House listed for three months with no viewing/enquiries

Cakeguts

DaveLePen wrote: »

There was a loft when I bought it, though it does not meet the building regulation in so many ways that it is not useful nor can be listed as a bedroom. I made the conversion so it is now a three bedroom house, instead of a one bedroom bungalow. It is not such a ridiculous decision given the situation then.

I agree that the steps are making things more tricky for families with very small kids.

The point is though that people with small children won't look at your house they will go for a cheaper 3 bed semi that has a drive down the side. To sell yours it has to be cheaper than anything you can get with a driveway or any sort of offstreet parking because if it isn't they will go for the ones with offstreet parking before they will even look at yours.

bertiewhite

Crashy_Time wrote: »

demand is falling away as Brexit looms.

Not round here, sunshine.

Murphybear

Nice enough but the kitchen is very small

Davesnave

DaveLePen wrote: »

I made the conversion so it is now a three bedroom house, instead of a one bedroom bungalow. It is not such a ridiculous decision given the situation then.

You changed the property into a family house, but the situation then was the same as it is now, with a steep site making access from the road and use of the garden difficult.

The house and garden isn't child or older person-friendly, and your agent's accentuated this too, making it look like a series of accidents waiting to happen.

When adding space and intending to add value to a property, the first rule is to consider your target market. Who is this house aimed at now? If it isn't families or retired people who won't appreciate all the steps, that only leaves childless professionals, who might see the space offered as very adequate, but not ideally distributed: e.g. the narrow galley kitchen.


There are a couple of other issues too, like the aspect near the base of a north-facing slope, and the woodland behind, which some will see as a light and/or security issue, but the main down-side is simple inconvenience.

If the target market is small, the the price must reflect that, unless you get lucky and find that buyer who forgives these issues for some other reason. You've had a go through the summer, but this buyer hasn't materialised, so a more serious reduction is now due, or a long wait.

I'm sorry to be so blunt, but as a property to develop, this one would have been a non-starter for me.

Lioness_Twinkletoes

The garden is instantly off putting, as are the steep steps up the front. I did a RM search and although I don't know the area I saw a LOT of homes that had way more to offer than yours - like a flat, lawned garden and parking some for as little as £135k.

Also, when I did the search I realised your property wasn't listed - and then realised I had to tick the 'bungalow' box. This means you're only getting views from people that actually want a bungalow.

I have to agree with the majority; this property is overpriced.

Slinky

Why does it take until pic 13 before I see something of the outside of the house? Even then I'm not sure if it's front or back. Terrible order for photos and I keep seeing lots of strange rooms, purpose unknown, with odd sloping bits of ceiling.


In a difficult market, with a very niche property, your agent is doing nothing to help 'sell' this property with the listing, and you've done nothing to notice it either!

DaveLePen

I did the dormer to suit myself, who is a childless young professional, with a plan to stay in Huddersfield for a very long time. However I failed to predict my life and moved to elsewhere shortly after the renovation.

It does appear there are not too many childless young professionals buying houses in the area.

DaveLePen

The agents were reshuffling the photos randomly trying to make it look different. I have asked the agent to shuffle it back and annotate the photos and floor plan clearly as suggested earlier in this thread.

Davesnave

DaveLePen wrote: »

I did the dormer to suit myself, who is a childless young professional, with a plan to stay in Huddersfield for a very long time. However I failed to predict my life and moved to elsewhere shortly after the renovation.

I sensed that the house didn't look 'lived-in.'

Failure to predict the future is common enough. I didn't predict the last housing Crash accurately, so I sold a cheapie before the expensive one, which just happened to be SSTC to a Northern Rock customer at the time the bank failed!

That 'error' cost me about £60k on paper.


Edit:

You still have the chance to alter the listing though, as people have suggested. For example, I would have photos re-shot before winter, not just 'shuffled.' In fact, I'd probably dismiss the agent ASAP if that's their best effort.

Fosterdog

As others have said it is done as a family home but the steps are too steep but also the steps make it a poor buy as a bungalow, people who want a bungalow usually need things to be more accessible and while things may be very accessible in the house the access to the house would be impossible for somebody with mobility issues.

Childless young professionals are unlikely to go for a three bedroom house unless they have a lot of hobbies, need to work from home, or plan on taking in a lodger, they would be paying more for a house that is too big for their needs.

The only people I could see it appealing to are separated people with shared custody/access to children over 6, that way the additional bedrooms would get use but without the lack of it being completely family friendly being too much of an issue, the kids ages would mean the steps would be less of a problem than for a young family. People will also want it for a reasonable price because they will take into consideration how difficult it will be to sell for them when the time comes.

The photos are also not the greatest, they don't flow at all, you should have the front exterior shot as the first picture, then go to living room, dining room, kitchen, downstairs bathroom, downstairs bedroom, then upstairs rooms then finally onto the garden and views, some of the photos need to be retaken because the lighting is awful and either washing them out completely or adding dark shadows.

The house itself is nice enough it's just it's raised position that is the problem.