Property in Glasgow, help!

[felkov]

We're trying to buy a house at the moment and it feels like the market has gone a bit crazy recently. e.g. we've lost out on 2 places that went to a closing date and another place went under offer the day before our viewing was supposed to take place. We saw a nice house on Tuesday and made an offer (at the home report value) yesterday. Today the agents have said the vendors "want to wait till after the weekend" which I assume means they have other viewings areanged and will try to make this go to closing date as well.

I feel like we're never going to get an offer accepted unless we go waaay over home report value which seems madness! Anyone else going through this??

[Momagain1]

Went through it last year.

We were told that vendors expect £15,000-20,000 over the home report value. Which makes me question the purpose of HRV being listed. Why not just list the selling price then, so negotiations can begin within that range, instead of the buyer having to guess where to begin.

At any rate, I downgraded my search criteria to account for this. In the end, we looked at 6 places, offered on two. The other one we offered on, we knew we were taking the piss, but hoped her looming due date meant they were 'motivated' sellers, as it was absolutely perfect. We considered going up after their refusal, but decided we didnt want the furniture-free lifestyle spending all our cash would put us in.

[StaceyAndTracey]

Sorry , but if you are buying in a popular area, You need to pay what the going rate is . It's not the figure that's on the Home Buyers report, it's how much houses like that usually sell for .

If a seller has had lots of interest, they woudl be mad to accept a modest offer now rather than going to a closing date in a week or so

[felkov]

Stacey I agree, but surely the whole point of the home report is to give an estimate of market value. I thought the mortgage lenders would take the HRV for their valuation as well? Otherwise why bother?

As a buyer what can you do to get an offer accepted? Is there some sort of unwritten level of what is an acceptable offer?

We're looking in popular areas so I'd hardly expect to get a bargain but it seems crazy to go in with an offer of say 25k over the HRV as your first offer, but maybe I'm way off the mark?

[felkov]

Thanks Momagain i am gonna need lots of i think!

Is it estate agents making vendors greedy or do vendors genuinely believe their houses are worth more than the mortgage valuation I don't get it.

[StaceyAndTracey]

The mortgage valuation is how much you can borrow on it, that's all . It's a rough guide to price, not " what it's worth " .

It's worth what someone will pay for it . And it's a bit unfair to say that vendors are " greedy " - they just want the best price they can get . Occasionally they will have other needs to, such as preferring an early or later entry date . But usually it's about the cash .

are you seriously suggesting you woudl be any different if you were selling ?

If you know your offer is excellent and the best the vendor can get , im sure you will be successful at the closing date . I can't understand why you are so angry at the vendor for wanting to go to closing , it's normal practise when you have several notes of interest or offers .

I understand that house buying is stressful and expensive , but getting annoyed at the normal process , when agents are just doing their job, isn't going to help you .

Good luck with your offer

[chocoluvva]

If you're new to the Scottish system it's can come as a shock to the system! IME sellers very rarely accept an offer if it isn't the highest.

[AgentProvocateur]

I'd expect to offer at least 10% over on an offers over. In the crazy days before the financial crash, we were offering 20% over and not getting it.

[felkov]

We've bought twice before but both were fixed price so never had to go through this. Our offers have been c.10k over the home report value/ more than 10% over the offers over.

I'm not angry just feel like I don't understand the system and therefore am not doing it right.

[StaceyAndTracey]

If you are seriously interested in a property , you make a note of interest to their agent . If there are more than a couple of notes of ineterst, the agency will eventually set a closing date

Then you will be notified when the closing date is . You put in your offer , via your lawyer , about 30 mins before

The vendor doesn t have to accept any offer, but they nearly always accept the highest , usually that same day

There little point in just making an offer out the blue, unless the property has been on the market for a while and there's been little or no interest . Or if for some reason the agent tells you that an offer in the region of £xxx woudo be enought to clinch it .

If there is competition for the property , you need to offer more that comparable houses in the area have been going for . If that's 5% , then your 10% looks good . If it's 20 per cent , you are almost certainly wasting your time and money offering 10per cent .

If the HBR says £200k but they sell at 225k, there's no point in saying " well I think 220 is a fair offer as its 10 % over and if they don't accept it they are greedy "

If you want to get it , you will need to pay £225 or more .

Do you know the sale price of all the smilar properties sold recently ? If not, you should . That's the key figure, not the HBR.

[wearenotinkansas]

I think there is real problem that people are offering significantly over the home report values and tbh I am surprised that banks are willing to lend for purchases that are significantly over, although maybe that kind of depends on how much equity the buyer is putting in.

I've just had an offer accepted at 2% over home report value (£5k). for a property in a very popular area where most properties are going for at least 10% over. That said, i think the home report valuation was very high in the first place.

The agent also told me that a lot of deals are falling through at the moment because buyers can't get mortgages. I wonder if that is because the banks are baulking at the amount being offered.

The agents really stoke up the demand too, which they are paid to do, but does mean bubbles form very quickly.

[felkov]

Thanks Stacey I think part of the difficulty is there haven't been that many sales in the last year so there isn't much recent data to help.

