Selling houses with loft conversions

Jolly_Roger

Many thanks for the feedback. As I am sure you can imagine, I have to be a little careful as to what I can say at the moment...

We got 5 valuations from different EA's and they varied in a band of £50K. The problem is that houses here are not often on the market, so there is little other property to compare our house with. When people move here, the benefits are such that you would be daft to move out unless you need to!

Not being time-constrained, we originally floated the house at the top end of the valuations and have since reduced twice. The house is now at a similar price to other non-loft conversions in this area plus £20K, so it is difficult to imagine reducing the price any further!

I do agree with the comment that it is about managing expectations. This is a town house over three floors, not a four-bedroom property per se. We have never sold a house before, so would never have considered on insisting on this being put in the particulars. Indeed, the EA's we spoke to all insisted it was a four bedroom house and should be sold as such.

Our loft conversion is also brilliant. It has stairs that are less steep than the main stairs; the dormer is also tasteful and the whole upgrade has been much admired. It was done under building regulations and so the loft room is warm in winter and, with the velux open, allows through draughts in the summer ensuring it is often the coolest room in the house!

You are allowed to expand a property by up to 50% and the loft conversion we had done wouldn't even have got to 20% of that, so rear extensions could be attempted, although I find they leave a dull middle room that nobody uses. The only extensions I like are side ones.

BTW, when we had the loft conversion done, we either had a choice of paying £100k to trade up to a genuine four-bedroom property, or spend £20k on a loft conversion. Not being millionaires, we eschewed the former.