Edinburgh Property Prices - Are we Mad?

hopingforahouse

We're currently flat hunting in Edinburgh. Looking for a two bedroom, not a zillion miles away from the town centre, and not a complete tip. So far we have put offers in on one flat at offers over £110,000 - we bid £131,500 - it went for £141,000! We bid on one that closed today at offers over £108,000 - it went for £154,000 (we bid £132,000)! Our solicitor said they were both worth about £130,000. Does anyone know the Scottish property market? Is this due to a shortage of proerties currently on the market? We're beginning to think our max budget of £133,000 is going to get us a shed. Should we wait a wee while so we don't end up paying over the odds?

N.B - Don't know if I'm allowed or not, otherwise I would post the details of the last flat which is still on the web.

Lady_maverick1979

Yup, it's crazy.

We moved from Livingston in September and things are taking off there too.

Edinburgh is the most expensive place in Scotland to buy property, and anything near the city centre is especially so. It's at the stage that many business cannot afford their rents and are moving out to peripheral towns like Livingston; this has a knock-on effect in the new location explaining why our little 2-bed flat we bough for £72k in 2002 would now cost around £105k!!!

At the moment the Scottish market is around 10-20% over the asking price, but Edinburgh can easily be 40-50% (as you have seen).

If being near to the town centre is not imperative, I really would suggest going a bit further out - there are excellent road and rail links into Edinburgh, and it is easily commutable.

HTH,

L_M.xx

Jim_B_3

It's even more bizarre if you're not from around there. I went to Edinburgh and 'ghetto with pretensions' was the verdict.

hearts

I live in Edinburgh and own a few flats and houses. The reason your properties probably went for so much more is that they were put on low to attract buyers. They knew how much their house was worth and knew within a certain margin how much they would get. Let me know the area /address and I'll have a look. Tell me where in the city you are interested. To say near the town centre means nothing. As you know most areas are within a 10 min drive of the centre.

...and stay well away from most of the overpriced Newbuilds.

Jim B Ghetto with pretentions? LOL you obviously don't frequent the better parts of this great city.

Stewboy1978

Jim_B wrote:

It's even more bizarre if you're not from around there. I went to Edinburgh and 'ghetto with pretensions' was the verdict.

Aye right. I take it you never visited 95% of the city then.

Stewboy1978

hearts wrote:

I live in Edinburgh and own a few flats and houses. The reason your properties probably went for so much more is that they were put on low to attract buyers. They knew how much their house was worth and knew within a certain margin how much they would get. Let me know the area /address and I'll have a look. Tell me where in the city you are interested. To say near the town centre means nothing. As you know most areas are within a 10 min drive of the centre.

...and stay well away from most of the overpriced Newbuilds.

Jim B Ghetto with pretentions? LOL you obviously don't frequent the better parts of this great city.

Agree with everything you say...I have a flat and a house just of the centre of town - I bought my flat in 2002 for £60k and they are now going for £120k.

It is a well known trick in Edinburgh to set a really low price to get viewers in, then they will put in an offer.....As soon as there a good few offers in a closing date is set then, as all the potential buyers can't see other offers there is always 1 person who comes in with an offer way, way above the rest just to get it.

moneyandmountains

Stewboy1978 wrote:

It is a well known trick in Edinburgh to set a really low price to get viewers in, then they will put in an offer.

This happens across Scotland. It is often helped along by greedy estate agents/solicitors.
e.g. they may get a 1% cut of the sales price if up to a certain price range or 1.5% if they sell the house for more.

Not sure about city centre Edinburgh, but if you pick a quiet time of year the number of fixed price properties is likely to be higher. Then at least you can 'discuss' the price with the current owners.

