SiPie

Yeah right...... Grrrrrrr

This place has gone feckin mad ...

At least I've got a tent

ozzy

That's why my brother and me still live with my Dad

Property prices are just ridiculous. I wouldn't mind so much, but most of the new homes are tiny inside and have **** all garden.

My m8 was looking at houses in Edinburgh and some are going for almost 50K over the asking price.

OK, if you can afford it I suppose

Stefan

sti-04!!

TELL ME ABOUT IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!

been looking for 6 to 8 months now & i think i may have found one (stefan its hareshaw) but depends on if the loon wants stupid overs !!

the joys eh ??

ozzy

Hi Stephen,

Some nice big houses up there and great countryside for kids. There's plans to build a new Golf Course (Greenmills IIRC) up there too.

Maybe I'll find a nice cheap house in Australia when I'm there in a few weeks time and not bother comin back

Stefan

Johnny50

House prices are just stupid.
Before we got the house we're in, we put in an offer..
We went 52k over the asking price...and never got it !!

SiPie

The gutting bit is when you stupidly think you have a realistic chance at a property by offering your own small fortune above asking ........ then the whole truth hits you that you've missed out by another huge fortune to some freak (oooooh another one....shock) offer

It's not as if it's the centre of Edinburgh..... I'm talking 40% over asking for Penicuik FFS

...and then a solicitor has the guts to say "Don't worry Si...as things are really slowing down"... yeah right .. sell me your house then, ya big to55pot

Apologies for the rant guys.... this whole things just feckin me off at the moment

David_Wallis

dont you have some wierd way of selling houses up there where its sealed bids?

Is it like this everywhere in scotland?

David

SiPie

It's just on an 'offers over' basis David....

Which roughly equates to 'gastronomically highest bid over the set asking price wins'......

The one advantage over the English system is that you don't get the chain breaking down ... but it's still **** .... well today it is anyway

wrxmania

It's because it's near Nobles?!?!

Brian

Civic Type R

Lads,

Get yersels registered with this .........bang in your post code and you get automatic notifications for houses being punted in your area. Only £2 a hoose which aint bad. Knowledge is king ------> good for when your buying as you can guage the going rate

www.myhouseprice.com

Cheers

Cal

JohnS

iTrader: (1)

The Scottish house buying system:

Generally houses are priced slightly below their market value, and it's an offers over system. You are free to view a house, and make an offer (usually through your solicitor), and the seller can accept or reject the offer. If it's lower than the seller wanted, or much lower than than solicitor thinks the house will sell for, or the property has been on the market for only a day or two, then chances are the offer will be rejected.

If the seller gets lots of interest in the house (normally via noted interests, which mean the seller can't sell the house without first informing you), then they will normally set a closing date. It's then up to potential buyers to submit a sealed bid of their offer to buy the house. When all the bids are opened, it's typically (ie 95% of the time) the highest bid that wins, but sometimes the entry dates may not be ideal and it may go to the 2nd highest bidder if they are more flexible.

It's then a legally binding contract to purchase the house, the the buyer can't change his mind without incurring serious financial penalties. The seller can't pull out either, without too suffering similar penalties. It's very rare for a deal to fall through at this stage.

If a house has been on the market for a long time (say 4 - 6 weeks), and it's still not sold, then the buyer will be much more likely to accept an offer without going to a closing date. In fact, some buyers make such offers on the basis that they won't bid if it goes to a closing date (ie take it or leave it).

If it hasn't been sold for several months, then chances are the property will be sold on a fixed price basis (ie first to offer that amount, or close to it will buy it).

Seems fair enough, but when the market is bouyant (like it has been), then there is generally a huge amount of interest in most properties that come onto the market. This means an early closing date is almost inevitable, especially if the house/flat is in a sought after area.

In this case, if the property is finished to a very high standard, or has great potential, then some people are prepared to pay not only above the asking price, but well above the valuation as well. They may have made lots of money on their previous house, or have a large deposit, and simply are prepared to pay over the odds for that property. With prices rising, it doesn't take too long for the valuations to catch up with the asking prices, so if buyers stay in the property at least a year, then they are confident that they won't lose out if they have to sell. Great for the eventual purchaser, but not so good for the potentially dozens of other buyers who lost out. This is especially tough for first time buyers, without big deposits. Often, there's only a matter of a few hundred pounds between winning and losing bids, and potential buyers feel hard done by, as they would have happily paid a few hundred pounds more to secure the property.

