Trying to sell this country cottage, any advice?

johnnyredgate

We have had this house on the market for a month and have not had any viewers from the internet marketing.
Have had a word with the agents and they have suggested that better internal pictures are required so I need to arrange this, and that we should have a look at the details, which I am hoping for some helpful pointers on here if anyone has ideas.
Will change the layout of the room details/sizes so it is clearer.
One enquirer I had from an ad I placed myself was concerned about flooding as this is a riverside cottage, however as far as I know the house itself has never flooded, it is actually on much higher ground than the house the other side of the bridge when the brook joins the river. How to I write all this without it being too wordy, the EA seemed to think it might be too much information. Also although the house has not been known to flood the garden has suffered some flooding due to a tree falling in the brook causing water to divert round it, rather than due to the brook itself being prone to flooding, would it be incorrect to wright that the cottage has not flooded if there has been some flooding in the far corner of the garden ( the bank has since been reinforced with gabions) ?

We had a local agent value the property at £165k so have pitched it below this in hope of a reasonably quick sale, realise the price may need to come down further but initially want to make sure it is marketed to best effect before considering this further. It is out in a fairly remote part of the country so there will only be a limited number of potential buyers looking here.

Thanks for any advice

motherofstudents

Your house is in a beautiful setting but as you say, there will be a smaller than average market as it is rather remote. I think what this means is, it will take longer to sell unless you reduce the price significantly. I actually have looked at this on rightmove as we have been debating whether to move to somewhere more rural. I think the EPC is quite worrying as obviously something would need to be done to improve the energy efficiency. Is there any way you could address this ?

I agree with the EA, don't go into too much detail about floods in the garden. If people are interested, they will ask. I think there is a market for this type of house but it will be someone who is willing to pay for the view/location and is able to take on whatever needs doing to the house itself. I hope someone comes along soon for you as it could be someone's dream house (it could be a nightmare to other people, but everyone wants something different).
just edited to say, was the EPC done after the solar panels/double glazing, or before ?

johnnyredgate

Thanks for your reply Motherofstudents, amazed you have already looked at it, it certainly shows that the marketing works in terms of people finding it!:)

Interesting comment re the EPC, I am not sure that there is any more that can be done to address this, the house has mostly new double glazing thoughout, very thick loft insulation, cavity wall insulation in the kitchen. It also benefits from a 10k solar water heating panels which significantly reduces the cost of the electricity bills. There is no mains gas out here so economy 7 used for the heating in winter.
I think that the problem with the EPC is that the walls are solid stone so now chance of cavity wall insulation, although I think there is currently funding for adding wall insulation inside the building, we could possibly look into this, although a little reluctant having just recently decorated the house! I have always accepted that an older stone or brick property without cavity walls is just going to have a poor EPC in comparison to a newer build. We could maybe find out what it would entail to have the house walls lined inside to provide that information to any potential buyers?

johnnyredgate

Another point to add is that the property is back on the market fairly soon after purchase (1 yr)due to one of the owners (my father in law) being taken seriously ill prior to moving and being hospitalised for months and now left disabled, unable to drive and in need of a lot of medical appointments, hence they were not able to move into the house as they had planned and were looking forward to doing.
In the meantime my husband has carried out a lot of work, new windows, door fitted, exterior stripped of ivy and repainted, all damp problems dealt with, plastering were required etc. However I am wondering whether people may be suspicious of the property being sold on fairly quickly, but again probably too much information to mention on the details?

abaxas

Does it either have broadband or 3g?

They are becoming almost essentials for even holiday lets.

Strapped

I think it's gorgeous! I don't know the local market though so can't comment on price. Parking looks tricky - presumably you have to put the car in the garage. I would tidy up the garden - after all, you are selling the outdoors, rural lifestyle. Create space, take down the airer, put out a couple of chairs and a small table. Dress the conservatory so it says "imagine sitting in here looking at those views" - lose the dog bowls and do something with that plant that looks like it's grown through from outside. If you want brutal honesty, the internal photos are mostly dark and not inviting. Lose photos 3, 7 and 8. Photo 4 is OK, although the blue colour makes the room look cold and the living room furniture screams old people, not aspirational. Photo 5 is your main selling point - consider making it the 1st one.

If I were buying, then I would be factoring in the cost of installing oil or wood central heating. Also, no photos of the kitchen or bathroom make me think these probably need replacing.

Sorry to be brutal, but I hope that helps.

johnnyredgate

Should have a relatively good broadband speed for a rural area, the exhange/broadband is in the next village approx 1.5 miles away.
The house has been let temporarily to an older tenant who didn't require broadband so not currently set up. But we are relatively nearby, further from the exchange and have about 4.5 broadband speed.
Presumably people would check the broadband speeds themselves or do you think something should be added to the details?

Strapped

johnnyredgate wrote: »

Should have a relatively good broadband speed for a rural area, the exhange/broadband is in the next village approx 1.5 miles away.
The house has been let temporarily to an older tenant who didn't require broadband so not currently set up. But we are relatively nearby, further from the exchange and have about 4.5 broadband speed.
Presumably people would check the broadband speeds themselves or do you think something should be added to the details?

4.5 is not bad for a rural area. We're on 1

johnnyredgate

Thanks strapped for your helpful comments, will go through your pictures, bathroom has been recently upgraded/refitted so should definately go on, downstairs loo/utility room hasn't but I feel that whoever took the property on would have their own ideas about this space, ie if my father had moved their it would have been turned into a wet room and the downstairs adapted, but it is a useful space to have downstairs for a new owner to have.
The kitchen has been retiled, but the units would benefit from updating, it is bright and newly painted so I am not sure why the agents have not posted the kitchen pic (or the bathroom picture) with the details.
The plant in the conservatory is a super grape-bearing vine, the roots being outside means no watering, to my mind it does do some of the dressing of the conservatory, but yes some conservatory furniture would be good.

The detail about the pictures is good, so I will go through them and bear in mind your comments when taking more (need to get hold of a better camera asap!). The house will be a bit more spartan with the tenant moved out now, do you think this is ok for the pictures or do you think all the rooms need dressing if we can get hold of furniture to do this?
Have done some work to the garden since the pictures, and it should look better further into the summer. I have flowers etc to go in but am waiting for the builders to comeback as there a small number of patchy areas to their painting were they are going to reseal and repaint and the plants will probably get trampled if I put them in now!

johnnyredgate

Strapped wrote: »

4.5 is not bad for a rural area. We're on 1

Yes, we had problems with our phoneline which BT eventually managed to fix after several attempts and can't believe our broadband speed now!

[Deleted User]

Perhaps not describe the conservatory as a green house?

Maybe change to glass house or just leave as conservatory.

Agree that many of the pictures look dark.

D9