Please Critique these details?

Alchemilla

Thanks again for giving me your time and effort. Phoebe especially for the detailed posts.

I have asked nicely about buying the garden back, I can't pester the neighbour.

The cupboards do continue into the dining part of the kitchen?

We were on with two different high street agents previously. They were not much cop.

phoebe1989seb

Alchemilla wrote: »

Thanks again for giving me your time and effort. Phoebe especially for the detailed posts.

I have asked nicely about buying the garden back, I can't pester the neighbour.

The cupboards do continue into the dining part of the kitchen?

We were on with two different high street agents previously. They were not much cop.

I had a further look at the brochure where you have different photos and see what you mean about the cupboards continuing into the dining part of the kitchen, but TBH whilst they are useful storage they don't provide work/prep space which is what I would want. I get that with the table in that corner there is no real wall space for further base cabinets, but along that wall is where I would put them. Would it be possible to move the table - either into the formal dining room - as suggested by a previous poster (obviously that would mean re homing your grey sofas temporarily*) or else having it in the centre of the kitchen/diner as an island-type prep area?

*Re: the temporary re homing of your grey sofas. When selling our last house we rented a storage unit in order to declutter somewhat - despite having bags of storage we had stuff from my parents' house after it had been sold as well as stock from our business that needed tidying away Assuming you intend to use the sofas at your new home you could rent a small storage unit and re stage the second reception room as a dining room then put a smaller table in your dining kitchen. In order to stage one of our bedrooms for sale we picked up an inexpensive cream brass bed on fleabay which we re sold once the house sale was progressing, so you could do similar with a small kitchen table or mobile island unit.

We used Symonds & Sampson for our last sale - in Wilts - do they operate in your area? Alternatively we've found Humberts to be very good.......

Alchemilla

I don't think either of those operates here.

Ha ha one of the (new) grey sofas looks fine but has actually been destroyed by the children already.

ReadingTim

Alchemilla wrote: »

We were on with two different high street agents previously. They were not much cop.

OK, it's been marketed by 2 traditional EAs plus yourself via an online EA, and you've had 5 pages of feedback on your thread last year and 3 pages this year, so now, I think it's safe to say it's not the listing!

Your problem is either that the market is dead, or the price is too high, and the solution is either to sit it out and hope someone, somewhere bites at some point, or drop the price. However, given you've only dropped it by £20k since it didn't sell a year ago, this doesn't seem a course of action you're too keen on....

I suggest you drop to £350k, or prepare for a long wait...

Alchemilla

Think I'm fiddling in the teaspoon drawer?

10% price cut?

ReadingTim

Just failing to acknowledge the elephant in the room, although other terms for similar sellers on this board may include greedy, deluded, unmotivated, timewasters etc...I'm sure you get the picture.

You may have to drop more than 10% - but even that's twice as much as you've previously dropped it by - I just picked £350k as a random mental landmark figure. Maybe get round the EAs and ask for a realistic / 'priced for a quick sale' figure and see if you could accept that, or prefer to sit tight.

Alchemilla

Thank you.
I am genuinely grateful for everyone's comments.

One half of the couple is a motivated seller...perhaps we are not destined to move.

franklee

Alchemilla wrote: »

Thank you.
I am genuinely grateful for everyone's comments.

One half of the couple is a motivated seller...perhaps we are not destined to move.

Perhaps. If you are happy there then staying put makes sense.

The issue of price is always tricky if you have a "quirky" property. I was fascinated by a house a few doors away from where I lived. It's a nice big house but compromised by a tall building in front and a small garden at back. Where I lived looked onto a little square and while the garden was equally small the property was much smaller so more in keeping. The owners of the large house put it up for sale eight years ago for 550K which was well overpriced. Over the years they've used all the local agents and a few distant ones without dropping the price. Recently they went with house network and eventually dropped to 500K and are now under offer. Perhaps they felt justified in holding out for a top price. My view is what has happened to the price of properties they could have purchased? I bet they've risen far more over the eight years. Meanwhile their children have gone from being about ten years old to about eighteen - almost ready to go to uni and their whole secondary education done with the house up for sale. I can't help think the gap in price between what they had and what they wanted has widened over the time they've been on the market so they would have been better off reducing the price and moving up years ago. However it seems people just look at the "profit" they've made on their current house and not at the overall cost of moving from A to B which is what really matters.

phoebe1989seb

franklee wrote: »

Perhaps. If you are happy there then staying put makes sense.

The issue of price is always tricky if you have a "quirky" property. I was fascinated by a house a few doors away from where I lived. It's a nice big house but compromised by a tall building in front and a small garden at back. Where I lived looked onto a little square and while the garden was equally small the property was much smaller so more in keeping. The owners of the large house put it up for sale eight years ago for 550K which was well overpriced. Over the years they've used all the local agents and a few distant ones without dropping the price. Recently they went with house network and eventually dropped to 500K and are now under offer. Perhaps they felt justified in holding out for a top price. My view is what has happened to the price of properties they could have purchased? I bet they've risen far more over the eight years. Meanwhile their children have gone from being about ten years old to about eighteen - almost ready to go to uni and their whole secondary education done with the house up for sale. I can't help think the gap in price between what they had and what they wanted has widened over the time they've been on the market so they would have been better off reducing the price and moving up years ago. However it seems people just look at the "profit" they've made on their current house and not at the overall cost of moving from A to B which is what really matters.

There's one rather like that along the lane from us......I'm not sure exactly how long it's been on the market for as we only moved here in 2014, but according to RM it was reduced to 850k in 2011 :eek: I understand it's a divorced couple selling (with the husband still living in the house), so guess there's some disagreement there and motivation is somewhat lacking.

I'm pretty certain that we could have achieved a higher price for our last house had we not been so keen to secure our onward purchase. I don't think we could have been more motivated and the desire to buy that particular house pushed us onwards.

Alchemilla, if you're not 100% certain about a move - or indeed if only one of you is - perhaps staying put really is the answer. Without wishing to pry, was there a particular driving force in this proposed move......work, family, financial or just wanting a change of scenery? If you don't have to move, then maybe if you haven't received any interest by the school Summer holidays (a notoriously quiet time for selling in many areas) take it off the market, do a bit of thinking and maybe some re-staging of your spaces etc and put it back on in September/next Spring......just a thought

Alchemilla

I want to get some more land so DD2 can have a pony as DD1 has. There is nothing useful for sale in the village(land I mean). We have seen somewhere (a semi) with several acres which has been on the market longer than us.

Weirdly they managed to pay the same for it in 2004 as it is not selling for now.