Closing dates for buyers are increasing exponentially (Scotland)

Pansy_Potter_12

My niece is a first time buyer and it looks like she can't compete with the current practise of very quickly going to sealed bids only weeks after a property is listed.  She has bid 20% over the Home Report in three instances and been outbid each time by a substantial amount. 

It really is a gamble as buyers could lose a house by only a small amount or alternatively pay thousands too much.  When people are blind and over-bidding the ceiling prices for many areas continue to rocket.

It looks like a seller's market currently in Scotland and I wonder if its's the same for the rest of the U.K.

Ayr_Rage

Pansy_Potter_12 said:

My niece is a first time buyer and it looks like she can't compete with the current practise of very quickly going to sealed bids only weeks after a property is listed.  She has bid 20% over the Home Report in three instances and been outbid each time by a substantial amount. 

It really is a gamble as buyers could lose a house by only a small amount or alternatively pay thousands too much.  When people are blind and over-bidding the ceiling prices for many areas continue to rocket.

It looks like a seller's market currently in Scotland and I wonder if its's the same for the rest of the U.K.

There does seem to be a trend of going to closing dates sooner and more often than previously, but it is nowhere near an exponential increase.

As for the amounts buyers are bidding over the asking price, that's always been the case with the somewhat bonkers "offers over" system here.

cr1mson

It is days here and 20-30% over! Even when we bought our house nearly 25 years ago it went to closing within a week and this was back in day pre home report so had to get a survey done before making an offer. Saw house on Sunday closing date following Friday and paid 14% over.

Most useful thing was having a solicitor with local knowledge and good relationships with the local agents so got to see houses asap!

poseidon1

My one experience in trying to participate in Scotlands house sale system (Glasgow ), was quite disconcerting.

I was the first to view a flat on a Friday. Was greatly enamoured so was first through the door again on Saturday for 2nd  viewing.

By the time I got my act together to instruct a solicitor to formalise my offer on the Monday , someone had made a pre-emptive  bid large enough to convince the vendors to agree there and then and take the property off the market Monday afternoon.

Glasgow's tenement apartment market ( for the good examples ) has been very buoyant and fiercely competitive, I am now having to up my own budget by £50k +  compared to the beginning of 2024.

Cairnpapple

Where I live in West Lothian is fairly flat, an excellent property will go quickly but the sale prices don't seem to be all that much over asking and there's not many with the weirdly specific sale prices that suggest a closing date. 

I track a particular subset of the Edinburgh market (modern 2/3 bed flats in EH4 and EH12) and it doesn't seem to be an exciting market, typically sits for a bit and goes for home report-ish. However I do see plenty of closing dates pop up for good period properties in Edinburgh - I don't know how much over home report is the going rate for those. 

I bought in Fife in 2009 at a stamp duty threshold and then in West Lothian in 2019 by offering a token 1% over home report in the first week on the market, so I've never experienced the madness! 

Northern_Wanderer

We've always had this system in Scotland, it can be frustrating. There are always going to properties that everyone seems to want. Round here, there are properties that sell straight away, ones that go to closing, some that go fixed price and some that get reduced, others that never sell. It very much depends on the property and who is looking at the time.

Your neice probably has a budget that she needs to stick to, so it's always going to be her decision if she wants to potentially waste money on failed bids and maybe risk paying over the odds. I also see a fair few properties coming back to market, most likely because the person didn't secure the mortgage, as they will only lend on a certain amount.

Some good advice for her would be to consider properties that need some work, those are often the ones that hang around longer and you can buy for less than asking and get a good deal. She can make improvements over time. Expect to pay £20-£30k more for something up to date. YouTube has thousands of fantastic videos on any DIY task you wish to learn. Definitely a bad idea to stretch yourself too much with how much you have borrowed.

Or a fixed price, where you know what the seller will accept. Although my experience of fixed price is that agents will try to get seller to go to closing if they get multiple offers. 

user1977

Pansy_Potter_12 said:

It looks like a seller's market currently in Scotland 

There's many more than one "market" in Scotland. Depends where and what she's trying to buy - properties achieving 20+% over valuation certainly isn't the norm.

sheramber

I am in a popular small town on the outskirts of Edinburgh. In 2020 I bid 16% over home report price. I was one of two similar bids and my solicitor negotiated for my bid until 8.30pm.