Poor Mobile and Slow Broadband Stalls UK Rural House Sale for 10 Years

The perceived value that a good broadband ISP connection can add to a house, especially one in a rural area, will always be subject to each individuals own perspective, but few doubt its importance. So spare a thought for the owners of a 3 bedroom house that has gone unsold for 10 years due to poor local connectivity.. and a graveyard.

The house, which originally went on the market at £175K in 2004 before being dropped to £163K in 2007 and was then recently raised back to £175K, is situated in the remote rural village of Gwytherin in Conwy (Wales). The nearest town is 5 miles away and the only connection is via BT’s 20CN (up to 8Mbps ADSL) based telephone exchange at Llangernyw, which means sub-2Mbps speeds.

According to the Daily Mail, which has some pictures of the house (looks like a reasonable place), most potential buyers have been put off by the rural location and the fact that they struggle to get both a mobile signal and a good broadband connection. Oh and it also overlooks a graveyard.. ughh.

Tony Filice, Spokesman for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said:

“Ten years would have to be a record. In the last recession it wouldn’t have been uncommon for a house to have been on for two or three years but that was because of the economy. But it is unheard of for a house to be on the market for a decade.”

So in summary they want £175K for a house that’s recently been modernised but is also very remote, has poor connectivity (mobile + broadband) and overlooks a graveyard. Little wonder that the current owner, Lin Boutcher, is considering another drop in price (if a house doesn’t sell then your expectations about price are probably wrong).

However it’s possible that the owners may benefit from some of the existing projects to improve local connectivity. For example, some parts of Conwy are already part of the Superfast Cymru project with BT (here) and wireless ISP Xwavia has recently started to deploy their network into some parts of the area (here).

Failing that it’s likely that a forthcoming extension to the Superfast Cymru scheme might come back to Conwy and connect areas that were missed the first time around, although this has yet to be confirmed.