Why aren't people viewing my house?

JencParker

In addition to things that have been mentioned, the living room / living area appears tiny for a house marketed as a four bedroom family home. Could you put the dining table into the kitchen breakfast area (which looks odd empty) and turn the dining room into a family room?

Tbagpuss beat me to it LOL - but I don't think the number of bedrooms are reflected in the living room space so having an extra family room would make a difference.

System

I personally do not take into account the furniture, clutter etc when viewing so I can't comment on that. From the picture of the reception room I can more or less make out what size it is and that footstool isn't really an issue for me. But that is just me and maybe other people would be put off.


The major factor that puts me off your house is the layout. Looking at it I think that where the kitchen is, it should be a dining room and where the breakfast area is - going across to the current dining area - is where the kitchen diner should be. For such a reasonably sized house which can accommodate a 2/3 children family, the reception room is too small. The main living area is beyond then kitchen but that is not what I personally would look for in a house that is advertised as suitable for a growing family.


That is just my opinion and may not even be why!

teddysmum

Rooms look very small and clutter doesn't help.
I don't like pebble dash and the porch bricks don't match.
No windows in the kitchen area.
Garden looks very small and drab. Also, I'd want a flat area with no steps.
The utility room's use is ambiguous as there is a microwave on the worktop.
The black wall is too harsh for my taste.
The downstairs room plan is odd-two dining areas with one stuck at the end of a utility area.
Perhaps people needing 4 bedrooms would need more than one bathroom or at least a shower room.

fairy_lights

What's at the end of the decking area? is there more of a garden area?
The photos all seem to be taken from the middle of the rooms, not the corners, making everything look a lot smaller than it probably is.
Did the estate agent use a camera or did he take the photos on his phone? They all look a bit grainy and overexposed. The glare of the light coming through the windows gives the impression that the pictures were taken in the first few seconds of a nuclear explosion!
Your kitchen is absolutely gorgeous, but even there the photos don't show it of to its full advantage.

jayss

1 small bathroom for 4 bedrooms would put me off.
Also the slimy deck picture is very off putting.

Agree on all the other comments, the pictures are just awful, no flow and make it look cramped.

System

Walcott wrote: »

I personally do not take into account the furniture, clutter etc when viewing so I can't comment on that. From the picture of the reception room I can more or less make out what size it is and that footstool isn't really an issue for me. But that is just me and maybe other people would be put off.

Some people lack imagination and cannot see any further than the nose on their faces. Little things shouldn't matter but they do.

Mattygroves2

As has been said I'd be looking at the layout and thinking there wasn't enough space downstairs for a family. Maybe the one that sold was better balanced as a 3 bed even though it has got less space downstairs as well. Looks like quite a bit of garden has been lost to the extension as well.

I'd go along with the put a table at the end of your kitchen and making the dining room into a family room or maybe a snug / study suggestion. Get your OH out pressure washing and either oiling or varnishing the decking and garden furniture as well as painting the exterior of the garage and the house - next door looks so much better in the picture that shows part of it.

lincroft1710

Get rid of picture 11, the rear of the house is unattractive with the extensions, concrete garage and fenced in decking. The ground floor layout won't appeal to everybody.

00ec25

purely personal opinion as I like DIY.
I would not be interested in your property because the layout of the downstairs extension is exactly opposite to how I would want it.

There is now no window in the kitchen area - i would have made the dining room into the kitchen, knocked through to the utility room to give the breakfast area and then possibility I would have used the front room as the (formal) dining room and where you currently have the kitchen/breakfast area I would have made into a spacious lounge giving ready access to the decking for summertime living.

as such your property is not for me as I'd have to spend too much undoing it

wantstomove

Mojisola wrote: »

I'd be talking to other EAs.
Check the contract and see when you can get out of this one.

We are tied in for 12 weeks unfortunately. This is the only time I’ve sold a house and wish we hadn’t gone with these people. I’ll know better next time.

harrys_dad wrote: »

Any estate agent who takes photos like that is useless at their job. Get a volunteer from your local camera club to take some with a wide angle lens, after your husband has emptied all the dumped stuff out of the rooms.
Those photos make fairly small rooms look tiny. They are worse than useless in that they actively put people off rather than attract them.

I agree. Whyever they thought the final photo was even worth putting in I don’t know as it would put me off and I obviously bought the place in the first place!

Paully232000 wrote: »

from the pictures i would say as others have the living room looks tiny and cluttered.
The decking could do with a clean, it looks like it hasnt been looked after which would concern me for future costs if it is rotten etc
Bedroom one looks tiny even though i am sure it is not.
Also looking at prices in the area, and the price you paid for it, it could be due to the price of it being too expensive for the area.

The thing is the decking has been cleaned regularly, and treated, since we moved in. But I can see your point that the fact that it looks bad now definitely suggests otherwise.

Regarding the price… I’m not sure it is too expensive for the area. If a 3-bed that is a lot smaller overall than ours sold in a week for 180k I’d have thought this is fairly reasonable. Although we paid 175k, prior to that it had sold for 184k, and when we bought it it needed a fair bit doing to it. Considering it’s very unlikely we’d get an asking price offer we are already going to lose a fair bit of the money we spent on it. That’s fine though, as we were planning on staying here forever and didn’t spend the money to get a profit, we spent it to make our home nicer.

I will try to get hold of a desk and chair for the box room so it looks like a more usable space.

I’ll see if we can get a picture of the lawned area to show the garden isn’t just 90% decking, but the weather recently is really not helping!

We tried moving the dining table to the end of the kitchen, but the problem is that our dining table is very large and too big for the space there. Because the current dining room and the kitchen are semi-open plan would it look ridiculous to have a large dining table right next to a small table and chairs at the end of the kitchen? We have a small not-very-good one that we could put there but I think it looks excessive. Who needs that much dining space? And I agree extra “family” space would be much better. I suppose we could put the small table at the end of the kitchen diner and move our huge table out completely (into the garage or something).

Unfortunately there are some things we can’t change. We can’t move where the kitchen is (those who said the kitchen should be at the back of the house – we originally asked about this but because the floor of the extension is concrete it would have cost a small fortune to fit a kitchen in there). And we can’t change the size of the bathroom. However we do have a separate toilet which makes having one bathroom not quite so bad.