As offers traditionally have to be "clean" (ie not subject to survey) at a closed bid, then this has meant great expense for the buyers who lose out.

However, it is now more common practice for offers to be put in at a closed bid (or even before then), that are subject to survey. The buyer can then choose to accept the offer, giving the purchaser the chance to get a survey done, and then confirm the offer (usually within a day or two maximum).

This means it is possible for a potential purchaser to withdraw from the deal if anything is found in the survey, or the valuation is well below the offer price, and they don't have the cash to top up a mortgage to complete the deal. This would give the purchaser the chance to submit a lower offer, which may or may not be accepted.

What this means, is that buyer should not be afraid of submitting an offer of the "very most" they would be prepared to pay for a property, assuming they can afford it. If you only ever bid a reasonable price above the asking/valuation, then in a bouyant market you'll almost always lose out. If you win, then you have got the house you want at a price you were prepared to pay. You'll unlikely know if you paid a few hundred pounds more than the next bid, or a few thousand, or even tens of thousands more, but it doesn't matter, as you've got the house you wanted!! Chances are in a few months time the prices will have risen by the overbid amount anyway, so you won't lose out.

Another option, is to buy into a survey that someone else has had done, typically for about 50% of the original price to get the survey done. It means that most potential buyers are working from the same info. Can help to submit a "clean" bid at a closing date, for not a big outlay.

Having said that, the housing market does seem to be slowing down a bit. When we sold our house about 2 months ago, we had 36 different people around to view in two weeks, and that's for a small 2 bed house. A bigger 3 bed house (more desirable!) in the same area went on the market 2 weeks ago, and has had less than 10 people around to view it!

It seems that the peak time for buying is spring, so that you can move during the summer school holiday period, but during the summer months, fewer people are selling/buying properties as they are away on holiday etc. With the recent rises in interest rates etc, now might be a very good time to pick up a bargain (if there is such a thing!).

John

JohnS

iTrader: (1)

You can get a free list of house selling prices here:

http://www.housepricescotland.com/

if you don't want to pay the £2

Might not be quite up to date (most are a month or two behind anyway), but you should be able to find out what the person selling the house paid for it in the first place

STI-NUTTER

personally i would not buy in the city, like over the bridge in rosyth as house prices there are still reassonable, well if you look hard enough

K

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

John, that site just gives the asking price, my old neighbours house is listed at 77,200 last time I spoke with them before they moved they were considering an offer for 105k

SCOSaltire

i sold my scoob to buy a house about a year ago
still trying to buy a house, and this is in Dundee!

Flats here are typically offers over 70k - and the people pay 110 or more!
Ive nae chance at all of getting a flat, never mind a house!
If only i had bought the house 3 years ago instead of the scooby...
Could have both by now.

Totally sympathise with u Sipie

AR

Any economist will tell you that in the long term, house prices can only rise in value by peoples' ability to pay; ie wages and, specifically, their rate of increase. Therefore in the long term, house prices rise by wage inflation (4-5% pa or so). In the short to medium term, rises can be faster if interest rates are below long term averages (as they now are) and there is a shortage of new houses (current impact of rising divorce rates).

Interest rates are now rising and, certainly in Edinburgh, there is poor yield support (rents are low). With prices up c15% pa in the last three years, ability to pay is low. Prices rises will therefore slow over the next year or so, so don't worry!

Civic Type R

The value of a house these days is meaningless....if you're REALLY keen on a specific house and you can't see yourself shiftin' for a while then you'll pay top dollar. End of story ........

Cal

ps I hate the nonsense that the Daily Express prints w.r.t house prices- they just wind everyone up

LG John

Si, what is your beef mate?? I thought you had a house and were sorted??? We really need to catch up sometime!! I know we keep saying it but we really need to have a few coffee's and games of pro-ev before i f-off on holiday at the end of july

Kendo

Tell me about it I'm a joiner & i putting up new houses, the size of the house you get for your money is a disgrace, but folk are willing to pay £87k for a 2 bedroom flat thats marginally bigger than my downstairs !!

