Dear Fiona,
Why won’t my house sell?
We’ve actually sold it once already (subject to contract) about a year ago, but after eight months of slow progress the buyer’s chain collapsed and they decided to stay where they are.
It’s now been back on the market for eight weeks, but viewings have been minimal, and no one has bitten. I have had feedback from the estate agent, but it’s been things like “they really like it but it’s smaller than they thought,” or “they really like it but they’re not sure about the positioning of the bathroom,” (which is surely something they could have decided looking at the floor plan?)
It's a Queen Anne manor house, and we’ve lived here for a long time. Our children grew up here, and it’s been a wonderful home to us. A couple of friends have suggested that we need to put a lot of our belongings in storage and ‘greige it up’ a bit – even painting over or taking down wallpaper. I’m really reluctant to do this though – firstly because storage is expensive, secondly because it is our home and what if it doesn’t sell and so we have to stay here and then we’ve spoilt it? The wallpaper is variously Soane and Zoffany incidentally – so not cheap.
Our neighbours sold a couple of years ago and there was a bidding war – why isn’t this happening for us? What are we doing wrong? And what can we do to fix it?
Love,
an Inexperienced Vendor XX
Dear Inexperienced,
You are not alone; I’ve heard countless such tales, and received numerous similar letters, relating to properties that range from a two-bedroom ex-local authority flat in central London to a Georgian rectory in a highly desirable village in the home counties. And I understand your frustration– it can be galling, when you finally decide to sell a much-loved home, to discover that nobody seems to share your enthusiasm for it. It took us over a year to sell our London flat, and like you our first buyer dropped out, in our case because his mortgage was refused. In England, a whole third of property sales fall through – which is enough to make any seller weep (and, full disclosure, I often did.) But my tales of woe are beside the point, for this is the here and now, and it’s your home – although, that said, anyone will tell you (as they told me) that with any property there are four major reasons why traction might not be what it could, specifically price, market, mortgage-ablity, and marketing – but most of all price. “Anything will sell if it’s cheap enough,” one person kept bleating, which made me quite cross, because it wasn’t ‘anything’, it was my home. So I’m not going to say that to you, instead let’s unpick these points one by one.
An average garden-less flat in London is relatively easy to cost; it involves checking the achieved price per square footage of other flats on your road and matching that - whether the kitchen tiles are bespoke from Balineum or off-the-shelf at Topps is going to make very little difference (sorry). Less formulaic is a house in the country with useable outbuildings and a well-tended mature garden. Important to remember – if difficult to accept – is that the emotional worth of Christmases past has no value to a potential buyer, unless they fall head over heels and project their future happiness onto your house (of which, more, later.) Instead, they’re going to be interested in dull things such as energy efficiency and bedroom to bathroom ratio (there’s a house near me that has been on the market for three years; it’s got seven bedrooms and one bathroom.) Other detractions (I’ve polled several estate agents) include the kind of budget conservatory that needs heating all winter and sweats all summer, a lack of downstairs loo, a surfeit of wallpaper (truly), worn and dirty carpets, a sub-optimal kitchen, too large a shed in a small garden, and an indoor pool in a windowless basement (in fact, a lot of those London iceberg extensions – which cost small fortunes – have not necessarily translated into added value. Despite the popularity of Selling Sunset, it transpires that there’s less call than once thought for home bowling allies and 28-car garages, certainly in this country.) Essentially, if buyers are savvy (and a house is a big investment, so most do their homework) they’re going to be working out just how much they’re going to have to spend on it in addition to the sale price.
Because, you see – and this falls under ‘market’ – building work currently costs significantly more than it did five years ago, Brexit having affected both labour and materials. In many parts of the country there’s a long wait for builders, too. You also need to factor in the high interest rates, which makes borrowing money more expensive. Your letter mentioned that you are downsizing to release equity to help your children buy, so this is unlikely to be an issue for you. However, chances are that whoever is buying your house is upsizing, and so it may well be an issue for them. (And, to the owners of those one and two-bedroom flats in city centres, this is a big consideration for first-time buyers and buy-to-let investors too, i.e. your likely market.) I suspect that your neighbours’ bidding war took place during the Covid era get-out-of-London stamp-price-holiday halcyon days of yore. There are some properties that are still going for over asking (family-sized houses in certain areas of London are ever popular) but Knight Frank has reported that, in May, they “now think prices will be flat in 2025 rather than rise by 2%".
