Property on market for too long...ideas???

lessonlearned

Tyler - the fact that the house has been on the market for two years tells you all you need to know - it's the price.

Yes it is a nice house and clearly well loved and well maintained. It is however, horribly dated and will simply not appeal to it's target market of a young family.

The kitchen whilst modern is cramped and looks pokey and doesn't fit the way families live now. The orange 80s pine woodwork everywhere - doors, skirtings, architraves, dado rails - is very offputting and the bathroom whilst clean and perfectly functional is very dated.

I'm afraid that the average viewer is going to take one look and think £20K for a revamp.

That £280 price tag is far too high.

Sorry.

thegirlintheattic

Way too overpriced for that in Barrow I'm afraid.

My comments:

Garden very nice - doesn't need anything doing to it.

Photo makes front living room look very small.

Narrow kitchen is going to put people off - nothing you can do but bear in mind. Same with lake of downstairs WC and en suite.

Dinning room and other living room look a bit empty.

Wood makes it look dark - paint white?

Too much clutter in 11/12 - raises questions about amount of storage.

If I were viewing I'd be looking to knock dinning room and kitchen together and turn bedroom three into master with ensuite, as well as revamping the whole place and is looks tired - that all adds up.

Old_Git

swap the beds in bedroom 2 &3 .
You have a single bed in the big room and a double up against the wall .
declutter bedroom 3
Otherwise price is the problem.

RedfordML

Tyler119 wrote: »

Hi everyone,

So my partner's parents recently passed away and they had their house on the market. My partner and her sister have kept it that way as ideally they would like it sold.

The problem is that it has been on the market for a good couple of years and in the last year has had maybe 3 people view it and no second viewings.

Would anyone have any advice on where to go? The house is at http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-40348658.html

I thought it would be a good idea to have fresh neutral carpets put in the hall way. Freshen up the walls with new paint. Sort out the wall at the front of the driveway. Repaint about the upper front bay window.

In the garden, re-spray the decking and paint the summer house and tidy up the garden with some new plants etc.

If the bathroom was white I would leave it alone, but the suite is coloured, would anyone change this to improve sell appeal??

Also I find the photos do not really (inside one's) show accurately the size of the rooms as it is fairly big inside.

Any help would be good and I thank you!

Ive asked for help a lot recently but the advice is always really good!

Can only be one thing...PRICE

anotheruser

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Re the picky comments on "Get rid of this/move that" etc - I would have thought that that level/price range of house would be one that would be bought by a second-time buyer...

Hardly picky...

The OP asked opinions and I answered from my experience. By targeting second time buyers or above, they will cut out a huge chunk of people... a lot of desperate people who are likely to buy if you carry out a few simple changes. No hard work really.
The house / building looks fine so it can't be that which is putting all these "second-time buyers" off :P

But hey, thanks for musing the same point in the mini-essay when a sentence would have done

moneyistooshorttomention

RedfordML wrote: »

Can only be one thing...PRICE

OOH...now...the price would never be the thing if you have a Countrywide estate agent in your area you know....at least according to them:rotfl:and the letter you might have been sent by one of them trying to poach you.

Of course...that brings up the thought that you could mystery shop your EA to check how they are doing their job. I saw this put as a suggestion more than once on this Board and duly got a friend to be a mystery shopper for me (and she passed my firm with flying colours). So maybe you could get a friend to mystery shop your current firm and see what sort of response this friend gets - just in case its your firm letting you down at all.

I'm still bearing in mind that there's nothing actually wrong with the house - it's just not "fashionable" - but if you could find a way to target a similar agegroup to your family then maybe they wouldn't be too bothered about "fashionable or not fashionable". My own EA is as well aware as I am, for instance, that they regard my house as pretty "well maintained" - but definitely not fashionable (apart from bathroom suite being the correct colour - white). So their latest prospect was they specifically targeted a career-minded woman in my own agegroup and specially suggested she view mine as well as the others she had in mind - and I regard that as very good marketing to have done so.

Errrmm...now as to how you could personally target people in that agegroup/income range yourself - what sort of interests did your family have/places where they would expect to find likeminded people (eg Golf clubs, business type groups, etc). Could you figure that out and then stick up nice posters there advertising your house in the type of place people like that would hangout? Maybe a bit of "blue sky thinking" could be called for?

Tyler119

The_Cats_Been_Sick wrote: »

AT least £50k to £60k over-priced for semi Barrow and buyers will be mentally pricing up kitchen and bathroom refit too.

This 3-bed semi on West Avenue is priced at £229,950 and judging by the summer pics of the garden is still lingering on the market at that price.

And all that orange pine in Pic 8 is a shocker. The whole presentation shouts 'probate sale' with the old-people's chairs in the lounge, which can only drive down what peeps are prepared to offer.

I'd say you need to put in £750 in staging too -

Some pots of bright flowers around the front door
Retake outdoor pics if spring flowers are showing
De-clutter, esp. all the kiddies stuff in bed 3
Neutral paint scheme in all 3-beds, lounge
Soft close white lavvy seat
Remove as much of the Argos pine furniture as poss. and retake pics



Use another surveyor!

You are way off the mark with saying that it is that overpriced. Yes since having the valuation back from the surveyor and talking to the estate agent then yes it does need tinkered with. However not by the amount you are talking about. The street it is on is also a very desirable street that have very large almost private gardens.

We know that the pics need redone, we weren't responsible for the original photos.

Those OLD people chairs are very expensive recliner sofas. As for the ARGOS pine, nothing in the house smells of ARGOS! So please don't make comments like that.

The house was on the market before my partners parents both passed away so it hardly shouts probate sale!

Yes we are away of spending a bit on showing off the house.

olias

Sorry OP, I have to ask, what exactly does Argos smell of.......?

Olias

Angela

We sold recently to the 1st person that looked at our house although we had about 5 other viewings in 10 days and 2 people putting in offers.
We got 4 estate agents around to give us there valuations (no 4 beds in our road had sold in the last 5 years)
Looked at them all, decided what we thought was the right amount and went with the agent we got on with/was most helpful at the price we wanted.
I think you should get agents around and listen to there advise.

boqq_2

It is a lovely hse but one of the bedrooms is very cluttered with boxes on the floor and under the bed indicating lack of storage. The wok on the wall in the kitchen gives this impression too. It's hard to sell over the 250 mark because of the 3per cent stamp duty. You might want to offer to pay this but I guess the best option is to sell at 250. Buyers are savvy enough to look at what houses sold for on the street and they are hardly likely to go with the highest sold price in this market. Did the estate agent give you any feedback based on viewings?