Buying (Scotland) Would you pay over the home report value?

[Buttons4491]

Just that really, would you pay over the HR value of a property or would you wait?

Properties in the areas we are looking are selling for wayy more the hR right now and we are not getting a shoe in with the offers!

Well, it depends if you want the house really! It’ll depend a bit on your area, your solicitor might help with how much over to offer.

Round here I think you’d usually be looking at about 15-20% Over.
Obviously this means that you either need to look at cheaper properties or have more in savings as your mortgage will only cover the HR value.

But you only ever offer what you think a house is worth.

We bought in 2019 in Scotland and we found that the majority of properties went to closing date and went way above the home report value. It was soul destroying, we managed to secure a property by waiting and waiting-we knew exactly where we wanted to live. Property appeared on Rightmove at 4.20pm, we had viewed it by 6.30pm and we told the sellers we could pay the home report value but no more. We were chain free which helped, the sellers rang us the next day and accepted the offer. I think they were looking for a quick sale otherwise it would have gone way above valuation.

I think it's really difficult at the moment depending on the area. My initial reaction was no, definitely not. However, houses beside us have been going well over home report and going to closing dates within a week so I can completely understand that to get the house you want you might need to.

If I was planning on staying there long term then yes, I would but I'd still be a no if it was for a first home/less than 10 years as I think you could struggle to make the money back when you come to sell. We paid a relatively high price for our first home in 2008 just before the recession and when we sold in 2016 the prices in that area still hadn't recovered to the level we paid (and they still haven't now either from having a quick check).

I think it depends on area and circumstances. DP and I have both just sold our respective flats to buy a house and they went for 10 and 15% over HR. We had several offers, none on or below HR.

Areas we were looking to buy we expected to go quite a bit over as we knew we'd never get what we wanted otherwise so factored that in to our search.

All that said, we put a HR offer in for the house we're buying to gauge how open they were to accepting offers instead of going to a closing date. We fully expected them to push us higher so didn't want to go in at our maximum straight away. Offer was initially rejected but accepted a few days later. They'd already had an offer accepted on another house so we think they just wanted to move quickly. Our lawyer couldn't believe how it played out and fully expected that we'd need to pay at least 10% over HR so you never know.

Well you've answered your own question: if others are paying over and getting houses, you're very likely to have to do the same. If you're lucky enough to find a house nobody else is interested in you may get away without, but so many people have waited to buy - houses all over my town are getting snapped up.

We bought end of 2019 and paid about 7% over the asking. The system definitely sucks but it is what it is.