6 weeks on the market - what to do next?

Herzlos

RHemmings said:

Personally I completely ignore 'offers above', 'offers in the region of', or 'fixed price'. I'd put whatever offers on despite the wording. 'Fixed price' would also put me off a bit, unless it was a clearly very competitive fixed price. But, in this context, with the price having gone up ... it would definitely put me off.

I don't think increasing the price from offers over to a fixed price is unreasonable (if that's what happened). I've seen it happen fairly often here, and our EA advised us to list offers over for essentially the price band below what we wanted i.e. We wanted £115k so we went to offers over £109k, and if we'd gone to fixed price we'd have increased to £115k. 

I also hate haggling so like the idea of a fixed price even though it does generally seem to be a move of desperation, as the only stuff I see as fixed price here is stuff that's been on the market for months.

1 beds will be a bit of a slower sale these days because a lot of people still want a spare room to work from home on occasion, but I'd expect a nice house within a decent commute of Glasgow centre to get snapped up at home report price. Outside Glasgow, our 2 bed sold for about 10% over HR price, and we bought our 4 bed for about 5% over HR, both being under offer within a week.

@OP - What feedback has the estate agent given you from the people who viewed but didn't offer? Is there any recurring theme?

Edit: I think I've found it, and it's location is good from an access perspective - close to bus links into the city and near one of the hospitals. It's also next to some streets with a terrible reputation, to the point I was told some had been renamed in around the 80's as part of a re-imaging. That said, I'm not sure that'd be the problem if you got 14 viewings.

Herzlos

sheramber said:

Offers over is standard in Scotland.  If there is more than one offer then the sale usually goes to a closing date. There is not a bidding war as in England. You make a blind bid and hope for the best. Because of this some people. Only consider fixed price properties so they know what it costs and are not bidding blind. Offers are made through a solicitor so lost bids can cost money.

The solicitor I used recently doesn't charge for offers, which seems to be a pretty quick bit of work by a junior, presumably in the hopes of getting the conveyancing gig afterwards. I assume that's pretty standard now compared to the last time I was putting in offers.

The rest is accurate - bids are made blind, if multiple parties are interested it'll go to closing.

_bishbashbosh

I had a one-bed house about a decade ago and it took over a year to sell. It was a good house, much bigger than the one-bed apartments that were flying off the shelves back then, but the problem I found was that the young single people who were the majority of the target market did not want the hassle of maintaining a house and garden. They just wanted a nice simple flat where all they had to do was paint the walls and hang some pictures. The right buyer came along eventually, but it required a lot of patience. 

I think 6 weeks is nothing in the curret market. Just a year ago houses on my current street were selling within a few days afer fierce bidding wars, whereas now the few houses that are on have been listed for some time.

GDB2222

I found your house, and it's very nicely presented.

There do seem to be a lot of 3 bed houses within a 3 mile radius of Glasgow at the same price. I don't know the area. How does this one compare?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/140140574#/?channel=RES_BUY

YoungBlueEyes

I'll just reiterate that I don't know Glasgow, but I think location is playing a role in this. While you can get more elsewhere for the same money, more isn't necessarily better (I've tried to be delicate there). 

When we were house hunting last year, a 4 bed detached came up that we could have afforded. We're now in a 3 bed semi because as I said to himself at the time "I'll not be living in that area while I've a hole in me erse". (Not delicate at all there, but true!)

Location. Location. Location. 

hedgewitchery

GDB2222 said:

I found your house, and it's very nicely presented.

There do seem to be a lot of 3 bed houses within a 3 mile radius of Glasgow at the same price. I don't know the area. How does this one compare?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/140140574#/?channel=RES_BUY

YoungBlueEyes said:

I'll just reiterate that I don't know Glasgow, but I think location is playing a role in this. While you can get more elsewhere for the same money, more isn't necessarily better (I've tried to be delicate there). 

When we were house hunting last year, a 4 bed detached came up that we could have afforded. We're now in a 3 bed semi because as I said to himself at the time "I'll not be living in that area while I've a hole in me erse". (Not delicate at all there, but true!)

Location. Location. Location. 

I do know Glasgow and that house is actually in Paisley, which is a nearby, somewhat down-on-its-luck town (and not a particularly nice part of Paisley, no offence to the vendors). It's also not particularly well-connected for public transport, etc, comparatively speaking.

A lot of the Scottish population is densely crammed into the concentrated central belt broadly spanning the Glasgow/Edinburgh latitude - a couple of miles here or there around the cities makes a vast difference in much the same way as it probably does in London.

Herzlos

The OP's flat (if I have the correct one) is between 2 roads with a pretty constant bus service into the city centre, that takes maybe 10 minutes. It's walkable on a nice day.
The 3 bed in the link is near some country parks that are pretty nice, but it's not as handy for the city centre; you'd need to walk about 10 minutes to a bus stop to catch a bus into central Paisley and catch a train from there, and it'd take about an hour.

As mentioned, the public transport links radiate out of the city centre like spokes, but if you venture too far away from a spoke you've got virtually nothing and the service in any direction other than to/from the city is terrible.

maladict

GDB2222 said:

I found your house, and it's very nicely presented.

There do seem to be a lot of 3 bed houses within a 3 mile radius of Glasgow at the same price. I don't know the area. How does this one compare?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/140140574#/?channel=RES_BUY

Foxbar in Paisley is absolutely not Bishopbriggs 

OP, your house is lovely but being one bed is going to limit your potential buyers.  It'll just take time.  Fwiw, the price change wouldn't bother me as I'd assume it was linked with switching to fixed price.

GDB2222

Sorry about that. I certainly accept that there are major price differences between different areas.