Buying houses in Scotland

GB72

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We’ve seen the biggest driver being home working, everyone is needing that extra room and more people are happy to commute for the 1 or 2 days a week needed.

Unfortunately it’s not only driven ours up, but it’s impacted a lot of areas we’ve been considering next.

I think that there is also an underestimate of the impact that lockdown had. It may sound strange but people have never really had to live in their houses. It is a place they stay between doing things and, especially with more urban living, people were having to get to grips with the positive and negative aspects of what their property and location offered People left lockdown with a far better idea of what they wanted in terms of a living space and a location and have started to move based on that.
 

Oddsocks

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I think that there is also an underestimate of the impact that lockdown had. It may sound strange but people have never really had to live in their houses. It is a place they stay between doing things and, especially with more urban living, people were having to get to grips with the positive and negative aspects of what their property and location offered People left lockdown with a far better idea of what they wanted in terms of a living space and a location and have started to move based on that.

And now they’ve all been called back to work in the office they have a huge house, if unused gardens and rising energy bills.

Bloody covid!
 

Doon frae Troon

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I honestly would not care.
I’ll pick a price I’m happy with based on the valuation and let it sell.
I hate the offers over system so I’d hate to use it.

What if you overvalue it and you do not get any offers.

When I sold I told the agent that they had slightly undervalued it.
She said it will attract a lot of interest at that price.
My goodness she was right.
 

Robster59

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Very true on the tradesman front, it’s getting the right ones you can trust as well, that many cowboys out there.
We were looking at one property and spoke to a friend of ours who is an architect. We wanted some work done to the kitchen, get it extended, nothing major. We were told that a couple of years ago the work we wanted doing would have cost circa £20K. Now it would cost £50K. If you can get them. They had bids out for work and had very few responses.
 

Robster59

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A landlord was trying to buy it and made a couple of offers well under the asking price with the usual tales of how much it will cost to get the property up to scratch etc. He was told to do one. Just before we exchanged he came in with an offer just over the price we’d agreed to sell at. Quite how he knew that I’m not sure ?.
Again, he was told to do one, despite the agent pushing us to go with him.

House buying and selling would be a lot easier if people where honest.
Now me being cynical...............
And of course the higher price would give the agent more commission on the sale, not including what other offers had been made in the background. :whistle:
 

GB72

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Now me being cynical...............
And of course the higher price would give the agent more commission on the sale, not including what other offers had been made in the background. :whistle:

The comission would actually not be that much of an incentive as that would a small percentage of the 1-2% fee plus a delay in when then get paid. More likely the landlord agrees to sign up with the agent's letting management service if the transaction is agreed. That is of course if you are looking at it very cyically.
 

Brads

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What if you overvalue it and you do not get any offers.

When I sold I told the agent that they had slightly undervalued it.
She said it will attract a lot of interest at that price.
My goodness she was right.
Attracting interest in East Lothian is not a problem lol.
Seriously though, get it valued decide a price around that figure and sell it.
I’ll not see anyone gutted by being outbid buy a miserable few thousand .
First in buys it.
I really do hate the bidding system. It’s led to a horrendous housing situation in this area.
 

jim8flog

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I’ll be moving in the next six months and am dreading it.
I detest the offers over system and will be refusing to use it when I sell.
Fixed price , first come first served
(Not in Scotland) 3 houses have sold in the last 2 months where I live. They were all 'offers in excess' and every one sold the week of listing, 2 were £50K over the bottom line price but I do not know yet what the 3rd is going for. It is a seller's market where I live.
 

jim8flog

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I might move to the North East of England at some point (not allowed to say why on here).
How does buying a house in England work please?

The principal difference is that in England you are not in a firm contract until contracts are exchanged (which can be months are agreeing to buy/sell). Either the buyer or the seller can pull out any time before that happens with no liability to either to get the other to cover any expenses that have been incurred.
 

fundy

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Curious as to why a few times people have said "before mortgage rates go up". Have they not already done so in Scotland?

5 yr fixed rates gone from sub 1% to 3%+ in less than a year, is it different in Scotland or are you just talking about further rises from current rates?
 

Oddsocks

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You need to set expectations very clearly from the start. And deal with buyers yourself rather than only through an agent.

We had someone try it with us after making it very clear that any attempt to change the price after we had agreed one would not be tolerated and I would pull the sale rather than reduce the price.

Sure enough, the day before exchange the agent called to say the buyer was reducing their offer. They were told to do one. They called back with a slightly increased offer, but one still under the agreed price.

At this point I told the agent to stay out of it and sent the buyer a message directly to tell them the price is now £10k over the agreed price and if they didn’t agree the sale was off. At this point the wife was losing her mind.

Sure enough, an hour later I got a message to say they would pay the original agreed price.

We’ve just had the opposite when selling a house. We had 12 people look round on the first day it was up for sale. We agreed a sale to a young couple after after a number of offers.

A landlord was trying to buy it and made a couple of offers well under the asking price with the usual tales of how much it will cost to get the property up to scratch etc. He was told to do one. Just before we exchanged he came in with an offer just over the price we’d agreed to sell at. Quite how he knew that I’m not sure ?.
Again, he was told to do one, despite the agent pushing us to go with him.

House buying and selling would be a lot easier if people where honest.

This is interesting. Our house had been on the market just under a year and the day before we viewed it (already with an offer figure in mind) it was reduced to the exact amount I had. This figure hadn’t been discussed with anyone other than the misses.

We did the viewing at 10am, reviewed it at 3pm and put an offer in at the asking price straight away.

“ sorry they won’t accept that, they only reduced the price to get viewings and was hoping for something near the original listing “

This to me was simply a ploy for the agent to get more commission. As we lived only two roads away I popped round the house and had a cupper with the family. Explained that we were chain free and cleared ready to go and could move in a month if they accepted our offer …

“ what offer, the agent hasn’t phoned since you revisited at 3pm. “

I do think a lot of the prices are being driven up by agents who are just maximising on the current boom.
 

Val

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Curious as to why a few times people have said "before mortgage rates go up". Have they not already done so in Scotland?

5 yr fixed rates gone from sub 1% to 3%+ in less than a year, is it different in Scotland or are you just talking about further rises from current rates?

Its no different, we use the same base rate and same providers so unsure why anyone would think different.
 

D-S

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it does seem a bit strange. If interest rates are set to increase a lot then the movement in house prices is likely to be down not up , as per the house price crashes in the 80s and 90s. Part of the reason for the vastly inflated prices of today is due to historically very low interest rates.
 
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