My house won’t sell – so I’m relisting it for £15,000 less and paying for new photos

In our bi-weekly series, readers can email in with any questions about property to be answered by our expert, Jonathan Rolande. Jonathan is a professional property buyer and housing commentator who has bought and sold over 1,000 properties. If you have a question for him, email us at money@theipaper.com. Question: I couldn’t sell my house after it was on sale from March to May. I’m now relisting in September and hoping a fresh set of better photos, with a decluttered house, can make the difference? I’ve also dropped the price by £15,000 from £310,000 to £295,000. Is this likely to be enough to work? What else could I try? Answer: I’m hearing this a lot right now. Sellers are finding that putting a property on the market no longer guarantees a sale. After years when good homes could attract plenty of buyers, the market has changed. Buyers are still looking, but sales are harder to create and even harder to get through to completion. If you took your property off the market in August, that was probably the right thing to do. Summer can be a strange time for property, and this year the hot weather made things trickier than usual. Now I’d start with a blunt question for your agent – why didn’t it sell? Shorts The answer will usually be one of three things. The price was too high, the marketing wasn’t good enough, or there simply weren’t enough buyers. An estate agent can still make the difference between selling and not selling, even in a slow market. If they overvalued your property or failed to market it well, I’d question whether they are the right agent to use next time. Look at the photographs too. If they were taken months ago, replace them. Clear the clutter, tidy the garden and take fresh photographs. Make the property look ready for sale now. Then think about what actually makes your home attractive. If it has period features, say so. If it is modern, easy to maintain and cheap to run, say that. If there are good local schools, mention them. Parents will already be thinking about next September. You can even use AI to show how a room might look with different furniture or wall colours. Just make it clear that the images are illustrative. Don’t make the house look like something it isn’t. Before you relist, investigate the local agents yourself. Look at who is selling properties like yours. Who has the most under offer? Who keeps reducing prices? Who has similar homes sitting on the market for months? That tells you far more than the agent who walks through your door, gives you the highest valuation and tells you they are the best. And don’t assume a small price reduction will solve the problem. Property portals work in price bands, so a cut may not even move your property into a different search that new buyers see. Sometimes you need to make a proper reduction. Finally, be realistic about timing. Some buyers may be holding back until they know what happens in the October Budget, so don’t be surprised if things remain quiet. Winter usually brings another slowdown, and the market often doesn’t pick up properly until January. If you need to sell sooner, speak to your agent about a serious price reduction. It’s never easy, but if you are selling one property and buying another, the figure that matters is the gap between the two prices, not the price of your house on its own. Taking £20,000 less for your home may sound terrible. But if it lets you buy your next home for £40,000 less, you’re actually better off. Sometimes the market is just plain odd and things could pick up quickly in your area. You only need one buyer after all. But if nobody is offering and you’re doing everything else right, it’s time to be ruthless on price.