Buying in Scotland

bap98189

Can someone give me some advice about house prices in Scotland please. Despite growing up in Scotland I know practically nothing about the property market there. I should explain that we are are considering moving to central Scotland and buying a house as I have just had an offer of a job up north. We currently reside in Shropshire, living in a rented house as we are priced out of the market regards buying a house of our own larger than a shoebox.

I understand the process of putting in bids etc., north of the border, but one of the attractions of moving back north is the slightly lower property prices, but before we decide what to do I need to work out what we could realistically afford.

We have seen quite a few houses on Rightmove etc. that are within our grasp financially. However, almost all the propery is advertised as "offers over" a set price, and I have been told by a couple of friends that most houses currently go for between 40-70% above the asking price. Is this the case? If not, what is a more realistic figure?

Astaroth

Typically the offers were 10-20% above the asking price (in my days in scotland) but at the end of the day people can be tactical with their house pricing to drum up interest and I am sure it varies between regions.

The important thing to remember of cause is that offers are binding in scotland so dont put a speculative bid unless you are happy to follow it through.

fatblokexl

ASTAROTH is quite accurate on the 10-20%.

central belt is maybe on the higher end of that scale but all depends where you want to live.
It maybe a good idea to look at up and coming areas in the place you want to buy. get a good price for buying and the house will increase its return as prices rise due to local revelopment etc.

we bough our house in the Angus area and paid 17% over asking but we knew we paid more as we were desperate.

busymumof3

We are in NE Scotland. A friend of mine put in a sealed bid on a house that went to closing 3 weeks ago at offers over £300k. They were 5th out of 7 bids, bidding just under £390k. Has been the case for a while here that desirable properties go very quickly and anything from 20 to 50% above the asking price is the norm.

Don't really know what the position is in the central belt. Know that prices are generally higher than where we are though. I think the offers over figure may give a false impression. Are there any fixed price properties available. This may give you a better idea of the type of property in your budget.

greytroot

Around Glasgow my mate was looking at a house valued at £78k, he bid £94k and did not get it. The house was on the market at offers over £60k.

This was in cambuslang.

Emmzi

try gspc.co.uk for west central, edinburgh solicicitors have a similar website, and look at fixed pice. all depends on area how nuts it gets.. central edinburgh is still going mad...

otoh you can do offers 'subject to survey' and pay for that afterwards..so I dont think bidding costs as much as down south?

vandanfc

Once you have some idea of were you are intersted in don't forget to check out the websites that give you the actual price the property sold for. This may give you a feel for what the "premium" is likely to be.

https://www.nethouseprices.com
https://www.ourproperty.co.uk

We moved up here just under 2 years ago and paid a lot more than I expected to have to pay and prices in our village have continued to rise !!!!

Also it is worth speaking to the local estate agents as they should be able to guide you to what percentage over the "offers over" price th evendor is expecting/hoping for.

Good luck.

CaroB_2

The website for looking at properties in Edinburgh and various other areas of East Scotland is https://www.espc.co.uk. Well worth the look. The website also has a list of solicitors in Edinburgh - it would probably be worth your while contacting some of them for quotes and then once you have one, they have access to all information regarding how much properties sold for in the area you're interested in (including the offers over price) and you can therefore get an idea of how much to offer over the o/o price.

Once you've an idea of where you want to live then attend some open viewings of properties (generally Thursday evening and Sunday afternoon) and you can then actually ask the owners what sort of price they're looking for - they might not always tell you but they may do in order to ensure they receive reasonable offers.

I'm currently selling my one-bedroom flat in an area fairly close to Edinburgh city centre - it went on the market last Monday and seeing as I've had quite a bit of interest it's gone to a closing date of next Tuesday - just two weeks. This is quite normal for popular properties so if you're still living down south you would be as well getting a solicitor and then making a few trips up here to view properties so as to avoid losing out on your dream property! At the moment most offers are subject to survey, which means that if something bad comes up in the survey you can withdraw your offer (although obviously this is not ideal for the seller!!). Good luck!!

irnbru_2

greytroot wrote:

Around Glasgow my mate was looking at a house valued at £78k, he bid £94k and did not get it. The house was on the market at offers over £60k.

He's had a lucky escape then.

BTW, do you know which district?

klaatu

It is exactly this "how much more than the asking price do they really want" issue that has caused us to change to a fixed price on the house we're selling (in Scotland).

We haven't had a great deal of interest - we are very rural and have a traditional style "quaint" country cottage, not to everyone's taste and so this perhaps isn't surprising. Some agents seem to encourage houses to be marketed at artificially low offers over prices to get lots of interest and then go to a closing date, hoping to get bids vastly over the asking price. This makes it harder for people like ourselves who have set a fair price and were only expecting a little bit over the asking price. So we've stopped playing that silly game and are now advertising the price we actually want.

I've read that fixed price properties are on the increase in Scotland, and I hope that trend continues.

Steve

irnbru_2

klaatu wrote:

Some agents seem to encourage houses to be marketed at artificially low offers over prices to get lots of interest and then go to a closing date, hoping to get bids vastly over the asking price.

I can't find the article but last year someone did lodge a complaint that a property in the borders was marketed with a low OO price to boost interest.

klaatu wrote:

I've read that fixed price properties are on the increase in Scotland, and I hope that trend continues.

This is true but under what circumstances? Either the seller has marketed at OO and not got what they expected so put it at FP or gone straight to FP to achieve a quick sale.

Case in point: property advertised at £140K OO goes to £170K FP down to £160K FP then to £125K OO and now sold. IMHO the agent just didn't know their market and over-priced it.

If properties start going direct to FP I can see people adopting the approach in England of offering 94% of the asking price.