest mistake he's ever made.

cant they call it a maisonette then?

my OH drives from thanet to central london every day. 160 round trip. he currently has a courtesy car and despite him having a fairly smallish car usually, he is finding that he's saving money. its a much bigger engined car (the courtesy) but its diesel

what mpg do you do in yours?

RAS

Much less clutter in the second house with a single colour used through the main living space.

Get rid of the boxes on top of the cupbaords in the kitchen and all the clutter. The green is not great, but if you want to use it, then use it throughout. The big picture is good.

Bring the table out from the wall; it looks like there is insufficient space to eat.

Are the communal gradens decent to look at? If so, a piccie of them could help.

And why is a two story home called a flat or an apartment? It is not.

The bedroom is let down by the curtains; good bed and then red curtains???

I have to say however that each floor is about the same size as my front room.

puddy

twirlypinky wrote: »

That includes

Water (in and out)
Gas
Electricity
Gardening
Window Cleaning

and some other random bits like the arial on the roof.

Does not include coucil tax.

do you mean gas and electricity for your flat, or the communal areas?

how does that work, where is the meter, is it shared with others in the block?

twirlypinky

I'm not. I first bought ten years ago and due to falling house prices and a complete w*nker of an ex husband making my life a misery until i gave in, i have nothing whatsoever to show for all those mortgage repayments. In fact, we're now saving every penny we can to plug the gap between my new husband's mortgage and house value.

So adding this to my newly diagnosed Graves disease, it's making me feel fairly suicidal.

phoebe1989seb

warehouse wrote: »

Don't be too hard on yourselves, our first purchase was in 1988, just before dual tax relief was abolished. We sold it 8 years later for a loss of £11,000, but in the long term we're well up on our bricks and mortar investment.

Quite agree - we sold our last house earlier this year for £20k less than we paid in 2007 (and on top of the purchase price we'd forked out an additional £30-40k in renovations ), but we needed to get away from Essex which we hated to somewhere nicer so were prepared to take the hit.

We're in a much nicer area now (worse house though as it's a project that will take years to finish, lol!) but are still mortgage-free which was what mattered to us................

twirlypinky

puddy wrote: »

cant they call it a maisonette then?

my OH drives from thanet to central london every day. 160 round trip. he currently has a courtesy car and despite him having a fairly smallish car usually, he is finding that he's saving money. its a much bigger engined car (the courtesy) but its diesel

what mpg do you do in yours?

seriously, we can't afford to change our cars. Mine is a Ka and his is a fiesta. Where possible we car share - so three to four days a week which isn't bad.

twirlypinky

RAS wrote: »

Much less clutter in the second house with a single colour used through the main living space.

Get rid of the boxes on top of the cupbaords in the kitchen and all the clutter. The green is not great, but if you want to use it, then use it throughout. The big picture is good.

Bring the table out from the wall; it looks like there is insufficient space to eat.

Are the communal gradens decent to look at? If so, a piccie of them could help.

And why is a two story home called a flat or an apartment? It is not.

The bedroom is let down by the curtains; good bed and then red curtains???

I have to say however that each floor is about the same size as my front room.

I don't like the curtains either. I'd replace them given half the chance.


I don't know why it's called an apartment. The agent said we had to use the term on the deeds, which for some crazy reason is apartment.

i wanted to bring the table out from the wall, but it's made circular dents in the carpet and looks daft if we move it.

Caveat_Mortgagor

twirlypinky wrote: »

It's not a case of not being identical, it's a case of being completely different. Take a look at the floor plans.

Ours is more of a house than a flat. We've no one above us and no one below, we're joined at the side at the rear. We've got our own front door.

I expect you will dismiss this for some very sound reason, but here goes.....

The flats that sold initially for £86k (£7k less than you paid) are for sale for £65k. They seem to accept that they will have to take a dive to get a sale. Theyve knocked 30%* off what they paid.

By contrast you've knocked 3.2%* off what you paid. In fact, most new places come with a deposit contribution / cashback, which hides the real price on LR. Have you actually put it on for less than you paid?

Any sensible buyer will be wary of paying the 2007 price when other properties in the street are 30% down.

kmmr

twirlypinky wrote: »

Really? I don't think the agent could've stood any further back without climbing the walls. It's difficult, we don't want to mislead people.

At the end of the day each floor is 14 foot by 14 foot, there isn't a great deal we can do to make it look bigger.

But the point is there is. The one bed flat someone else linked too looks bigger than yours! It's a combination of layout, lighting, and quality of the photographer that can make a huge difference between making it's best, or just coming off as a bit 'normal'.

Colour helps to make it stand out too - but you have to make sure the pictures are very crisp and bright to do that. In relation to de-cluttering, I say remove most things, but leave out nice stuff that looks good. A shiny new toaster, or pretty salt and pepper shakers can make somewhere look very nice and attractice. Which is then what tempts a buyer to come and look.

Don't underestimate the LACK of imagination of buyers!

I always think these guys: http://finlaybrewer.thebu2iness.com/salesPropertyDetails.do?p=86882&pricePer=0 are a master class in EA photography. The houses are more expensive, but internally not that different to yours - you see the value of professional photographers, and not just the office junior with a compact camera.