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Why won't our house sell?

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  • Armorica
    Armorica Posts: 866
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    kerri_gt wrote: »
    Overall it looks nicely presented. If i were being really critical I'd say the sofa in the lounge is a little overbearing and I was questioning where the TV was right until the last photo of the lounge. If you can't do anything about the sofa perhaps lose the additional single chair in the living room?

    I'd also be tempted to lose pic 9 of the back of the door - it looks a little like a prison cell door and doesn't really add anything imo.

    Perhaps some pots in the garden with flowers to add a little colour - however the garden itself will attract both keen gardeners as a blank canvas and people who want low maintenance. Although it seems to be quite a busy estate from the look of surrounding houses, it gets points from me that it doesn't appear overlooked.

    3 weeks really isn't a long time to have the house on the market, could you perhaps have an open house in a couple of weeks? To me this seems to be a way of a) getting a good block of viewings all at once b) creating a little competition between prospective buyers as seeing others looking about the house creates a bit of 'I want' (again imo)

    I agree with most of these points - I liked the chair though. The sofa/carpet combination wasn't good though nor was the location of the TV.

    The inside photo of the door isn't good.

    Three weeks isn't very long - but it seems overpriced. Is your estate agent experienced? It looks priced as if detached or four-bed and yours is neither.

    And another vote for allocated parking.

    While the house is decluttered - that now just makes it feels like a house rather than a home. And from google, the road feels like it's lacking in character as well.
  • 00ec25
    00ec25 Posts: 9,123
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    it looks like a soulless modern box. It is neatly presented and clean so the pics look ok and do their job of showing what the house has to offer, but overall they fail to convey any sense of a lifestyle that one could aspire to by living there.

    It looks like a new build that no one has yet fallen in love with, particularly the small rear "garden", ie block of turf the developers put down but didn't want to spend 1p on planting or making into a garden.

    leasehold, enough said

    i didn't even realise it had parking until reading on here as I didn't get past the pics on the EA listing as I hit the see nearby competitors button and got absorbed in their offerings instead

    3 weeks whilst a summer heatwave is on (plus football), in a location where people will not be clamouring to be moved in before the new school year starts, means it is nothing, as it is not the "best" time of year to be selling
  • peachyprice
    peachyprice Posts: 22,346
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    Mrsburg wrote: »
    I can assure you it is a driveway and not allocated parking. It is on our deeds and we could fence / gate it if we wished.

    I think you're going to have to spend some money making this obvious and get photos up that clearly show this.

    No matter how much you 'assure' that it is a drive it doesn't look like it, and looks is all that people have to go on when they're searching, the first impression is allocated parking, not drive.

    If I were looking for a house with a drive I wouldn't even look twice at yours because from the photos on Rightmove and Google that isn't a drive.
    Accept your past without regret, handle your present with confidence and face your future without fear
  • peachyprice
    peachyprice Posts: 22,346
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    Only 3 miles to Strangeways :) It's a shame as the house itself is nice

    Maybe that's where they got the idea for those front doors from ;)
    Accept your past without regret, handle your present with confidence and face your future without fear
  • seashore22
    seashore22 Posts: 1,443
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    I quite like the house, but I wouldn't buy it because it's leasehold. Nothing against that in general and our first home (a flat) was leasehold, but I see no reason for a house to be leasehold. I may be in the minority though.
  • 00ec25
    00ec25 Posts: 9,123
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    edited 12 July 2018 at 7:18AM
    Maybe that's where they got the idea for those front doors from ;)
    :rotfl:
    yes I had to do a double take before realising it was not the letterbox really high up or a slot through which you pass food to the prisoner

    and having now looked at streetview, what a totally different impression it is to see the parking spaces. Yes i understand why they are yours, but they really need visual inclusion "into" your property because everything at the moment serves to separate them from your house. The boundary brick wall stops at the "end" of your front garden. No one paints white lines down their driveway, you do that in car parks and allocated spaces, not on a driveway.
  • dlmcr
    dlmcr Posts: 182
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    This thread is going to turn into a classic "why isn't my house selling" and then when the opening poster gets feedback that they don't want to hear they passive aggressively turn on certain posters. Comments from the opening poster such as :



    "Salford is in Greater Manchester and thanks but I won't be paying you to buy it. Carry on."


    "You seem to think you're an expert but I'd hazard a guess that you're not. Thanks for the constructive feedback, I think you've offered all that we need from you."


    .. together with several other comments from the opening poster demonstrate they are not really interested in objectively receiving and acting on feedback but would rather the resonses received re-inforce their own position that they must absolutely positively be right in being bemused as to why their house isn't selling.


