House sale help!

pimento

... apart from all that it's perfect! )

kite99

Thank you everyone for your reply and help. We're definitely going to get some new pictures. We have paid PB and therefore will stick it out with them a little longer rather than the hefty EA fee's. Our local expert is fantastic and we're doing the viewings on our owns so the negatives you tend to hear from PB we are executing straight away. The front door is and isn't actually useable. There is room to open it and get in and out though i guess the pictures don't show this however with the 'front door' been on double yellows its not used as an entrance to the property, the back is. Its the same with all of the properties on the road.

SuboJvR

Firstly just like to say that I think the presentation of the house is lovely.

As a prospective buyer, my background is that I'm married with no kids with a husband who loves his workshop space, and I work from home sometimes. We're probably your "ideal" market the way the house is presently, but even then it would go off our list sadly.

Although we don't have children, having a bit of a garden is something we really like if only for the odd seasonal BBQ (although it's a braai, in our house). This is something you can't change though!

The other thing we would struggle with is not having two toilets in the house. Often we're both trying to get ready at the same time, so bodily functions aside we each really claim a sink/mirror as our own!

But you're not even getting viewings at the moment so you really need to try and change people's minds on your photos and the advert to get them coming around....

I wonder if it may be worth moving the furniture out of bedroom 3 for your photos so you can show it as an empty room or potential study, which may offer people more hope that it would fit a bed in. Having the drawers in there also suggests that you don't have enough storage space for yourselves in the other rooms which again may be off-putting.

The floorplan is slightly misleading as it says 1117 sqft which I assume includes the garage? So this makes the living space sound bigger than it is as is. Different if it's included but there's also not even access into the garage internally.

I would swap the sofa and the coffee table around for the photos if you can. Although I assume you don't use that particular door, it took me until photo 15 to realise that you had other external access. With a potential buyer, they may not make it past the first few photos before being turned off by that and then looking at another house.

Lastly it could just be down to price. As has been mentioned, around the corner there's a 4 bed house for a similar price and yours may not even fit a third bed in!

You could definitely alter the advert to talk more about the potential of the house. For example if someone sacrificed that third bedroom, made that into a family bathroom and then used the other bathroom as an en-suite, it could be more appealing...?

ReadingTim

SuboJvR wrote: »

Lastly it could just be down to price. As has been mentioned, around the corner there's a 4 bed house for a similar price and yours may not even fit a third bed in!

It's always, if not only, down to price. Most of the points raised elsewhere might be irritants, but probably won't be deal breakers for a single person, young couple, or even couple with baby - up to a couple of years old. It's not really suitable for a family, but it suits the OP, so will suit someone else. If they can get it at a good price.

Given that less than half a mile away, you can buy this, which is far more house, for slightly less money, the OP's price just isn't realistic, especially given the [STRIKE]flaws[/STRIKE] quirks of their layout.

Crashy_Time

ReadingTim wrote: »

It's always, if not only, down to price. Most of the points raised elsewhere might be irritants, but probably won't be deal breakers for a single person, young couple, or even couple with baby - up to a couple of years old. It's not really suitable for a family, but it suits the OP, so will suit someone else. If they can get it at a good price.

Given that less than half a mile away, you can buy this, which is far more house, for slightly less money, the OP's price just isn't realistic, especially given the [STRIKE]flaws[/STRIKE] quirks of their layout.

Do you know the two areas though, OP`s area might be better?

ReadingTim

Crashy_Time wrote: »

Do you know the two areas though, OP`s area might be better?

Yes and no respectively, but even if I didn't, such considerations of local knowledge never stopped you posting either....

Cakeguts

Who did the converstion from a 2 bed to a 3 bed? Did you buy it as a 3 bed or did you divide up the master bedroom into two rooms because there are two windows? The problem is that the 3rd bedroom is too small to be any use as a bedroom. The problem with trying to make a 3rd bedroom is that 3 bed house as a family house usually has a garden which yours doesn't. If you try to make the 3rd bedroom out to be a nursery then you are expecting people to take a small child/push chair up the steps from the back parking area.

You could try selling it as a 2 bed plus study? The point is that as far as I can see these houses were originally sold as 2 beds and someone at some time has tried to make a 3rd bedroom. If you bought it like this then that means that you didn't do enough research into what you were buying. If you have made the conversion in order to make extra money from the house then it isn't working as you now have competition from more modern 3 beds and more modern 2 beds.

The result of all this is that you are trying to sell a 2 bed house for the price of a 3 bed which means that yours is very overpriced and people will be able to view a "real" 3 bed house which costs less than your converted one.

kinger101

G_M wrote: »

In this thread here I've said I've looked at dozens of houses over 5 years waiting for the ideal home.

So I have experienced the buyer experience of many different types of agents (including hand-made signs by the sellers I've just come across).

Purple Bricks is a big turn off now. Poor web descriptions, appalling responses to enquiries, missed appointments, you name it...

I'm more likely now to knock on the door than go via PBs.

I used a different online agent, and had to pretty much write my own description. I expect PB do the same, so the web descriptions are inaccurate as they perhaps don't provide guidance. I've not really found their descriptions any less accurate than the high-street. They're uniformly bad on all matters subjective. Though I'm in the SE, where there are many shady EAs.

What I really dislike about PB is the tie-in to the really awful conveyancer, but most high-street agents push these too.

Personally I'd never sell with PB, because I know there are better agents operating on the same model. I expect PB's sales progression is minimal.

WeAreGhosts

Go and see James at William H Brown in Dewsbury. That guy could sell ice to the eskimos.

WeAreGhosts

ReadingTim wrote: »

Given that less than half a mile away, you can buy this, which is far more house, for slightly less money, the OP's price just isn't realistic, especially given the [STRIKE]flaws[/STRIKE] quirks of their layout.

Anyone knowing Dewsbury would take The Combs over Castle Mount anyday ...