Despite the comments about overpriced new builds, depending on the quality of the build it may be a cheaper way to get in. New builds will have no chain and at least you know what the 'true' sales price is. Of course, this will make it look more expensive when comparing to an artifically low offers over price.

browsingid

I own a 2 bed flat in Edinburgh and am hoping to sell this summer, and am having total paranoia about big falls in value before then. Having said that, as our property has more than trebled in value since we bought in '98, at least I don't need to worry about negative equity.

I don't understand the property market in Edinburgh at all - I live in a rather modest tenement flat in a fairly nice area of the southside, and yet the going price around me is £210k. I bought when I was a student (with a guarantor), but am now on a decent wage as an accountant, and there is no way I could afford to buy this flat without a guarantor if I was a first time buyer now - so I don't understand who all these people are that are snapping up Edinburgh property at these ridiculous prices.

And yes, it is a frequent 'trick' to put houses on the market at way below the expected selling price. Our rule of thumb in '98 was to expect the survey to come back at about 15% over the offers over price, then expect to pay about 15-20% above the valuation. I daresay things are a little different now - it seems that putting in offers subject to survey is normal these days, whereas when I was buying we did surveys prior to offers for all the places we made offers for.

The most extreme experience I had was making an offer on a flat on at offers over 67k, which our survey said was valued at 85k. We were stretched, so the most we could offer was £95k - and it went to the highest bidder at £137k! That is more than double the initial price!

My one observation about the Edinburgh property market right now is that there doesn't seem to be much on the market at the moment - historically there has almost always been a handful of flats for sale on my street, yet for the past three or four months there has been nothing. I can't decide why this is - is it because people can't afford to move 'upwards', perhaps? I don't know.

hopingforahouse

Thanks all for your replies. We don't really want to buy a new build as I understand that these properties will be going with a 'new' premium. So we probably won't maximize any possible increse in general market value. And to be honest, with a budget of £131,000 (can go to about £133,000 max), we're not going to be able to buy any of the new builds anyhoo.

We're really willing to live any where that has some general local amenities - a shop, a half way decent bar and maybe a couple of okay places to eat would be nice too. And where I won't be likely to be mugged walking home at night, and where our neighbours don't sell drugs. I know this sound a little OTT, but I've had pals stay in this kind of area before (although in a different city), and I don't really want to walk past police arresting my neighbours on my way home.

We gave up the car when we moved here due to the fact that buses instead saved a lot of cash, so somewhere near the ring road wouldn't really be an option - only one of us can drive anyway.

If anyone can give any ideas of places in Edinburgh that are reasonably priced, rather than totally overpriced, this would be most appriciated.

Hearts man - we've looked at Meadowbank and Leith Walk so far - but as above - we'd be willing to live in many places as long as its not a too bad area.

There does seem to be a shortage of properties on the market at the moment - who knows why? Our solicitor certainly has no idea - any one else?

chant1l

I am not totally on top of the Edinburgh market in terms of prices, but have been offered stuff in Comely Bank at reasonable money. Try the investor sites streetwisepublications.co.uk or singingpig and advertise (free) for what you want. Chances are someone may be selling an ex rental cheap. propertyinvestmentdeals.co.uk is another investor group who offer scottish property at fixed and discounted prices.

irnbru_2

hopingforahouse wrote:

And to be honest, with a budget of £131,000 (can go to about £133,000 max), we're not going to be able to buy any of the new builds anyhoo.

Too close to the stamp duty threshold. Your budget is really 125K.

hopingforahouse wrote:

We're currently flat hunting in Edinburgh. Looking for a two bedroom, not a zillion miles away from the town centre, and not a complete tip.

How long have you been looking?

1. Identify the areas you want to live.
2. Check past house prices to see if it's realistic.
3. Start tracking properties so you can see what % over the OO price was paid. The GSPC has a paper edition and I guess the ESPC does to, so getting back issues might be useful.
4. Don't pay more than you think it's worth.

hopingforahouse wrote:

There does seem to be a shortage of properties on the market at the moment - who knows why? Our solicitor certainly has no idea - any one else?

People cannot afford to move to a larger property?