Can you help? House not selling

miniloopie

lynzpower wrote: »

Ok garden
have you got a barbeque? If so have it open and GLEAMING inside. a great cheap way of gleaming bbq is to get a bottle of ammonia from boots few drops in a bin bag then put your grill in there leave overnight ( careful v noxious) and open the bin bag in the morning adn voila all the grot adn burn dirt wil have fell off.

Move the washing line out of the way.

Maybe jsut get some bigger pots and get bedding plants in there. when i sold my place I actuallly got loads of bedding plants form the reduced section of B&Q, only spent about 20 quid, they all revived once repotted in portting compost. Pots can be cheap, try tescos, asdas etc. lots of sales about what with the summer not really taking off!

if you view in the evenings, little glass jars with tealights in is nice, as is mood lighting ( i got a set of plug in ones reduced from 50 to 15 in B&Q not long ago they are nice in bushy plants, just lifts it a bit,.

HTH

Fantastic ideas there, thanks - the garden is looking rather nicer now actually so maybe some better pics of it would help!
I plan to do a spot of moving stuff about etc.... if it ever stops raining

avantra

Just to add, we have a similar issue with our house.:mad:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-15056656.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

It's on the market since October 2006, nice area north of Warrington, the house is 6 years old and practically new inside, but it's hardly get noticed.
We have changed the EA once and managed to get more viewings (about once a week). We are renting at the moment as we moved to Bristol so the house is empty and the next door neighbour takes care of the garden, dust etc'
The big issue here is that the EA in the area push the prices up, smaller houses in the same street are going above 150k (they are on the market for 6 month now) and we only ask for 140k!

We even accepted an offer for 132K but the buyer pulled off at the last mom. I think the prices are a bit inflated on the other houses. There is a big slow down in the North-West + loads of houses trying to sell.

If we drop to 130K will that make any different? The advantage is that this house can be populated at any time once contaract exchanged.

BrixMorta

The price must be about right for there to have been a good number of viewings. Something is putting people off and EA’s will not want to give you negative feedback at the risk of creating negativity, which may later lose them your instruction. This is very frustrating in your instance.

The bottom line as pcwilkins mentioned, is that having viewed they feel they can get better value for money elsewhere and one assumes that is indeed what they are doing.

Agents register buyers in 5k bands, which means that a reduction to £174,950 will bring your property into the price band below where many buyers may not have seen details. Make sure also that you have a for sale board this is very important. Best of luck.

miniloopie

BrixMorta wrote: »

The price must be about right for there to have been a good number of viewings. Something is putting people off and EA’s will not want to give you negative feedback at the risk of creating negativity, which may later lose them your instruction. This is very frustrating in your instance.

The bottom line as pcwilkins mentioned, is that having viewed they feel they can get better value for money elsewhere and one assumes that is indeed what they are doing.

Agents register buyers in 5k bands, which means that a reduction to £174,950 will bring your property into the price band below where many buyers may not have seen details. Make sure also that you have a for sale board this is very important. Best of luck.

When we originally put the house on the market we needed to get £175k for it (we thought) so put it on higher in the hope of getting an offer... as this hasnt happened, and we've seen houses for sale we could afford then I think we will look at lowering the price.... good point that it should be below the £175k mark.

UK007BullDog

Pictures of bedrooms and bathrooms are vital.

Ask your EA to give you the very honest feedback he got. maybe the viewers were too polite and did not say anything. But 2nd and 3rd viewings mean you were in the running but the buyers went for something else. Have you checked to find out what your competition is and had a look at the properties inside? Check out the property similar to yours that another poster posted on the other page. If I had to choose I would buy that one even if yours has off road parking as I can move right in and do not need to do anything to it for a long time.

In my road 2 identical houses are for sale, one for £239K and well done up with nice kitchen and bathroom, and the other £212,500 which needs a lot of work starting with the driveway and then working through the house. The higher one has an offer on it the other one gets offers of £180K due to the work required.

All I can say is to lighten up the rooms by painting the walls magnolia and decluttering before photos are taken. Sounds boring but its for people who do not have any imagination and cannot picture or see your properties potential.

prince1

Just an idea but I actually sold mine on www.gumtree.com (make sure you go to your city area) its free!

Obviously if you are using an agent and sold through Guntree you would have to pay the fees, but luckily for me I wasn't with an agent so I saved over £2000 on fees!

jungliemac

perhaps a few shrubs in planters on the front drive would help? Also poss jetwash the drive to remove the oily patches...other than that the house looks clean and tidy and really bright! Maybe it's just a bad time at the moment to be selling with the interest rates and that?

gremlin

Hi OP

I think your house is nice - i dont know the area but it seems that its not over priced.

I would re-iterate what others have said. I know its cheesy but 'dressing' your house can help. Some people are easily put off and with the glut of home buying/decorating programmes many people expect to move into their perfect home with no work on their part- unfortunately.

My only only suggestions would be;

Living room - it has a huge window and I dont think that green comes across too well in pictures it looks a little gloomyto me. I know from personal experience that airy, light rooms are what a lot of people look for. Maybe change the curtains or just get better brighter pics taken.

Kitchen - it looks a good size but is very cold and impersonal looking. I know the rule of thumb is to de-personlise but maybe some more colourful accessories or window dressings might brighten it up. Also a better more flattering pic might help.

Drive - again as said before pots of cheap but bright bedding plants would help.

Back garden - needs to look a little more lived and loved IYKWIM again pots of colourful plants.

Definately demand more pictures taken - it might just get the right person through the door. And keep being pushy with the estate agent even if you have to be a pain in their backside - make them earn their money.

Good luck with the sale

Jane x

miniloopie

Thanks everyone...
I have a list of jobs to do in the house now - as well as a list of things to go to the EA with - Im actually 9 weeks into a 10 week tie in now so will be asking for some real honesty else Ill be thinking about moving agents...

I think a lot of it is de-personalising the bits that need it - hard when you've lived there a while but needs to be done - and I need to sort the kitchen out - it does look a bit stark in the picture!

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions... Im off to look for some gardening help too :T

Doozergirl

I like your reception room. It is a great size, has a homely feel to it and I can see that there's a really nice fireplace that isn't being shown to it's full potential.

But the sheer amount of concrete front and back, and the red colour of the front of your house is frightening me. Could you paint it cream? I'd really think about removing some concrete from the back and laying a bit of turf. Costs more in elbow grease than cash, but will have quite an impact.

Looking at your neighbours house, which is very nice, although holes in walls where there should blatantly be a fireplace is not my thing! I'm not *entirely* swayed by a £3000 cheaper price tag even with the off road parking. There would be a bit of thinking involved there

Also, really important, is to get feedback from your viewings! Every single one. I would chase the EA two days after each viewing to get decent feedback, not just 'it's not for us'. It really does help you know what people are thinking.