Selling our house but no viewings

DarlyPaws

Blackpool_Saver wrote: »

What a lovely place, the only thing i would say is dress the sun lounge and garden a bit... what's the parking situation ?

That is what I shall do this weekend! It seems to be what everyone is picking up on and I am forever grateful for the feedback!

Sorry! Missed your question about parking. There is an allocated spot in front of the house and plenty of parking around the house. Since it is a small village, parking isn't an issue.

Fire_Fox

DarlyPaws wrote: »

Yes, the floor plan is much more flashy than useable. It makes all the staircases look really long and huge.

Oddly, we were told to take our prints down because they were too personal (family pictures, etc) so that is what we did. I've thought that the walls looked really bare. I'll see what the garden centre has for potted plants this weekend. I'll also spread out the other plants that we have. I'll pull out the garden table for the new pictures.

I think it is either the price or the market or both. Looking around at what is on offer and what has sold, the agent thinks it isn't the price but is the market. Apparently, people just aren't viewing things right now and things aren't moving. She doesn't want us to drop the price yet but I'm not so sure.

Family photos are family photos which should indeed be removed, you are selling an aspirational lifestyle not your family life. Prints of neutral subjects add to the homeliness: you just want cheapo but decent looking like those photographic canvases of flowers or plants or wild scenery or beaches (not naff seaside tho). You can pick up decent sized ones in IKEA, Home Bargains, Wilkinsons and other discount places for between five and fifteen pounds. Or even a decorative wall clock or two, a shape that looks interesting and striking from a distance.

Don't spread the current plants out they will look worse, they are simply too small for the space. Tall/ large plants won't be the cheapest, but obviously they can go with you to your new place. If you have a cute table definitely pull it out, if you have a tasteful coloured plasticised canvas outdoor table cloth use that. I like your stone courtyard very much, but coming into winter it will be too grey with the skies being the same. Just noticed the moss on the paving, clear that.

Asking price is inextricably linked to the market, everything sells at the right price, there are fewer buyers not no buyers. As a silly example if you changed the price to £10K you'd have someone willing to exchange for cash without doing any searches or surveys within the hour. If one estaste agent is not getting viewings or sales then she is overpricing everything on her books.

ETA have you thought about putting the office in the sun room, then dressing the third bedroom as a bedroom? or putting the office under the stairs, and the dining table in the sun room?

DarlyPaws

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Family photos are family photos which should indeed be removed, you are selling an aspirational lifestyle not your family life. Prints of neutral subjects add to the homeliness: you just want cheapo but decent looking like those photographic canvases of flowers or plants or wild scenery or beaches (not naff seaside tho). You can pick up decent sized ones in IKEA, Home Bargains, Wilkinsons and other discount places for between five and fifteen pounds. Or even a decorative wall clock or two, a shape that looks interesting and striking from a distance.

Don't spread the current plants out they will look worse, they are simply too small for the space. Tall/ large plants won't be the cheapest, but obviously they can go with you to your new place. If you have a cute table definitely pull it out, if you have a tasteful coloured plasticised canvas outdoor table cloth use that. I like your courtyard, but coming into winter it will be too grey with the skies being the same.

Asking price is inextricably linked to the market, everything sells at the right price, there are fewer buyers not no buyers. As a silly example if you changed the price to £10K you'd have someone willing to exchange for cash without doing any searches or surveys within the hour. If one estaste agent is not getting viewings or sales then she is overpricing everything on her books.

What would constitute naff seaside so I can avoid it? I've done a bit of research (I don't take the EA totally at her word) and have rung the various EA's in the area and spoken about listing a house. They have all said to wait as people aren't viewing in general at the moment. Very frustrating! However, maybe they are all just not marketing things correctly. Some of the pictures I see on Rightmove are horrid!

ETA: I hadn't thought of that but it isn't all that feasible, I'm afraid, as I work from home and the only spot in the house with no mobile phone reception is the sun room. My mobile is my main contact per the company I work for. It is a really great idea, though, and I wish I could do it!

shegirl

DarlyPaws wrote: »

We just laid new carpet in there so I was reluctant to put furniture in because I didn't want to crease the carpet. Maybe that was a bit stupid of me! Haha!

Could you put a dining set in the sun lounge?

I have to say,apart from the fact it's so small,what would put me off right away is the pic of the 'dining area'.It just looks cramped,awful and uncomfortable,I also wondered how many bumped heads it creates!It just looks shoved out of the way.

I also would never have guessed the kitchen/diner is 18 foot long.

Edited to add: can I ask what paint that is on the living room walls please?I like it!

phoebe1989seb

It's definitely a very sweet little cottage and pretty well presented internally - although I agree that a couple of canvasses would brighten things up a bit! Also, I would do as other posters have suggested and dress the sunroom as either the dining room or study. Garden-wise if I was looking to buy with young kids I would be put off by the outside space, but guess most other cottages locally are similar. I would try to soften it somewhat though with large plants in planters that you can take with you when you do sell. I also agree that the 3D floorplan is very hard to decipher.....

