Ideas to increase viewings & get more interest?

purplepixi

The house has been on the market now for a month, and has had 6 viewers. It's in Shaftesbury, Dorset. And is a one off build, 4 double bedrooms and in a countryside setting.

We had hoped it might appeal to commuters for London or Bristol as it's just 5 mins from the A303, and there's a train station just 3 miles away.

However, due to a change in family circumstances we need it sold and pretty quickly.

There's only one estate agent currently listing it as they provided a discounted rate for using them exclusively.

However, they called the other day to ask about dropping £10,000 off the asking price to push the house back to the top of their listings, as they'd had no more bookings for viewings on it since those first 6. But with it only having been on the market for a month is it a bit soon to be thinking about that?

Although dropping the price may encourage more viewings, I'd be interested to know if anyone else has done more marketing themselves other than using the estate agents.

We've done all the things online that they say you should do, keep it tidy, de-clutter etc. It's been put on a few groups and personal facebook pages. And we've created a more in-depth brochure for people to download: http://!!!!!!/2ldOmlp (direct link to pdf)

But other than that we're stumped on how to get the word out there that it's being sold.

If anyone has any creative ideas to spread the word, I'd be very grateful.

theartfullodger

Drop price:

JigglyPug

Is it on rightmove and zoopla? If so, would you be able to link to the advert? From the brochure, the pictures look fairly rubbish. They're over-exposed, taken at jaunty angles and don't necessarily frame your house in the best way. I would be put off by the brochure because to me it feels like someone trying to oversell a fairly standard house.. but it's very possible that that's just me!

I think that realistically if you haven't had any more viewings since it first went on and the estate agents think a drop in price would help then a drop in price might be wise.

Mrs36

Have the agents not done a brochure? I hate to sound so rude and I am genuinely trying to offer constructive criticism so please don't take this personally, but your brochure looks really handmade and almost childlike (I think it is the giant letters and the font tbh)(. If I were looking for a property in that price bracket I would expect something far more professional.

Also the pictures really need to be re-done, some of them are blurry and not the quality I would expect of a house in that price range.

Finally, if you need a quick sale the best way for that is going to be dropping the price.

Cakeguts

The pictures of the property are terrible. The back garden is overlooked by the house behind and there isn't a proper fence just posts and rails. The drive to the house behind runs down the side of the house and there is a public foot path down the other side so a complete lack of privacy. The back garden is small and the plot is small for the size of the house.

Compared to what else you can buy in that village it is very overpriced. If you want to get a quick sale you will have to drop the price to one that someone will be prepared to pay for a house in that position on that size of plot.

3mph

Sorry but the brochure is really hard work, you have to trawl right through it.

It would be better if you had 1 page Summary with all the facts not waffle. So anyone can quickly see if they are interested. Then 2 or 3 pages with a bit more description and floor plan and a set of photos of Key parts. Then get into the detail.

Like a cv or job application make it as easy as possible.

At least you didn't use comic sans

kinger101

Your house is massively overpriced. And I mean by about £150,000

And it's not on Rightmove!

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-58169410.html
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-63748349.html
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-46835175.html

"But other than that we're stumped on how to get the word out there that it's being sold"

Advertise it. At a sensible price. With a real estate agent rather than the village idiot.

Lioness_Twinkletoes

Sorry, but I really hate the brochure. It's really badly written with odd punctuation and poor photos. The open back garden would also put me off. I'd suggest you lower the price. After all, this property is considerably less and has a lot more character. It's also chain free with a lovely, secure private garden.

kinger101 wrote: »

Your house is massively overpriced. And I mean by about £150,000

And it's not on Rightmove!

Yes, it is. Same awful pictures though

Ms_Chocaholic

Is this is on Rightmove
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-64223309.html

If the EA did those photos you really need to find someone else.

kinger101

Lioness_Twinkletoes wrote: »

Sorry, but I really hate the brochure. It's really badly written with odd punctuation and poor photos. The open back garden would also put me off. I'd suggest you lower the price. After all, this property is considerably less and has a lot more character. It's also chain free with a lovely, secure private garden.



Yes, it is. Same awful pictures though

Oh yes....my eye must of got distracted by all the nice properties at more reasonable prices. Wonder how many other people skipped over it for the same reason.

StumpyPumpy

I have to agree with the previous posters. I don't want to seem cruel, as I'm sure you put in a lot of time and effort putting together this "brochure" but it really isn't a professional document at all. It is poorly structured and far too long, it is in desperate need of an editor who would give it a brutal pruning - I gave up reading it, to be honest.

If an agent had put that together for me I'd be screaming merry hell about the poor sentence construction and typos. For instance you have written "Saftebsury" and "Shaftebsury" together with "Shaftesbury" all in the same sentence; you seem to have a poor grasp of punctuation, grammar and correct capitalisation throughout the document, using structures such as "motor ways", "country side" and "foot path" and use numerous incomplete sentences (remember school where they said a sentence contains a subject and a verb? Well many of yours do not.)

I know I sound like some old English teacher, but it needs to be said as it shines a poor light on the house and when you are selling something, standards are everything. While I can point and nitpick over small things within it others will simply get an overall feeling of poor quality and that will be transferred onto your house. Nobody expects perfect English on a message board such as MSE; no doubt there are errors in this post of mine - but I'm not trying to sell something and you are, so yours needs to be spot on, mine does not.

In my opinion if you want to continue with your own brochure, I'd suggest that you cut the waffle. You have over 2,000 words in your brochure and nothing that couldn't be said in less than 500. You need better pictures and a better narrative flow, you've hidden important information such as room dimensions in the bowels of the text while highlighting trivia such as local Jazzercise classes (putting all the dimensions in a table next to the floor plan might help) But most importantly: get someone competent to proofread it for you. What is more, get them to read it as a complete document not a series of Powerpoint slides (not the most efficient way to create a PDF by the way).

I don't say all this to be mean or to have a go at you but simply in response to your initial question. You want to sell quickly and my opinion is that your "brochure" is not helping at all. Others, including you, may disagree. That is fine by me. The ultimate answer to a quick sale is always the same: drop the price.

As an aside, is your estate agent aware that you are doing this? And, more importantly, using their pictures, floor plan and contact details within your brochure? They may take a dim view of this as they are the ones supposed to be doing the marketing and will hold copyrights on them.

SP