Offers over and notes of interest in Scotland

itsnotarace

I'm looking for a bit of advice regarding house buying in Scotland.

We recently saw a house we liked and had a couple of viewings of it. We liked it enough to discuss putting an offer in but there are a few issues that would put off a few viewers I reckon.

Anyway, we decided to bite the bullet and put in a offer. Admittedly it was a low offer and not much over the offers over asking price but was still about £10,000 over the same type of house in the same street that sold in 2011 (but 10 below the current home report value.)

We didn't really expect it to be accepted, but the house has been for sale for a few months and not even had a note of interest yet so thought we'd give it a bash.
The EA know we are in a position to buy and not messing around.

So I called up the EA before getting our solicitor to make an offer just to see if the situation with the house had changed in the past week and the EA asked if we would like to submit a note of interest. I told her that I was about to speak to my solicitor to maybe submit an offer and she told me that I would be much better just submitting the note of interest.

I can see the rational of this if any other notes of interest had been submitted and they could take it to a closing date, but with no notes of interest and no offers then why discourage a genuine offer...this was before our solicitor let them know what our offer even was.
I know they had two more viewings lined up, but they seem to have a steady-ish stream of viewings to the property and no further interest up till now.
So we ignored her advice and submitted an offer.

I'm also out of touch with what people expect from offers over at the moment percentage wise, but someone else in the same EA branch told us that houses were routinely going for under the offers over price only 6 months ago which is why we made the low offer - although as i say, still above the offers over price.
(This isn't a particularly sought after area, but far from a bad area either.)

Our offer was flat out rejected and there was no attempt to negotiate with us to offer more.

Does anyone have any recent experience of what people are looking for in an offers over situation?

Kryptothesuperdog

I put a an offer in recently for a property advertised as offers over.

I offered the base price of the offers over amount and it got accepted within hours. The thing is there are many variables from lenders/location/property type.

The way I see it, you offered what your willing to pay, they are not willing to accept that, move on and look for another property.

itsnotarace

Yeah that's what we're thinking. It's not the be all and end all property for us, so if we lose out we'll be disappointed but not gutted.

The thing is, we didn't offer our highest price but we're not going back to an EA that didn't want us to offer in the first place with a higher offer, when it seems they want a closing date/sealed bids situation instead.

I don't think we will hear from them again until they get other confirmed interest. At which point we will just need to see if we are still interested, as for now I think we are going to forget it and see how it pans out.

bris

The reason they want you to make a note of interest is because they want to put it to a closing date. This enables them to contact everyone who has shown an interest to try and force offers to come in on this date.


By submitting an offer you are forcing their hand and possibly removing their chance of more, hopefully for them better offers.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

itsnotarace wrote: »

Does anyone have any recent experience of what people are looking for in an offers over situation?

That completely depends on where in Scotland you're looking.

The fact that you repeatedly mention it's EA's you're dealing with and not a solicitors property office makes me think it's one of only a few areas in Scotland where EA's have gained a substantial foothold such as Glasgow, Lanarkshire, etc. And they often still have quite depressed prices on the whole, outside of a few hotspots.

Your reference to 2011 prices also isn't much help without knowing the area. In some parts, prices today will be little different, in other parts, that could be 30% or more below todays prices.

In general terms the HR value will be based on recent comparable achieved sales prices in the local area. There are a few parts of the country where you may get away with a cheeky offer below that level, but in most parts vendors will be looking for that price at a minimum. Of course, in areas where prices are rising rapidly and a lot is going to closing dates, you may well be in a situation of HR value + XX%. Which then sets a new comparable price for the next local HR value, and so on....

hostie

You have nothing to lose by offering the highest price you are prepared to pay. It may be accepted.
If it gets rejected you know where you stand and if it goes to a closing date, you can simply state that the offer is your final one. It may be that other people put in lower offers, after all, you have had one rejected so you are in a good position. Other people may start with that same figure.
Good luck. The Scottish system, seems at first to be a bit of a headache, but at least it is binding on both sides.

itsnotarace

Oh yeah I should have probably mentioned that it is the south side of Glasgow we are looking in. We are dealing with the estate agents for info on the house/viewings and making the offer etc through our solicitor.

We wouldn't be prepared to pay the home report value anyway, so that may decide the issue for us. I think it's over valued for what it is and how much it needs done to it.

There have only been two other houses in that street sold in the past 7 years that I can see, and is surrounded by either much larger houses or flats. One that sold previously is a semi detached sandstone like the one we offered on (thats the 2011 one) and the other is a large detached house at a much higher price.

Like i say there are issues with it that may put people off, and we know we would have to make changes later on if we were successful with the purchase - for instance the kitchen is very small in proportion to the rest of the house (or indeed to most other kitchens in general.)

Anyway - thanks for the comments. We will see what comes of the next few weeks I guess.