Regarding the idea of an open day - we have been assisting my parents sell their house (on the market since the end of August) and despite having two offers within the first few weeks (the first one, an investor, pulled out when he discovered he couldn't put in a dropped kerb - even though there's a drive and garage - and the other made a silly low offer) things seemed to be stagnating. The EA suggested dropping the price to £250k - it was originally on for £265k, although we always expected to achieve no more than the SD threshhold of £250k - and within days had a flurry of bookings to view. The canny EA arranged these back-to-back with the idea that it would generate a panic situation with buyers clamouring to be the successful bidder. The result was that we immediately received three offers (two of which were at asking price) and hopefully - fingers crossed - things are now heading towards a speedy exchange/completion

We also sold our house last year and despite having spent £40k+ on restoring the period house to its former glory, the price we achieved was well below the price we had paid in 2007 - but we did sell quickly (within a fortnight) so if a near neighbour only achieved £113k you might have to bite the bullet and take a hit if you want/need to move quickly......as unpalatable as this may be

It might therefore be worth dropping the price (if you can take the hit) enough to draw people in and you never know a bidding war might ensue

Good luck - it really is a cute house!

shegirl

DarlyPaws wrote: »

Oh dear!? A prison exercise yard. That's not good. Perhaps I should put the table and chairs out and then take another picture. They are in due to the constant rain the whole of the UK is getting. Would that help, do you think?

Also, no, houses aren't really moving. However, most of the houses in this price range in the area tend to need a bit of work as well. The EA is a bit confused as to why it isn't moving either. We are absolutely open to offers but people have to view it first to even think of offers (except for those two investors looking for a holiday let, which it would also be great for). We are considering a part exchange for another house but there is always the possibility that the people interested in our cottage may not like in the flesh. So, I am just trying to look at all angles.

Small table and chairs and a couple of pot plants to brighten it up?

Fire_Fox

DarlyPaws wrote: »

What would constitute naff seaside so I can avoid it? I've done a bit of research (I don't take the EA totally at her word) and have rung the various EA's in the area and spoken about listing a house. They have all said to wait as people aren't viewing in general at the moment. Very frustrating! However, maybe they are all just not marketing things correctly. Some of the pictures I see on Rightmove are horrid!

ETA: I hadn't thought of that but it isn't all that feasible, I'm afraid, as I work from home and the only spot in the house with no mobile phone reception is the sun room. My mobile is my main contact per the company I work for. It is a really great idea, though, and I wish I could do it!

I find touristy seaside prints can be naff - beach huts or looking like the Bahamas - but those wouldn't go with your colour scheme anyway. Wilder more subtly coloured ones look better IMO - stormy skies, rolling seas, dunes with shrubby plants - and these should work with your existing muted grey-blues, creams and browns.

Are there any reasonably priced gadgets that can make a mobile phone get reception in the sun room? Some kind of booster or Bluetooth or something that sends your mobile signal down your internet cable? I don't know much about technology, but the guys on the Techie board will.

WestonDave

Lovely house and lovely area (did my degree in Bangor!) but on the other hand its also got a few challenges.

First one is there is no obvious place to market it - you've got it on with agents in Caenarfon and Bangor, whereas there is another one in the same street (3 bed in need of updating on for £107k) being marketed with an agent in Pwllheli. Having too many agents makes them reluctant to put too much work in, so I might be tempted to drop one of the two you have now and try one in Pwllheli as it might be a more natural move out from there than from say Bangor which is a fair old drive away.

If anything the back yard lets it down a bit. It lacks anything in the picture to attract you - a nice set of table and chairs etc as others have said, but I'm sorry to say that the grass growing up between the stones (and to a lesser degree the slightly chewed look to the white door) clashes a bit with the rest of it being so spotless. I'd get out there with the weeding knife to get that grass out and have another photo taken with a nice table etc.

Beyond that it might just be a question of waiting until people start looking about in the spring for potential holiday lets - if they buy now they are going to have the expense of it over the winter with few/no bookings, so I suspect that market if its interested in your place might come back into play in early 2013.

If I had the money I'd be very tempted although the time it would take to get there from home would probably be the ultimate deal breaker. Good luck - someone will love it eventually.

Bogof_Babe

I've mentioned this on another similar thread, but if I was a buyer one of my requirements would be knowing what public transport is available. Is there any info about this in your particulars? Also how far the cottage is from the local shops. Not everyone drives, and you could be eliminating people who love the house but are concerned about its location.

moneyistooshorttomention

Looks a nice little house to me. I rather like it. I've "moved on" from "starter house" level now - but for a "starter house" or maybe a holiday home it looks very nice/attractive/I like it.

I've no idea whether the price you've set on it is the right one for the area so can't comment on that.

The only thing that I have noticed is that it's "oil-fired central heating" - which is :eek:.

Have you checked out how your house compares with similar houses that have either no central heating or gas-fired/electric central heating?

I'm just saying that because I would be perfectly prepared to take on a house that had oil-fired central heating - provided the price allowed for ripping it out and replacing it with another form of central heating. So - if you are charging the same price for your house as one with central heating that was less expensive to run/more future-proof then that may be what is going wrong for you.

Personally - I would go for a house I wanted even if it had that oil-fired central heating - BUT I would expect to knock off round about £5,000 from the price for converting it to a more future-friendly option. That may be what is happening in your case.