Loads of viewings but house not selling.

kilby_007

Cakeguts wrote: »

when someone else buys this house they will be second hand marble tiles.

:doh::doh:

Sky_

The stairs on the approach to the house would stop me buying it. I'd view because it looks like a nice house, but I'd then be irritated at wasting my time, because I wasn't forewarned about the stairs.

I think it is worth adding that information (or a photo of the approach to the house) to the listing, so that buyers can make an informed decision before viewing the house. Someone will love it enough to buy it, but by not adding all the facts you are wasting yours and other people's time.

RIPironman

Are estate agents always honest with you about the feedback they get. If I view a house, I'm always brutally honest with my feedback such as 'the next door neighbour's garden puts me off'. I'm not always convinced they tell the vendor exactly what I've said.

warby68

For me if the price was right I could accept the garden if it was pretty much the only thing left to fix - big job, I'd expect to throw money at it to get it done so would want a price that reflects that.

It has to the position - that below the road frontage and multiple rear steps are always going to have limited appeal however much of a palace you create. I think you are wasting people's time especially your own by hiding this in the listing. Perhaps some more truthful pics/comments whilst emphasizing the views which are a rather nice by-product of the 'quirky' location .

Your number of viewings is high - that suggests the other things are not actually putting people off. Certainly not your lampshades anyway!

Some great tips here but my money would be on the location and as you can't change that, it may come down to price in the end. But still early days if less than a month on the market- after all you only need one buyer.

Cheeky_Monkey

Flyingpig wrote: »

I think you have hit the nail on the head. People can say in their opinion it's over priced but with out them knowing the area they aren't really qualified to say that or not. What I can address is the garden, everything else is out of my hands. It hasn't been on the market even a month yet so I'm not going to drop the price. There is clearly something else putting people off. I'm hoping its the garden because I can try and do something about that.

I do, therefore I am.

As per my post - I think the problem is the location and therefore the price.

Bonfire_Bride

That is a LARGE number of viewings. I wouldn't drop the price just yet as it has only been on the market for a few weeks.

The garden would be an issue for me...but with 2 young children, it is one of my requirements when looking for a new home. However, a garden can be rectified and it wont cost tens of thousands if you have connections or are in the business yourself. I think someone will snap this up soon...the house selling game is blinking hard work (16 months and counting here).

I think adding a couple of plants will help dramatically as it will take the focus off the negatives. Inside, the house looks good.

Good Luck.

lessonlearned

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

LessonLearned

Lots of good points made there re the garden.

With ideas like that = Consider yourself booked to drop in for a cup of coffee if ever you're having a holiday in West Wales .

:rotfl::rotfl: - you know me, have rail card, will travel.

I just love designing things, indoors and out. I have transformed Ds2s house and garden but am nearly finished so I am ready for my next project..........

When we started the garden it consisted of nothing but slate chippings, spread across three stepped levels - admittedly they are a lovely blue/lilac shade - don't think they were cheap. One rose bush and an overgrown rockery in the corner and that was it. Obviously the previous owner wasn't a gardener but it was neat and tidy.

Anyway it's all planted up now with bargain basement shrubs, saplings, climbers, perennials. I've kept the chippings of course and the Rose bush because it's a beautiful old fashioned one which smells lovely. I've spent around £50.

Itching to get started on the next one.......

phoebe1989seb

I don't know the area and haven't looked at similar properties available/price comparisons, but I wondered whether your asking price reflects the work required to bring the rear garden etc up to the same standard as the rest of your house?

Internally your property seems to be of a good standard - although obviously not to everyone's taste - and the garden is the one thing within your power to change that lets it down.

When we were selling our last house in 2014 we had also (almost) completely restored the property. Ours wasn't a repo, but was unmortgageable when we bought it in 2011 - apart from a newly thatched roof and some replacement timbers the (non-listed) Georgian house needed just about everything doing to it! We spent a fair bit (100k) and did the work to a very high standard as we originally intended to stay long term, but we found the road noise - it was on a rural A-road - too much to bear. When I stumbled upon our *dream home* on RM we decided to sell up even though a few jobs remained unfinished. One of these was a small courtyard area in the third of an acre garden, that had been the dumping ground for rubble etc while we were building an extension. Instead of leaving this eyesore we forked out a few hundred £££ for sandstone paving, borrowed a few large plants in pots from elsewhere in the garden and dressed the space with a bistro set and bench.

Otoh, we didn't fully carpet the two attic bedrooms (the only completely unfinished internal spaces), but instead popped to Ikea for inexpensive sisal rugs that I laid over hastily painted floorboards. We also bought a cheap brass bed on eBay to dress one of the rooms as a kid's bedroom (the other already had a king size bed) as our potential buyers were most likely to be families with several kids.

Despite all of this we still pitched our asking price to reflect a) the A-road and b) the few unfinished jobs. We explained to our EA - and indeed all those we had round to value - that we'd found our onward purchase (and it was a real one-off - if we'd lost it we probably would've stayed put) and wanted to achieve a quick sale.

Even then we had few viewings - unlike yourselves - in the first four weeks. I think we had two or three. We then dropped the price a little so that the house appeared in a different price band on RM search and had a flurry of viewings, three offers - one of which was at our new asking price. That was five weeks into marketing. Our buyers loved it. They said they couldn't have afforded it had it not been on the main road - price would have been 100-150k higher. No price reductions after a full structural survey and exchanged on sale and purchase of dream house eight weeks later!

You obviously can't change the road, position of the house or its style externally, but you can improve kerb appeal - get new pics taken (our EA in Wilts used a pro photographer) of the changes you've already made - and do the jobs you've suggested to pretty up the rear courtyard. Also, I agree with pp that have suggested alerting potential buyers to the access issues in your ad. Finally consider dropping your price - and get rid of "offers over". You've certainly had no shortage of viewers - if the price were a little lower maybe one of those would bite! GL

hazyjo

I had white walls in a garden once and painted them a very light turquoise shade. There was trellis up the walls with things like jasmine/honeysuckle. My first impression (don't hate me for this lol!) was that it looked like a prison yard. Would love to see the after pics as there's been some fab advice - lessonlearned has always been good with selling advice

I don't think the steps would put me off, but they would young families, etc.

Good luck.

Jx

lessonlearned

Hazyjo......my exact thoughts were "prison yard" too........

But as you say some colour and some soft planting up the walls, a designated seating/eating area and then Some planted containers dotted around would turn a bleak "yard" into a nice courtyard garden.

It neednt break the bank.