I'm in a rented 2 bedroom house & here i'll stay for few years (unleast till the scoob is done) it doesn't make sense for me to buy considering i'm next to nothing for rent etc then thinking what i'd be to pay a morgage.

SiPie

Tis rented mate May have an option to buy it and it's a cool enough house... but I'm sick of chucking rent away down the empty hole

Don't worry mate..phone works both ways and I'll give you a ring soon

Cheers

PS Another offer in this morning but probably have nae chance as I've only offered 31% over asking ... pah

Thought I'd chance my luck seeing as I had Greece in the office sweep for Euro 2004

scoobylav

Your right guys, we bought our house coming up 3 years ago, thank f*ck.
It has increased in value by 50k in since then

SiPie

New developement at Rosewell from Bryant Homes ....

... 2 bed starting at £172,000

Rosewell FFS

I genuinely thought (and NO disrespect to anyone who actually lives in Rosewell) that if we couldn't afford to buy new anywhere else, then this developement at Rosewell would be a possibility as to be honest, it was a complete dump until relatively recently.... so we were on the mailing list and we'd get notification when the first stage were going to be built ...

So off we go to look at the first batch up for sale and find out that people had been camping from the evening before to reserve their house ....

Amazing

LG John

Come live in my spare room mate Cheer rent

imlach

Nuts eh!
I've said it before on here, but in our search 2-3 years ago, most places in Edinburgh suburbs (that we went for - which obviously means they were classy attractive places!) were going for 40-90% over the asking price.

The one we finally got was 62% over the asking price, and it had 48 notes of interest, 16 offers, and 2 of the offers were within £1k of my winning offer.

Since then (2 years ago), the house has gone up in value by 36%, which because of pay freezes at work, means that I probably wouldn't have been able to afford where we are now if I was buying today!!

Your solicitor can spout all the $hite he/she wants, but Edinburgh is a tough market as you know. It is bounded by the Firth of Forth, and the green belt. Therefore, land is at a premium, which means there's not much new family housing being built (only flats). The consequence of this is that prices remain strong for good quality family homes with gardens in nice areas. My opinion is that these prices will remain quite firm.

There may be 8000 properties on the ESPC database at any one time, but I can guarantee that of those 8000, a frightningly low 40 of these will be of interest to you at any one time!! Now, there's about 1000 people in Edinburgh thinking like you, and that's 1000 people chasing 40 decent properties of a certain price/style/area.

It's gutting, but you just have to persevere. No-one ever really ends up with their ideal property - a compromise is always reached in most cases. You'd think £300k would buy you a nice detached family home, but sadly, even with £300k, something has to give....be it area or 1 less bedroom, or a garage, etc.

I think over a 6 month period, we bid for 8 (most subject to survey). Got there in the end......just!

Don't envy you mate!

imlach

PS I know it sounds stupid, but after 7 failed bids, I had 7 lots of data on asking price, valuation, selling prices at that point in time....

On the house we finally got, I had used my own special mathematical formula using the recent historical data to work out our offer price.....you get a feel for it after 7 failed bids. I then slapped on a teeny bit extra from the price that my formula spewed out....

Given 2 bids were within £1k, I think I got it pretty right.

It seemed a lot at the time, but every house on the street had since sold for £60-80k+ more in the last year.

pjmc

I have been told by a pal that works as a broker for a large bank in London that the smart money for the next while is going into ROPE.... cos when interest rates continue to rise the poor eejits that have mortgaged themselves to the hilt and are only servicing their debt each month are going to be littering the bridges and lamp posts everywhere..... so maybe you should just wait a wee while longer si....
Simple truth of the matter is we are heading for the same fate that hit Japan a few years back people with 100 year loans and negative equity cos unless they start drug dealing I cant see how the average family with an annual income of less than £50k can afford to pay a £250k mortgage....

P.

SiPie

Thanks for all the input guys.....

Withdrawn the offer this morning as we really are settling for 2nd best and what's the point in living somewhere you won't be happy in, just for the sake of getting on the property ladder ...

I fully expect compromise somewhere but you've got to draw the line..

There's a wedding to plan at the moment and priority must go to that... as enjoying 5 1/2 weeks in New Zealand shouldn't be compromised with worrying about house buying IMHO

Will start this all over again in March