Zoopla is pretty good but on the street we're interested in only 1 house sold in 2014 and only 2 sold in 2013. They were all different type/size of house to the one we want, but sold for around 12% - 14% over the offers over price so maybe that's an indicator of what people expect. It feels like such a guessing game!

Our solicitor hasn't been much help with the closing dates. He thought 10k over HR value would get us the house we wanted a couple of months ago. But from what I've read since then most people put in an 'odd' number e.g. instead of offering £220k you might put your offer as £220853 or some other random number just incase someone has put a similar offer. Not sure if that would help but I guess no harm trying?

[felkov]

Congratulations wearenotinkansas and good to hear some houses are going for only slightly over HR. there's hope for us yet!

[wearenotinkansas]

thanks - although there are some issues which mean we might not be able to complete - annoyingly!

I think ultimately you have to offer what you think it is worth. Otherwise, if the market slows or goes south again you will end up kicking yourself.

Do you have a mortgage agreed in principle and/or house to sell? They can influence someone's decision too.

[felkov]

I've spoken to a couple of brokers about the mortgage but not got an agreement in principle yet. Nothing to sell at the moment, we sold last year so have money in the bank burning a hole in my pocket ready to spend! I thought that would put us in a favourable position but doesn't seem to have made any difference so far

[Christinayangstwistedsister]

It's why we eventually decided to buy a new build, we couldn't be bothered with o/o or chains

[StaceyAndTracey]

Ahem... Why are you putting in offers when you don't have a mortgage agreed in principle? Im hoping you have a HUGE deposit and expect to have lenders falling over themselves for your business .

What would you do if you got a phone call tomorrow accepting the offer you made yesterday ? I do hope it's a long entry date

[StaceyAndTracey]

BTW in scotland no one really cares if you are not in a chain . Sorry

[felkov]

Interesting about the chain not being a factor. Do you know why people don't take that into consideration Stacey?

If needed we could do the whole thing as a cash purchase and then remortgage later so timing shouldn't be too much of a problem I hope.

[StaceyAndTracey]

I assume its not an issue because it's very rare for the sale not to go ahead after missives are concluded. If the buyer does pull out, they can be sued for any costs .

" we couldnt sell our house for the money we wanted "
" we changed our minds "

Are not valid reasons because any offers that are made and accepted are legally binding.

Some contracts now ask for a 10% deposit to be paid a few days aftre missives are concluded

So people don't make frivolous offers " just to test the water " . If you make an offer, you have to be able to go ahead with it . You need to have the money in place , either cash, a mortgage , or be 100% sure you can sell for the price you need .

So if a vendor has 6 offers on the table, they will choose the one that's the highest . Cash Buyers don't have much of an advantage

[StaceyAndTracey]

So you random offer made on Tuesday was a waste of money - the vendors would never have accepted it if they had plenty other prospective purchasers . You should just have noted interest and made your best offer at the closing date .

Unless the vendors agent said that they woudl welcome an offer at the HBR level . Did you or your agent have that conversation with the vendors agent ?

Your solicitor sounds a bit rubbish TBH

[felkov]

So from a vendors point of view, if they receive an offer, but its maybe not as high as they hoped, would they be better to go back to the potential buyer and negotiate, or wait and hope that other buyers are interested and therefore in due course a closing date is set?

Is that just down to personal preference of the vendor? One of our viewings was cancelled by the agent due to the house going under offer the day before we were due to view. In that situation, if I've understood what you're saying Stacey, we should basically be putting in a note of interest on every property we want to view in order to stop another potential buyer getting their offer accepted without setting a closing date. Is that right?

[felkov]

And I am beginning to doubt our solicitor! We've used this firm before but the partner has retired since our last house purchase and not sure about how good this new partner is.

[StaceyAndTracey]

They won't set a closing date until the have several notes of interest and have a reasonable expectation of good offers. Its the agents job to sort that out

If yours was the only offer on the horizon and it was nearly at their expectations, they MIGHT come back to you . The fact that they didn't shows that you were well short and / or they have a lot of interest . Why would they NOT just set a closing date for , say, the end of next week ?of you are serious ,you will submit your offer again and they can compare it with the others .

They've NOT said " no" , they've just said it's too early .

Why would you put a note of interes on a house you've not seen yet ? How do you know you want it ? I'm guessing that there's nothing stopping you doing so, but you will run up a big legal bill fairly quickly , and the local agents will soon learn you are frivolous .

[StaceyAndTracey]

I should say that I'm not a lawyer or an estate agent ,just someone who has bought and sold several houses and is currently looking .

[felkov]

Stacey you are certainly knowledgeable and more help than our solicitor at the moment!

I wouldn't want to put in frivolous notes of interest. It was maybe just a one-off situation, but the house looked ideal from the photos etc and had only been on the market 5 days so I was surprised when our viewing was cancelled by the agent because it had gone under offer. Could have been that the vendors got a really good offer without a closing date though. It seems that the market is moving so quickly in some parts of Glasgow at the moment. Another agent told me that a house we liked the look of was no longer available because the first people to view it made an offer which was accepted so it was under offer within 24hrs of being listed. So that's why we were trying to put in an early offer on the house we saw this week, but obviously it wasn't high enough for them to accept yet.