House not selling

robatwork

It's a shame the front page map shows your house actually on the M621.

I would take some pictures pretty much as Poppy9 says - put the chairs down in the garden as it looks like after last orders in the pub.

Personally I would get rid of a lot of the curtains/voiles especially in the conservatory to let as much light in as possible.

To open up the space in the living room I would get rid of the feature wallpaper and make it white.

It's a nice house - some tweaking, new pics, and a realistic price and perhaps a new agent too and it should sell

phoebe1989seb

The kitchen looks very dated, but guess you can't change that now! Agree that the living room looks overcrowded with furniture, curtains and too much of the patterned wallpaper and the conservatory doesn't really resemble one in tbat pic. The bedroom pics need the beds looking tidier and the garden furniture put me in mind of a holiday home that had been shut up for the winter months......

Definitely agree that the house seems overpriced compared to those sold prices that girl_withno_name linked to. We sold last year and 'lost' around £60k on what we'd paid for the house and on renovating it three years earlier - it hurts, but if you want to sell, you may have to take the hit. Btw, we deliberately priced realistically to achieve a quick sale and accepted an offer we were happy with within two weeks. You just have to weigh up how much you want/need to move - and whether you can afford to do so......Good Luck!

Dooley

Thanks again. I think I'll take it off the market, do a few things as suggested here, take new photos, and try a different agent. I'm not trying to be greedy, I'm just trying to get enough money so I can move on somewhere else. But I appreciate I might just have to stick it out here, if that's not possible. I can only reduce so far.

As for the fact of cheaper 3 bed semis nearby.. well yes, but I wouldn't live in some of those areas for free! My house may be small, but it's in a nice area, pleasant green cul-de-sac and low crime, and no anti-social behaviour. That's what the price reflects. That's the main reason I moved from my last house and paid a bit more for this one. So it depends what people want on that score.

andy.m_2

1) declutter
2) Freshen up a bit, whitewash a few walls to brighten the place up
3) Drop the price to what you need to recover
4) Change the agent and make the first picture different so that you look like a newly offered property on RM

Try that and see if you get interest.
It's all to easy to go stale on RM and from my own experience of looking I tend to click the "added within last 3 days" option to filter out stuff.

hazyjo

For me, it's 'location, location, location'. I'm afraid the close proximity of the motorway would put me off even viewing.

Obviously everything will sell for the right price so you might want to drop the price further. Unfortunately, when the market's like this, people make far less compromises and are extremely picky and yours is not likely to be top of anyone's list due to the motorway.

Good luck. It's tough out there...

Jx

googler

Setting aside all issues of price and location;

Pic 2 - Kitchen - do you think the kitchen roll, drainer, brown washing-up basin, oven glove, and all the other clutter on the worktops, are things which will attract people to your home? If you think so, all good and well. If not, what are they doing in the photographs?

The lounge pic is essentially of the back of the sofa. It looks as though you've made no attempt to tidy the throws and cushions on the sofa, nor the curtains (especially the red one, with its non-symmetrical look)

Open the blinds and curtains in the (?) conservatory

The beds look unmade, and there's clutter under and around them that should be cleared.

Again, do you think the unused chairs leaning on the garden table will attract people to your home? If not, then move/change them

You should be trying to attract people to your home - not give them a picture of your lifestyle and living patterns.... anything that attracts them is good, anything that detracts doesn't belong in the photographs

DRP

googler wrote: »

Setting aside all issues of price and location;

Pic 2 - Kitchen - do you think the kitchen roll, drainer, brown washing-up basin, oven glove, and all the other clutter on the worktops, are things which will attract people to your home? If you think so, all good and well. If not, what are they doing in the photographs?

The lounge pic is essentially of the back of the sofa. It looks as though you've made no attempt to tidy the throws and cushions on the sofa, nor the curtains (especially the red one, with its non-symmetrical look)

Open the blinds and curtains in the (?) conservatory

The beds look unmade, and there's clutter under and around them that should be cleared.

Again, do you think the unused chairs leaning on the garden table will attract people to your home? If not, then move/change them

You should be trying to attract people to your home - not give them a picture of your lifestyle and living patterns.... anything that attracts them is good, anything that detracts doesn't belong in the photographs

^^yeah this is exactly what i was going to post.

Your photos need to be selling the dream, which doesn't include your personal possessions or clutter - make the house as neutral in style as possible.

Tidy everything up. Throw stuff away or store it at a friends' house.

Make the rooms & garden look usable (ie.the point about the garden chairs above) - make it look as if the buyers could just move their stuff right in today.

Try and keep the place in a similar state for when you get viewings, too.

Poppy9

You should remember that even though the price of your house may have dropped houses the next rung up have also dropped so what you should always keep in mind is the price to move.

i.e. say you planned to sell for 90k - after selling fees etc and assuming you don't haven't really repaid much capital on your mortgage you would be lucky to clear 85k from the 90k. I am assuming you don't repay your current mortgage but keep it going you have 85k + say 45k new mortgage/savings to move up - total pot available 130k.

You might be thinking of when you bought and what houses were going for 130k but they may have dropped 10k in price in current market to 120k.

So now you sell for 80k, clear 75k and to buy the 120k house you need 45k.

So really what you sell for doesn't matter providing the house you are moving upto has also dropped in price. If you were looking at stepping up 2 or 3 rungs on property market you might find the prices of those houses have dropped more in value than your house at the lower end so a falling market is good for you if you have the money available to move up. Remember not to over stretch yourself gambling on your new house keeping it's value or rising as if you HAVE to sell for whatever reason you could lose out big time.

GDB2222

Poppy9 wrote: »

You should remember that even though the price of your house may have dropped houses the next rung up have also dropped so what you should always keep in mind is the price to move.

i.e. say you planned to sell for 90k - after selling fees etc and assuming you don't haven't really repaid much capital on your mortgage you would be lucky to clear 85k from the 90k. I am assuming you don't repay your current mortgage but keep it going you have 85k + say 45k new mortgage/savings to move up - total pot available 130k.

You might be thinking of when you bought and what houses were going for 130k but they may have dropped 10k in price in current market to 120k.

So now you sell for 80k, clear 75k and to buy the 120k house you need 45k.

So really what you sell for doesn't matter providing the house you are moving upto has also dropped in price. If you were looking at stepping up 2 or 3 rungs on property market you might find the prices of those houses have dropped more in value than your house at the lower end so a falling market is good for you if you have the money available to move up. Remember not to over stretch yourself gambling on your new house keeping it's value or rising as if you HAVE to sell for whatever reason you could lose out big time.

What you sell for affects your deposit a LOT! And these days deposits are key.

I take it that the motorway is quite noisy when you are in your garden? There is a maximum value for the size of house and location, so before you redecorate and declutter (ie throw out all your belongings), do make sure that you can afford to sell for a realistic price. Otherwise, you might as well keep your stuff and enjoy your own decor.

Poppy9

GDB2222 wrote: »

What you sell for affects your deposit a LOT! And these days deposits are key.

r.

Well I am assuming that the OP has saved some cash in order to have a deposit for moving. Assuming he had a deposit on his first home of say 10% and he's saved a bit since he should be able to muster a 10% deposit as I'm guessing he's not making a huge jump on the property ladder so only needs 12k on 120k house.