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House looks great - two things I spotted though. It was hard to find the price (which I think is reasonable - the price not the ease of finding it!) and also the picture of the front of the house makes it look "too small" - have you got a better shot from the garden or from across the street.

LL
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I can only ask a question and that is, how does the price compare to similar properties in the area? Things were a lot dearer where I lived, so I couldn't possibly comment on the price. I think that that is how you can compare. It looks, as they say, well presented and very french.

What market are you after, french or 'other' or anyone?

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Hmmm, well Richard the Lionheart, let's see: the fotos don't really do it justice as they make it seem small and cramped, and they do not give an idea of the layout of the house or the property. There seem to be all sorts of extra buildings which confuses matters.

The colour of some walls also pulls in the walls and needs to be white to give the impression of light and space. Electric lights and fire give impression of darkness

The French windows have no context in the rooms.

The main house garden is not fully exploited - perhaps a foto from the garden towards the main house.

The foto from the road, as has been said, also makes it seem small.

Hmmm, just a few thoughts.[:D]

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A few weeks ago I spent several exhausting weeks repainting the interior of our last house in a neutral light colour. Sadly it hasn't helped with a sale, but at least I've been told that it will be OK to rent it being neutral et al.

Would a floor plan with all the measurments on help Richard? Sorry if they were there, I didn't see it.

 

 

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The walls are actually all a neutral biege now, but as I'm in the States, I haven't got any new pictures.

I have a download of the house with a floor layout (no measurements) as a download

http://www.propertyloirevalley.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/06/propertyloirevalley.pdf

It is a small house, only about 90m².

For some reason I never took many photos of the outside when I lived there.
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As the others have said the dark decor makes it look small and far to much dark furniture also gives it a cramped feeling in the photos.I found the pic's too small and hard to see with that bottom bar. Can use that space to make the pic's bigger ?

For me also being on the road would put me off

But the plus side is it sounds like there is plenty more room to work on to make extra rooms.

I wish you Good luck and hope you make a sale soon....;0)
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I thought it looked ok, would prefer to see the price on the Home Page. Dont know your area so cannot comment on price.

I would be put off by the picture from down the road, showing the side of the neighbouring building, however nice the house was this would put me off viewing..jmo

Good luck

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I don't think the price is too bad in the current climate, for what you are selling and situation etc. There has been nothing of that size and price in our area for many many years, indeed for the same at the moment you would need to add at least €80 -100k more to the price what you are asking. I do not know the area, but have a look on the immo sites for similar properties and same area and see what they are asking.
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I only looked at the Home page, because that's where you'll attract people (or put them off)

If it was my house, I'd want a better photo of the front of the house, I'd remove the photos of the barn and only have one good garden photo. If you can get better, brighter photos of the lounge and kitchen, that'd be good.

There was too much text and it wasn't divided into separate short sections. I'd have liked the price to be boldly shown.
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Richard - I liked the brochure: light years ahead of typical French property marketing literature.  I agree with others here who've mentioned the price is not immediately obvious, and for those who might not be up for rebuilding the barn it might be useful to have a separate price for the main house without the barn (although I imagine you'd prefer to sell it all as one).

Good luck with the sale.......

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Emailed you Richard,

Shame no one is around to take another photo of the front, the light is almost coming into the lens, at a different time of day it would be on the front of the house and with a blue sky would look 10X better. Echo others comment and added some on the email.

The header is good but quite high so throws the centre of the page out which should be the most prominent part with a bigger slide (dimensionally) slide show. Do you really need the links/tabs on the left of the page when you have them across the top? it would then allow a much better use of the space on the page. Pretty good on the whole, now you have to attract the clients to the site, (SEO)

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I found the slide show of pictures really annoying, sorry! I would much prefer to see thumbnails and be able to select pictures as I want to by clicking on them to enlarge them. I would also prefer to see the information on the 'Key Facts' page changed so all that is listed at the top of the first page so that I could decide whether this particular house is what I might be looking for (especially including the price).

As others have said the rooms look dark; if you could get someone to take some new pictures for you of the new, lighter decor it might well be worth arranging.

Good luck with the sale, you must be fed up trying to do it all from a distance.

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Bearing in mind that I looked at hundreds, possibly thousands, of properties on the internet and certainly dozens in real life, I have had a good look at the details of yours, Richard, so that I could give you a considered opinion.

The value looks really good but, as others have pointed out, the price could be made more prominent.

I'd cut down on a lot of the text as people  (no, not people, I, but I don't know if I am representative) flip through all the pictures first in order to get a good idea of what the property is like.  My decision to follow up or not is usually based on the pictures.  Perhaps you could offer to send more text in the way of written information if someone asks and shows interest.

I don't know about anyone else but, for me, a picture does say more than a thousand words and I don't generally read wordy adverts.

The map is good, location certainly highlighted, though you might make more of the fact that it's within easy walking distance of "amenities".  Also, the emphasis on easy accessibility of places of interest is very good. 

As others have noted, would be good to have bigger and brighter pictures.

Personally, I wouldn't waste words on what is possible so much as use them to describe what is already there.  I have always been told that rooms are good things so I'd say TWO bedrooms straight off and then say but of course you could use one as an office.  I think that even couples like to think they have a spare for visiting grandchildren, friends, etc.

For a ONE bedroom, it sounds pricey but for TWO bedrooms, it sounds very good value.  Of course, you have explained about the bedrooms but, again, more text and people don't read text as much as they look at pictures.  So, if I were selling, I'd say TWO bedrooms but that the accommodation is FLEXIBLE and, if preferred, one bedroom could make a very good office.

