Struggling to sell your London home? Here are some of the most common reasons why this may be the case.
#1. Your Home Could Be Overpriced.
Before listing the house for sale, you must first determine its true and fair market value; otherwise, you will struggle to attract prospective buyers.
Many property buyers constantly search for reasonably priced houses and already know what they want based on price, size, location, and other amenities. Many property search engines sort and filter search results based on the price difference, only revealing the options within the buyer’s price range.
Raising the price of the house, even by a small margin, can have a negative psychological impact on the buyer. A price of £200,000 instead of £205,000 can easily discourage the buyer from calling you.
Some sellers increase the house price by a few thousand, hoping to protect their profit margin in case price negotiations do not entirely go according to plan. This strategy may work. However, it would be best if you exercised caution to avoid pricing yourself out of the market, rendering all effort fruitless.
Successful real estate agents understand the significance of accurate pricing when looking for a suitable buyer to purchase a property. This means that assuming the housing units listed for sale in a particular location offer more or less the same amenities, prospective buyers are likely to pursue the cheaper deals first before seeking alternatives.
Market research is the best way to determine the right price for a house before listing it for sale. As mentioned earlier, prospective buyers already know what a house in the area is worth. However, we will show you a few practical online tools to help you determine your property’s market price.
The Rightmove company has provided an online tool to help you know how much properties in specific postcode locations are worth. All you need to do is log on to the platform, key in the postcode and click on the search icon to get your search results. Immediately, a list of the recent housing sales in the area appears, together with the year the sale occurred.
# 2: The Property May Not Have Enough Kerb Appeal
When selling your house, you must consider what the property looks like when viewed from the alley or in pictures and videos. The initial appearance of the property matters a lot and is often why many houses remain on the market for a period.
Your property’s kerb appeal either encourages or discourages prospective homebuyers from clicking on the “more information” icon on the property listing. These days, many individuals looking to buy a house begin their search on the internet while relying on online property pictures and videos to decide whether the home is worth a visit or not.
A Dulux Weathershield found that many UK homebuyers were ready to pay 25% above the market price for a housing unit with a striking, newly finished exterior. If you are struggling to sell your house, seek ways of improving its kerb appeal without eating into your profits. For instance, you may apply a new paint coat on external walls.
Besides painting the house, you can boost its appearance in the following creative ways and entice more buyers to call and request to view the property.
-The door: ensure the door looks as inviting as possible. Consider cleaning the door using a PVC cleaner if it is a PVC door or applying a new paint coat if it is made of wood. According to Country Life, it is pretty fascinating that a blue door helps to sell your house faster. Maybe you can try making the door look a bit more gorgeous.
-Lighting: Appropriate lighting enhances the property’s security concerns and makes the house appear more beautiful to prospective homebuyers. Keep the cost of the lighting installations added to the property to protect your margins as low as possible.
-Tidy pathways and driveways: Ensure the property’s pathways and corridors look fantastic to attract buyers to your house. You may have to clean these spaces with a pressure washing machine or hire a professional cleaner to take care of the work.
-Clear weeds on the property: Remove all weeds and unwanted vegetation on the property and between the footpaths before taking pictures and making videos of the house. The goal is to give the house a homely touch for buyers interested in the property.
-Avoid showing the garbage bins: Do not capture garbage bins in the pictures or videos used to market the property. You will not find a buyer fascinated by the sight of garbage bins on the property – they are not necessary for property marketing.
We have prepared this article to show you the nocks and crooks of successful property marketing and the best strategies for readying your house for sale.
#3. How Tidy Is The House?
Subconsciously, everyone likes to imagine themselves living on clean premises. However, the challenge lies in determining what constitutes clutter and how much “clutter” is acceptable for the property during the marketing stage. As a rule of thumb, we advise that you declutter the space as much as possible by eliminating all the things that are not helping to market the property.
Imagining yourself living in the house under different situations will help you figure out all the paraphernalia to take away to make the house seem more like a home to an interested buyer. Unnecessary untidiness creates a lousy notion about the house and distracts potential buyers from noticing the true potential of your living space.
It is vital that a house is as tidy as possible to create a positive impact on a buyer’s mind. So, how is it best to tidy the house?
Start tidying the hallway first. The property’s hallway or entrance is a high-traffic area and easily noticeable by anyone inside the house. Decluttering the entrance communicates a solid message to anyone considering buying the house.
