Making offers

one-non-blonde

In Scotland the system is completely different and houses are almost always marketed with an 'offers over' price, which is low in order to generate interest. This is infuriating as you have no clear idea what the sellers are prepared to accept. You generally have to factor in an extra 20-30% to be in with a chance. Offering on a house is shrouded in secrecy and once you have made a verbal offer which is close to what the sellers want, the house then 'goes to a closing date' which effectively gives everyone else who is interested a week or so to make an offer themselves. :think: Your lawyer then submits a formal offer as close to the deadline as possible to avoid anyone else (unscrupulous estate agents!) finding out. The stress of this system is immense and usually means that you pay more than you'd really want to out of fear of losing out to someone else at the last minute. When I bought my flat I raised my original verbal offer by almost £4k by the time my lawyer submitted it. I suspect I was the only person who offered, in effect bidding against myself (but I really would rather not know!) and ended up paying just over 25% above the 'offers over' price which was about 12% above the surveyed valuation. :doh:

deemy2004

The scottish system favours the sellers by a long margin.