SUCCESS STORY
Sturt Road,
Haslemere
Sometimes buyers need a little extra help to see the vision.
418
DAYS PREVIOUSLY MARKETED
2
PREVIOUS AGENTS
1
COMPLETELY NEW STRATEGY
What do you do when a property has already spent more than a year on the market, with two different agents, and still hasn’t found its buyer?
Do you simply put it back online, take some new photographs and hope that third time is lucky?
For us, the answer was no. When we first visited this home on Sturt Road in Haslemere in 2023, it already had quite a marketing history behind it. It had been listed with one local estate agent for 174 days in 2021, followed by another well-known local agent for a further 244 days in 2022.
That’s 418 days of marketing.
Both agents knew the local Haslemere property market. Both had exposed the home to buyers. But there was one big problem....
The property needed someone to show buyers what it could become, not simply what it looked like on the day.
And that was where we decided to do things differently"
Michaela sanders
Built by our client's grandfather in the 1930's.
A home with a story worth telling
This wasn’t just another house in need of modernisation. The property had been built by our client’s grandfather in the 1930s and had remained within the family ever since. In fact, it had been in the family for so long that the property wasn’t even registered with HM Land Registry.
There was a huge amount of history attached to it. There was also, it’s fair to say, a fair amount of work to be done. We’re not sure the house had seen any significant updating for more than 50 years.
But is that necessarily a bad thing? Not to the right buyer.
For someone looking for a renovation project in Haslemere, this was exactly the kind of property that offered something increasingly difficult to find: the opportunity to take a house with good bones, put your own stamp on it and create something completely personal. The challenge was helping buyers see past what was in front of them.
Our thoughts
Why don’t we just show them what it could look like?
By the time we met our client, he was understandably tired of the whole process. After two previous attempts at selling, we knew that simply repeating what had already been done wasn’t going to be enough. So, during our initial valuation, we suggested a completely different property marketing strategy.
We worked with a company whose background was in architecture and who could create visualisations showing how a property might look after renovation.
Not just a mood board. Not just somebody saying, “Imagine knocking this wall through…” Buyers could actually see it.
We could incorporate professionally created images into the property marketing, alongside virtual walk-throughs showing different possibilities for the house.
Suddenly, instead of asking potential buyers to stand in an outdated room and try to imagine what it could become, we could show them. And our client loved the idea. He could see exactly what we were trying to achieve and, after such a long time on the market, he was excited to try something completely different.
Rear elevations
before & afters
approximate costings
Good property marketing shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all
This is exactly why we believe selling a home is about so much more than listing it on Rightmove and hoping for the best. Every property is different.
So why should every marketing campaign look the same?
A beautifully finished family home might need lifestyle photography and carefully considered presentation. A character cottage might need its history, location and original features brought to life. And a property like Sturt Road needed buyers to understand its potential.
The marketing should fit the home, not the other way around. That is something we feel strongly about at Heart & Home. Being an estate agent in Haslemere isn’t simply about knowing what properties have sold for locally. It’s about understanding who is likely to buy a particular home, what might stop them from seeing its value and how we can market it in a way that gets them excited about it. Sometimes that means doing things a little differently.
So what do you think?
Would seeing professionally created renovation ideas make you more confident about buying a property that needed work?
Could it help you see possibilities that you might otherwise have missed?
We’d love to know what you think of this way of marketing a home. And if your property has been on the market before without selling, it doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a buyer for it. It might simply mean it needs a different story, a different strategy and a fresh pair of eyes.
