House on the market for 5 weeks but only 1 viewing

getmore4less

Do a more like this Inc SSTC search find out what people are making offers on

Shandz

StarTrekkie007 wrote: »

I am currently house shopping (but not in your area), but took at quick look at your property to give you my instant reaction based on a buyers perspective...

Please take the following comments constructivley and not personally

1st reaction - looks ugly - large sloping roofs - bungerlow-ish

semi-detached - i.e. will get noise from neighbours

large rear garden - people HATE gardening now, too much work and you have a sizeable one !

very BLAND, WHITE, empty rooms - no 'feel'

shower room - no BATH

Have you considered professional 'staging' of your house ? They come in and re-decorate your house so that it appeals to more people. Then get new photos done and see if you get viewers.

One thing you could do yourself is to paint the walls with more colour (rather than white) to add warmth

Yeah I concede it is not the best looking house from the outside - I don't take it personally, another poster suggested more plants out front to break up the brickwork a bit but probably a bit limited what we can do.


Our next door neighbour is a retired man who we get on with well and we don't have any noise nuisance but I guess people looking on the internet don't know that.


I was actually worried that the garden would be too small but yeah we don't like gardening either and just had a good clear out before putting on the market.


The walls aren't painted white but are pale colours but perhaps that isn't coming through very well in the photos. We hadn't thought of going as far as getting the house professionally staged yet, maybe the photos could be done differently before we had to go that far.


Yeah the lack of bath appears to be a recurring theme in the comments.



Anyway, thanks for all your comments, useful stuff to think about.

Shandz

lookstraightahead wrote: »

You're taking this well op .

I just think the market is dead, especially at the moment (time of year and Brexit and affordability)

Well I really appreciate all the comments here, we've learnt a lot more about the kind of concerns people will have about our house today than we have over the last 5 weeks!

Shandz

middleclassbutpoor wrote: »

As someone who is selling and looking at houses for the next home, here is my feedback.

...

Im not sure whether this has been helpful?

Thank you middleclassbutpoor, that is actually really useful feedback. We don't have children ourselves so we struggle to view our house through the eyes of parents.


That stuff you put about selling the house through the description is incredibly useful - we will definitely look into doing that, thanks!

somethingcorporate

Good luck with your move.


If you need any recommendations of local EAs that I have used in the recent past (and been very impressed with) please drop me a message.


I've never found HM that inspiring...

franklee

The listing looks fine to me overall. However I agree with Wobblydeb who said the photos from the last sale are better especially of the front with the sun out. So I would retake nicking their best angles. Their photo of the field is out of an upstairs window which helps put it in context with your house. Plus their back garden photo shows sun on the garden.

You can always take your own photos when it's sunny and ask the agent to use those. We did that, taking many photos when the sun was out until eventually we got some good ones. Our sky was so blue you could pick out our house in the agent's window from across the road.

Cakeguts

franklee wrote: »

The listing looks fine to me overall. However I agree with Wobblydeb who said the photos from the last sale are better especially of the front with the sun out. So I would retake nicking their best angles. Their photo of the field is out of an upstairs window which helps put it in context with your house. Plus their back garden photo shows sun on the garden.

You can always take your own photos when it's sunny and ask the agent to use those. We did that, taking many photos when the sun was out until eventually we got some good ones. Our sky was so blue you could pick out our house in the agent's window from across the road.

The photos from the last sale also show the same kitchen and the same bathroom. All buyers can see this on Rightmove if they look at the previous sales information.


The good think about the feedback on here is that all the things that are mentioned are things that buyers might be thinking about the house so it is well to know.

franklee

Cakeguts wrote: »

The photos from the last sale also show the same kitchen and the same bathroom. All buyers can see this on Rightmove if they look at the previous sales information.

Yes any serious buyer would certainly do that but the property has got to grab them enough to bother finding out more which means the first picture has to catch their eye.

Must admit I scrolled right past our house on rightmove. The first picture was too close in with a large conifer in the front. It's was a nearby better presented house of the same type that caught my attention. Further research showed that one was too near the road and so on the back of disappointment I looked again and thought I may as well take a look at the initially less appealing one which we went on to buy. The front garden is smaller than I would have liked but the conifer has gone now

martinbuckley

Cakeguts wrote: »

The photos from the last sale also show the same kitchen and the same bathroom. All buyers can see this on Rightmove if they look at the previous sales information.

I did this. At every viewing, I asked as to what the current owners had done to add value to the property since their purchase. It was quite surprising as to how many had done very little to add value, yet expected a large premium on their purchase.

getmore4less

OK lets do a more like this(lot more than I thought there would be).

£200-£325k 3bed+ 1/2mile

4 for sale 6 SSTC

Out to 1 mile
27 for sale and 44 SSTC

Plenty of people spending money in your price range.

If we change to 4bed+ 1mile we get 3/5 so not too much competition from those 4 beds and 4 of the 8 are at £325k.

narrow the search to 3b+ £250k-£300k 1mile

14/21 that's a small enough sample to check out the 21 SSTC and compare with yours.

map view and you can see where the market is

if we look further out there are some others in the price range out of the city see how they compare.


Given the numbers that are SSTC slow market must have come on very suddenly.

if we look at sold you can see what people bought in the last year within a mile at your price point.

eg this went for £300k

page 2 has the 25 sold between 260-290

watch for any of those SSTC ones as they come through.