Scottish buyers

wla

Is there a thread specifically for Scottish buyers?
Ive had a look around this section and most of the posts seem to be for property in England and our system seems quite different.

Anyway here's my questions.

We are in the process of selling our house at a reduced price to our daughter to help her get on the property market, there will be no hurry for us to leave when the sale goes through but we're looking at houses anyway, i'm quite excited at the thought of moving, we have been here over 20 years.

We seen a property with offers over 175,000 that we like. The main difference in Scotland compared to England i'm told is that if it states offers over a certain price it means just that, as that is what it is worth over 175,000. Is this information accurate?

I had a look at Zoopla to see how much the house sold for last time it was on the market and it sold for £170,000 in 2007, am i right in thinking prices were really high then and fell in 2008?

I then went to look at Nationwide house price calculations typed in the amount it sold for in 2007 to see what they estimate it is worth now.
The first time i done it the answer came back 147,282. I thought that cant be right and tried again, second answer 149,815 and third answer 157,826. Can anyone direct me to a calculations site that gives accurate information?

telfordwhite

These sites can be useful but are only an estimate and won't take into account any improvements etc. But going like for like I would think the asking price is optimistic.

Sucker_for_sweeties

Probably best best is to use a Scottish solicitor, if you don't have one already, maybe one from the area you're looking in.
Sometimes depending on the market, length of time etc etc etc you can offer less than the asking price. That's rare though, I've only done that once out of 4 times.

The second time it took us about a dozen offers by the closing date, all fairly well over, all completely trounced.

A lot of factors affect it so a local view can really help.

Sorry if that wasn't much help.

googler

Is there a thread specifically for Scottish buyers?

No.

We seen a property with offers over 175,000 that we like. The main difference in Scotland compared to England i'm told is that if it states offers over a certain price it means just that, as that is what it is worth over 175,000. Is this information accurate?

No. It's worth what the buyer pays for it. Whether it's offers over, fixed price, or offers in the region of, you make an offer of what you're willing to pay for it. That may be less than the offers over price.

Can anyone direct me to a calculations site that gives accurate information?

No, because none of these sites have all the information that they need to make an informed calculation. You'll have to hire a solicitor to make an offer on any property you select; so hire one who is local to the market you'll be buying in, and he/she should be informed enough to guide you as to what level of offer may or may not be successful.

Remember, if the house you're interested in came to the market after Dec 2008, it MUST have a Home Report, which will contain a surveyor's valuation of the house. You need to see where this sits in relation to the offers over price.

wla

It does have a home report and the home report states its value is £175,000.

There is a problem with a neighbours barking dogs. When we viewed the property we asked the estate agent about this and she said the vendor had not been bothered by it. (possibly as he's at work all day)

We have dogs ourselves and initially thought it may just have been that we were passing strangers coming into view, once the estate agent left we asked a neighbour further along if the dogs were a problem and she said they were and had put in a complaint.
I called the local dog warden who confirmed she had recieved a complaint in October last year and followed it up giving advice to the owners on what to do, clearly they have not followed that advice.

googler

If you need a mortgage, your lender will be guided by this value of £175,000, and won't lend above this, so why would you offer above it?

wla

Hi Googler
I wont be offering above it, i was hoping to offer under it. Apparently he can move out with short notice, less than a month and is open to offers.

The dog problem concerns me, the neighbours dogs could live another 10 years, mine don't bark.

The house we buy would be the house we want to live out the rest of our days in.

HouseHunter2010

wla wrote: »

Hi Googler
I wont be offering above it, i was hoping to offer under it. Apparently he can move out with short notice, less than a month and is open to offers.

The dog problem concerns me, the neighbours dogs could live another 10 years, mine don't bark.

The house we buy would be the house we want to live out the rest of our days in.

So why are you considering moving there?

wla

The bigger picture.

The property ticks all our boxes and only the dogs barking are a problem, we may live in the property 50+ years, the barking dogs will only live 10.

There might be legal options we could take concerning dogs barking, i'm not ruling the property out on the dogs alone but yes, it is a consideration regarding price at the moment, he's not going to find it easy to sell with that going on is he?

HouseHunter2010

wla wrote: »

The bigger picture.

The property ticks all our boxes and only the dogs barking are a problem, we may live in the property 50+ years, the barking dogs will only live 10.
There might be other legal options to take concerning dogs barking,i'm not ruling the property out on the dogs only but yes, it is a consideration regarding price at the moment.

Maybe it's just me, but the idea of moving to my 'final' home and considering the prospect of taking legal action before I've even moved there is my idea of a home from hell!!

wla

Consider this house hunter........
Many people would ask their neighbour to take the dogs inside due to the fact they are having a viewing of their property.

At least i would know what i was entering into if i went ahead, like i say i have dogs and understand the problem of dog behaviours, barking can be fixed with co-operation of the owners and if they refuse to comply there are other means, yes it would be sad to go down that route.
I agree its not ideal but we have yet to find a property that ticks as many boxes as this one at this present time. There is no such thing as the perfect house.