Mortgage-ability is not likely to be a problem for your property, unless there’s a complicated leasehold arrangement – and if there is a leasehold, you need to be aware that anything under 80 years is considered short (and a buyer will be mentally allocating budget to extend it.) For others, rising ground rents for newbuilds are problematic, and if you are selling a flat in a purpose-built block there’s the ongoing cladding scandal (we were asked to produce an ESW1 certificate even though our building had no cladding and wasn’t high-rise; we couldn’t – and thus reached an impasse with our buyers’ mortgage provider.) Then, a bank’s lending criteria, which occasionally seems entirely random, means that certain things such as ‘deck access’ - i.e. a flat with a Le Corbusier-worthy pavement in the sky - will require a higher loan to value mortgage than one with internal corridors (at this point, our first agreed sale completely fell apart.)
So on to marketing, which is what ultimately drives people to make an appointment to see your house. Have you gone with a traditional estate agent who has taken odd, fish-eye style photographs for which they’ve turned on all the lights, even though your home is bright and airy? Because if you have, know that – probably in four weeks’ time (most contracts being twelve weeks) - you can give them notice. There’s a new breed of boutique estate agent, who, among other things, specialise “in a more editorial-style of photograph,” explains Thirzie Hull, of the eponymously named agency. She and her team consistently achieve sales that top the asking price – and have ways and means of doing so.
Key in the current climate, says Thirzie, is that you’re not just selling a house, “you’re selling the lifestyle too.” The written part of a listing needs to reflect this – are you nestled at the foot of the South Downs, within walking distance of Charleston Farmhouse and conveniently close to Glyndebourne? Do you have far-reaching views of the Yorkshire Dales and easy access to a charming market town with an independent butcher and greengrocer? Or are you in the heart of Notting Hill, moments from the shops and restaurants on Portobello Road but with access to a communal garden?
Next, a viewer needs to be able to imagine themselves in situ, to which end there’s got to be physical space for them to mentally impose themselves and their belongings in your rooms. I know you’re not keen on storing things, but “you’re selling your most valuable asset, and you may have to inconvenience yourself slightly in order to get the best price for it,” says Thirzie, who advises taking roughly every other thing out of a space, as well as anything “very specific to your taste – a feature wall or very loud furnishings can be off-putting.” Happily, you can relax on the wallpaper front – for there is, actually, nothing wrong with it per se, it really comes down to the brightness (or not) of the colours, simply because “the majority of people respond best to a neutral palette.” But, in a Queen Anne manor house, a bit of Soane and Zoffany fits (and the buyer might even be glad of it; Olivia Laing kept the wallpaper in the Georgian house that she moved into.) For – back to lifestyle – what might be nice to conjure up, suggests Thirzie, is a sort of lazy Sunday afternoon feel, reading the papers on the sofa, post-family lunch. You want wellies by the door, Le Creuset in the kitchen, and vases of cut flowers from the garden – just not too much of any of it. But it needs to feel warm and hospitable – which starts, of course, with kerb appeal.
Thirzie spends two days dressing and styling every property that she lists – and requests that it’s then kept like that for viewings, “for its important that the photographs match the reality.” Essentially, it’s an easy win in terms of welcoming familiarity. She would also urge bringing in a painter to refresh any rooms that are looking a bit tired; “it costs, but you’ll get it back 10-fold,” she says. (Although, major renovations are “not worth it,” she says. “And as long as kitchens and bathrooms are serviceable, don’t even consider replacing them, because the new owner almost certainly will.”) However – and this is important – what you do not want to create is an interior so sterile and perfect that it seems daunting to a viewer, “unless you’re literally aiming to sell to an oligarch,” says Thirzie. “Nobody likes the ‘surely no one lives here’ aesthetic.” But, close the loo seat, change the cat litter, and for goodness sakes hide any books that you might keep in the loo. And listen to the estate agent – if you are getting consistent feedback along the lines of “they weren’t keen on the black bedroom”, address it. (Obviously you can’t do much about size – though your house will feel bigger once you’ve taken some of your belongings out of it.)
Then, patience. “If you are selling a home that is a bit extraordinary, you need to find someone who shares your home and your vision, and that might not be immediate,” says Thirzie. And you may find, if you really do want to sell, that you do end up having to drop the price – in which case there are ways of reconciling yourself to the fact. For me, it was knowing that I had sold my flat back to the council, and as social housing stock it was going to offer refuge to people who really needed it. You might encounter a charming young family who fall in love with your home and want to live in it for as long as you have.
Finally, reassure yourself that you’re not doing anything wrong; “nobody has ever said that they’ve sold their house and it’s been a lovely, smooth, stress-free experience,” says Thirzie.
But I do hope that this might help make it slightly easier,
And good luck!
Love,
Fiona XX
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