LOL, Richard, you know I am trying to help so if you find my comments rubbish, just ignore them.  My only excuse for writing all this is that I'd like you to sell successfully and the other incidental note is that I HAVE looked at many websites and agents' offices over a period of 2 years very recently.

All the best

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Basically what wooly said plus the price needs to be prominent on the home page, it's the very first thing every house hunter needs to know, is it within my budget. Like others not knowing the area I can't really comment on whether it's right or not except to say there does seem quite a lot on offer and as things go in general a price of €94,975 should be enough to at least pique some interest.

TBH I found the whole site a bit confusing and don't much care for the slideshow but the thing which really struck me was that even having looked through each section, probably with a bit more care than a casual viewer, I still didn't have a coherent picture of the house in my mind and it was only when I looked at the pdf brochure that it came together for me (no price there either!). Having seen that then in retrospect some of the photo's do not seem to do it justice but as a property hunter I could well have moved on before getting that far.

IMO this is one of those properties which absolutely needs to be viewed to be properly appreciated and in such cases giving too much information can end up being counter productive. Prospective purchasers might think they have seen all they need to online and move on whereas a visit might give them a completely different perspective. Striking the balance between the two is not easy though.

Of course being completely in English may not necessarily be too helpful for French buyers !

Bonne chance.

PS: Just saying as I saw it but like sweets you are free to dismiss my comments as rubbish [:$]

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Thanks all for your critiques. I shall note them down and begin making changes today. First off will be the slideshow :)

AnOther has picked up on a point that I had been thinking of in the back of my mind - too much information. I think I will reduce the amount of info and leave a little mystery to the buyer to try and entice him to come and view.

I created the brochure after I created the website, but I think I will try and replicate the brochure onto the website now.

The reason I haven't put a price on the brochure is in case it changes and I didn't want many things out there with different prices on. There is a link in the brochure where people can click and it brings them back to the website where the price is. That was my logic in that.
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[quote user="Mr Coeur de Lion"]Thanks all for your critiques. I shall note them down and begin making changes today. First off will be the slideshow :) AnOther has picked up on a point that I had been thinking of in the back of my mind - too much information. I think I will reduce the amount of info and leave a little mystery to the buyer to try and entice him to come and view. I created the brochure after I created the website, but I think I will try and replicate the brochure onto the website now. The reason I haven't put a price on the brochure is in case it changes and I didn't want many things out there with different prices on. There is a link in the brochure where people can click and it brings them back to the website where the price is. That was my logic in that.[/quote]

Not only too much information but too much of that information is in the form of text or writing.  If it were my site, I'd put all the salient points with bullets, cut down on long sentences and have better and more photos.

Keep it simple and straightforward so that people get a good idea and then leave extra information elsewhere, either on the site or by separate email.

I'm not selling yet but, when I do, I have someone lined up to build my website and I have a very good idea what I want to go on it.  I sold my UK house through something I'd prepared with OH and it was the internet that sold it and not the two very well established agents with good sites of their own.

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I agree with previous posters who said

1) price not clearly stated right at the start and

2) the whole thing is too wordy and complicated to navigate. (too much information)

We had our house up for sale a couple of years ago, with 5 different immos, and the one with the clearest simplest website got us the most viewings and offers. (Abafim. - if you look at their website you will see the price in red which hits your eye straight away.)

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We sold our house in UK ourselves almost immediately, after an estate agent had got nowhere.

I took a lot of trouble over my photos, making sure that they (especially the main picture) looked as inviting as possible. The front page had only the large front-view photo, the price in bold text, the address, and a few bullet points with the best features.

The lady who bought it told us that the front photo sold it - she had been on the books of the estate agent I had sacked and had not even noticed our property from his efforts.
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I wonder why you have not chosen to save the hassle and place the property with an agent?,
they can deal with choice of info, pics and deal with viewings enquiries etc?

I think your website should read more like an Agents ad, than a blog,
as for price well you can always go high or middle and accept offers,
I've seen the line,''Try an offer, owner keen to sell''

A couple of months ago I placed a building plot with an agent and was told that there was little chance of selling in the current market, but they would put it on their site anyway; todate they have had 4 viewings (while I have been in the UK) and one repeated enquiry which seems to be seriously interested -

The format they successfully employ, is a single large photo, (taken on a beautiful day and selected from a half a dozen), a headline giving the name of the village, followed by the area, followed by the price and then a short block of single line info with minimum relevant details, anyone interested would only take a few minutes to read and appraise whether to visit or contact the agent for details or further pics etc, and in many cases (me included) would rather talk to an agent than the owner. See content style below.[Www]

Dordogne/Charente borders
€33,000
2,000m² with CU & detailed planning in place for single storey 4 bed house with Balcony,
Sous-sol, Double Garage, room for pool.
Amazing panoramic views over valley (Michelin viewpoint).
Rural Setting with excellent access, on edge of woods near quiet hamlet,
Water, Electricity and Telephone all available.
5mins to thriving village with all services,
(Bank, Bar, Boucherie, Boulangerie, Charcuterie, Epicerie, Hotel, PO, Restaurant, Supermarche)
15mins Aubeterre, 45mins Angouleme, 20mins Riberac, approx 90mins Bordeaux airport. approx 80mins Bergerac airport.
More land available, if required

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