To sell your house quickly, ensure that all areas of the property are as clean as possible.
Get rid of old paper clutter, wallets, keys, and all personal items likely to be found in these housing sections. Avoid overloading the coat rack with unnecessary coats or the shoe rack with all your lovely pairs to avoid creating a messy appearance. The ultimate goal is to leave the hallway and other major house sections as tidy as possible.
A potential homebuyer gets the idea that all other parts of the property are also clean and tidy by showing a well-maintained hallway. The necessary repair and maintenance work was completed before the house was on the market.
Do not forget to tidy up the housing premises, specifically the high-traffic sections, as this significantly boosts your chances of landing a buyer for the house.
#4. The Quality Of The Property’s Marketing Pictures.
It isn’t easy to influence your estate agent to take the property’s pictures precisely the way you want. Nonetheless, bad-quality pictures significantly hamper your marketing strategy by limiting your ability to secure a buyer for the house.
Here is what you can do to enhance the clarity and effectiveness of the property pictures for a fast house sale:
-Conduct due diligence to select an estate agent who takes quality photographs. Peruse property listings on different estate agents’ websites, such as Rightmove. Using this information, you can identify the agent to collaborate with.
-Ready the property before the estate agents take photos: Schedule a day of photographs to give you enough time to improve the look of the house by tidying up the worktops, bringing in fresh flowers, or refilling the fruit bowl. Remarkably, such small efforts can invigorate the internal space and make the house appear like a warm dwelling space. Be ready to relocate some household items to another room to give the impression of well-lit, spacious living space.
Also, schedule the photo session to happen at the right time of the day. That way, you will know how to take bright pictures and bring out the property’s vital attributes. It is a widely held belief among property marketing experts that well-lit rooms often appear more spacious and comfortable.
#5. You Have Uploaded A Few Property Pictures.
Indeed, it isn’t easy to convince any property agent to take pictures of your property exactly how you wish. However, providing just a handful of the property’s photos is wrong and makes it challenging to secure a buyer for the property. For a buyer, there is nothing more frustrating than finding a property that seems like a good fit for what they are looking for, only to find four or five vague pictures that show very little about the property.
It is essential to accompany the photographer as they take pictures of the house to ensure they take enough photos of the various sections of the house. This means that, when choosing your preferred estate agent, enquire if there is a limit to the number of property pictures they can take for each house section. You can help by moving some of the stuff that needs to be moved to enhance the images.
Try to create a good rapport with the photography team to guide them to take the pictures needed to market your house in the best possible way. Remember, ample and good-quality pictures will help sell your property much faster.
#6. You Did Not List The Property On Any Online Platforms.
Before, simply sending good photographs of your house to the local property agent was enough to secure a buyer for your property. However, times have changed drastically, with over 90% of home buyers beginning their property search on the online sources open to them.
For instance, many homebuyers in the UK begin looking for a house to buy on any of the two leading online property platforms; overlooking these platforms is setting up your property to remain on the market for an extended period. The two online platforms are:
-Rightmove.co.uk: Right now, Rightmove is one of the leading property platforms, recording over 127 million visits every month.
–Zoopla.com: According to Zoopla, its platforms, including Prime Location and mobile platforms, receive more than 50 million visits every month.
There is so much traffic frequenting these two platforms that failing to list your property on these platforms is a great disservice to your marketing plan. You can use other platforms like OnTheMarket. However, ask your estate agent where your house will be listed and stay away from them if they use these two platforms to list your home.
#7. Your Property’s Description Is Too Plain
The best property description uses the right words to describe the feeling of living in the house. Writing a good property description is more of an art than a skill. Despite the existing condition of the house, a good estate agent should help you write an enticing description of the property to draw potential buyers. The estate agent is professionally obligated to ensure they market the property in the most effective way possible.
However, before getting into any agreement with an estate agent, ensure you go through their existing property listings on their website or other online platforms to get an idea of how they prepare the property description. You will know their work is good if their property descriptions are well written and compelling, even for the less-attractive houses.
Conclusion
Among others, these are the vital skills and insights required to push your property to move faster in the market. Once you have selected the estate agent to work with, ensure you know when your property listing will go live. Providing the property’s description reveals the property’s strong qualities to steal a match against the competition. Keep talking with the estate agent to attain your objective of a good property description.