    Here is some feedback from me - shock horror - I actually own a house, isn't that amazing - so I can give feedback as a fellow homeowner! I also have life experience and approximate ideas about what would be attractive to buyers when looking at potential houses so that's amazing as well!


    - Location is not good - faaar from stations and you need a car to get anywhere, not good if you want to commute into Manchester, what about if you want to pop out in the evening for a meal? Got to drive there... in fact, got to drive anywhere.
    - Sorry the area just looks really soul-less. It's a shame so many new build houses are being build in these sort of areas where there is really no infrastructure and it is only your fault in the sense you bought a house there. I cannot imagine living anywhere that is semi urban and yet so far from infrastructure that you would need to drive everywhere. All of the disadvantages of being urban but none of the advantages?

    - Leasehold - again not your fault but there is a theme of new build houses being leashold. Do you understand what leasehold is? Rather than just saying you don't see what the probelm is do you actually understand the legal differences between a leasehold and a freehold?
    - Offers in Excess of - always gets my back up. (on a house in Salford, seriously?)
    - That old chestnut - price. Unfortunately or fortunately I think the price is not that far off the mark. In my city as in many other "northern" cities prices in the last couple of years have just gone mental and to be honest defy belief. I have seen countless times in my home city (Nottingham) places coming onto the market that have been priced at 40 - 60% than it sold for only 2 - 3 years ago. Nothing has been done to it and so it is essentially the same house. Time after time they sell within days and yes they complete at the agreed price so the banks must agree with the pricing!

    - The house itself is just a little bare and I have trouble visualising how I could live there. Maybe a few more touches but not overboard.
    - The garden looks very unloved and again a few touches here such as pot plants would make a lot of difference.


    So in summary in my opinion: basically there is not much wrong with the house other than the leasehold issue and some cosmetics but the area for me is just terrible for various reasons. I could quite easily afford your house thanks as I have a well paying job and plenty of money (!) but I would not chose to view because the location is poor and I can get better for my money.



    The problem with these types of threads is you get an opening poster who is usually not sure why their houe isn't selling. There are normally 2 motivations for them starting a thread like this:



    1) They genuinely want to sell and are realistic about the postives and negatives and want other opinions to try and improve the possibility of a sale,

    2) They do not really understand much about why their house isn't attractive, perhaps they are emotionally attached to it and so are unable to distance themselves and clinically see a list of positive and negative points. They will then go and start a thread expecting everyone to agree with their point of view about things and then get angry and defensive when the responses made reveal there are a number of things that are in fact negatives and that they have possibly made a poor choice in originally buying what they did...
  • AnotherJoe
    AnotherJoe Posts: 19,622
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    Agree with others, it may technically be a drive but it certainly looks like allocated parking and it wouldn't surprise me if visitors to other houses sometimes parked in those places. The work you've done in the front garden doesn't help with that, if the drive went direct all the way to the house it would be clear to everyone else that it was a longish drive and a no go parking there. It's a bit late now but IMO you'd have been bettter off putting the landscaping effort into the back garden not the front.

    I don't know what happened in your six viewings but unless it was made explicit at the time it's quite possible all six assumed you didn't have a drive but had allocated parking. And there must have been any number of online viewers of the pics who saw no drive and assumed there wasn't even parking at all. Terrible fail by the EA putting that indoor picture of the door instead of the parking spaces.

    And yes generally I think you've decluttered too much as mentioned by others a few more pics on some of the blank walls. I don't think it matters once your in the house but it may put people looking online off.

    Add to that this is a poor time to be selling a house, just before summer holidays with football as well. There maybe more activity from Sep onwards. I know price can help but I wouldn't buy this at any realistic price because of the apparent parking situation.

    I also wouldn't ever buy a leasehold house but if that's common in that area maybe it's not as much of an issue for most buyers there.
  • OP, you need to understand that the (free!) advice you're getting here may well be very blunt, but it it is meant with the best of intentions - i.e. to help you sell your house.

    When I recently sold our old house and bought the new one, the most challenging part was disconnecting my emotional attachment to the property and instead viewing it as an economic/business situation. It's really difficult when your home is getting slated, but it's only your home - to other people, it's a house.

    Ultimately, being realistic and pragmatic about all aspects of the property is what gets it sold.
  • lindens
    lindens Posts: 2,870
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    Mrsburg wrote: »
    Sorry not totally sure of the point you're making. Leasehold is fairly normal for where we are.

    Exactly!! Just because it's normal for you, doesnt mean it's normal for everyone - exactly the point being made.
    It's not normal for me either so i would run away
    You're not your * could have not of * Debt not dept *
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