Flats in front of my house - a problem when selling?

squirrel99

My end of terrace house on new-ish eatate is on sale for almost 3 months now. Its in immaculate condition, neutrally decorated, has two double bedrooms and a large kitchen diner.

The feedback is always very positive, I am always told the buyers love the house but no one ends up buying it.

We only had one offer from an investor who pulled out after 2 days, and then another offer from FTB who is an EA herself which was much lower than any similar houses sold in our town in the past 2 years - we would lose money if we sell for this.

Our EA now raised that apparently some viewers were concerned about flats in front of my house on the same estate. I am so confused, as we never thought of this as an issue. Whoever lives there keep to themselves, all neighbours are friendly and the estate is maintained well.

Also, someone did 2x viewings and even brought their parent to have a look. They then got back saying that the parking situation doesn!!!8217;t seem good. We have one private allocated space and park the second car in front of the house (as in the photo). There hasn!!!8217;t been a single day in 2 years that we would struggle to park.

Ok I agree that the house doesn!!!8217;t have a driveway, but this is a first time buyer type of house - I didn!!!8217;t see many of these coming onto the market with driveways etc especially for this budget and on newer estates.

Am I being delusional denying these problems?

If you were to advice an FTB on a house purchase, would you tell them to stay away from a property like ours?

My house


In front of house

HampshireH

I'm a FTB and 2 parking spaces was an essential requirement (plus spare parking in the area).

For me a block of flats on front would definitely put me off. But that's a personal thing. Are they owned or rented?

If parking is already looking at being limited and there is t adequate parking for the flats this would be a double whammy.

Personal being a FTB makes no difference to how many cars I need to park.

I don't know what your house is prices at bit people want as much for their money as possible. Can't see your pics sorry.

Doozergirl

Looks alright to me! The flats are further than your average two storey neighbour in new builds.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

It's only a problem is you are trying to sell the house at a price that doesn't take into account having flats in front of it and potential parking issues. Obviously if you price it the same as similar houses that don't have those things, people will go for the others. Price it right, so people are getting more for their money than they get elsewhere, and it will sell.

HampshireH

Photos are now working. Do you have double yellows outside your house? Second pics looks like lines.

Those flats don't look too bad. I'd still be wary but again it's very much a personal opinion.

unforeseen

It looks like you and your neighbour are actually parked totally blocking the footpath.

That is probably a turn off for a lot of people as it implies that yourself and neighbours are inconsiderate. Why block the footpath? The road looks plenty wide enough to park on the road

NeilCr

unforeseen wrote: »

It looks like you and your neighbour are actually parked totally blocking the footpath.

Yes. I thought that.

The cars also look very close to the houses - almost as though you and your neighbour have to squeeze by them to get in and out. I don't think I'd like that proximity.

The flats wouldn't bother me.

Doodles

The flats wouldn't particularly bother me, but I agree with the other comments here about the parking right outside your house and your neighbours - it somehow looks 'wrong', and way too close to the doors.

I'd be worrying if my own car wasn't there, that I would come back to find someone else parked there, right up to my front door.

Techno_Mystic

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

It's only a problem is you are trying to sell the house at a price that doesn't take into account having flats in front of it and potential parking issues. Obviously if you price it the same as similar houses that don't have those things, people will go for the others. Price it right, so people are getting more for their money than they get elsewhere, and it will sell.

Yep. Simple problem with a simple solution. The price is too high.

Cakeguts

It is the parking situation that is putting people off. They worry that they won't be able to park if everyone in the flats has two cars.

If you bought this house new you also have to remember that new houses often drop in value when they are no longer new so it might take several years for the value to rise enough to get to the value of a second hand house with limited parking.

If you want to move you will have to reduce the price to the point where someone will pay it.

squirrel99

Thank you for comments everyone.

The parking was never a problem for us, there are no yellow lines. Also its frowned upon parking in front of someone elses house - no one does that. I believe all houses around have a personal allocated parking space in the car park, also those spaces behind the flats are unalocated so anyone can use them.

There are no pathways in front of these houses - we have probably 2 metres of land in front of our house and then it is the wide road area between my house and the flats. This is the very end of culdesac, no one driving by, only people who live here.

Obviously i cant prove no one else parks in front of my house, and it seems this is has affected at least one buyer’s opinion of our house

I started thinking of dropping the price, just want to understand what exactly is putting people off.

I haven’t even thought someone will consider flats or parking an issue here. But i can now imagine how this may look like to buyers.