Some selling advice please for offers over / home report / Scottish system

[dancemom]

We are looking to move home. Looking for a specific type of property so won’t be putting our on the market until we have found something to buy.

We are also in Scotland so a victim of the offers over system and Home Report process The usual process in our area is that if the Home Report comes back at X value you market your home at offers over X value minus £10K and expect to get up to 10% over home report. Ie if the home report was £100K you would market at offers over £90K and expect offers around £105K to £110K.

We have had 3 agents out to value our home. All 3 agents agreed the property would sell very quickly as demand for this type of property in this area is high.

Agent 1 said the Home Report would come back at £150K and to market at offers over £140K hoping to achieve over £160K

Agent 2 said the Home Report would come back at £155K and to market at offers over £145K hoping to achieve up to £170. She later said the Home Report could possibly come in £160K.

Agent 3 has said the Home Report would come back at £170K and to market at offers over £160K hoping to achieve £170K to £180K or possibly more.

Now obviously we would like as much as possible for the property and as most people make offers based on the Home Report value plus a percentage getting a Home Report value at the highest amount would be the best option to maximise profit. However my
concern is Agent 3 is totally bluffing and can’t actually achieve that amount for us. We really liked agent 2 but don’t want to sell the place short. It does seem to be that agents can influence the Home Report surveyors to an extent or else why would three agents have such different expectations of the Home Report value?

And before anyone asks our property is a rare semi in between mostly bungalows so it’s very difficult to compare our place to recently sold in this area.

does anyone have any experience with the Scottish market and Home Report values and offers over system or just advice on what path to take in general?

If your house is desirable as you say then it may go to closing and achieve more than what agent 3 thinks even if you choose agent 2.
I’d go with the agent you liked and feel comfortable to represent you and not get hung up on the home report value, which will be whatever it is and you don’t know yet.

I'm in Scotland OP. Is this Edinburgh by any chance? It just sounds familiar to how I marketed my flats when I sold. They were valued at 150K each. I put them on for offers over £135K. One sold for 160K. The other went to closing and sold for just over £170K.
I live in a different part of Scotland now and am about to embark on selling my current house.

My view is don't put it on too high as it will languish on market and then no longer be fresh. Surely you will need your home report back before you market it anyway so you will know what the value is. I would just pick the agent you think is going to do the best job and is the most realistic/proactive and use their figure. Probably agent 2 by sounds of it. If your home report does come back at 155K then you still put it on at offers over £140K. I'm pretty sure the market will fetch the right price regardless. Buyers usually have a feel for this and if your property is desirable then it will probably be snapped up with an offer above HR value to secure it. I wouldn't debate too much about it. If you have found somewhere to buy then definately go with the lower offers over value.

Thank you, really have been tying myself in knots over it

Go with agent that does the best photos, matterport etc and gives you best deal. 0.5% is achievable but normally nearer 0.7%
Consider an agent that is open at the weekend. The home report will be what it will be. Get yourself a solicitor who’s been doing their job 20 years. Your solicitor is equally as important as the EA.

None of them really know. I would pick whatever company you like best or gave you the best rate. At the end of the day, the market will figure out your price for you as people will offer what they want. Pretty impossible to project with too much certainty. We sold our first house and bought our current house really quickly as we found what we wanted and needed to get things going. Worked out what we needed to make it work and took the first offer that got us that price. Could have made more if we were more patient but we were happy to settle on that specific figure.

All the agents have quoted 1%, the agent we liked had an additional fee for premium marketing however

You can instruct your own home report. It’s the surveyor who will set the valuation via comparable evidence, not the estate agent.

Agree with @dailychallenge Your home report is live for 90 days. Pick your agent based on your gut. Tidy your house within an inch of its life and get your pix done. Then when the house is looking its best get the surveyor round. You book it yourself; the EA will probably give you a choice of two. I think we used Allied. Once you know the HR talk to the agent again and the offers over price will emerge. Can i just say if you don't get as much for your house as you had wanted, remember to reflect that on your next purchase. So if you get £10k less, you offer £10k less.

This.

There's absolutely no point in asking estate agents to take a guess at the valuation when you are required to get a HR and valuation from a surveyor.

It’s very much come to light that the estate agents can and do influence the surveyor when it comes to the Home Report value, this is why they have preferred surveyors to work with. All three of the agents have said they will “discuss” the Home Report figure with the surveyor before its final

I would strongly recommend selling before buying. We have just been selling property from my FIL estate in Scotland. We got one offer 20% over the asking price and another 10% over. We took the lower one as the higher one hadn't even got their house on the market yet. They said they kept losing out on properties for this reason yet didn't think to sell first.
Our lawyer also recommended not going with someone who isn't proceedable. They have had problems with sales falling through much more than they used to. Now you may have access to funds to be able to buy before you sell but If there's 2 offers on a house you could lose out if you haven't sold yours. It was different 30 years ago when things moved faster.

Totally agree with this as I’ve just sold in Scotland. However, dig a little deeper as to where the money is coming from, our cash, ready to proceed buyers were actually getting the money from their parents house sale. Fortunately it’s all gone through ( almost!)

Oops meant to quote Musicaltheatremum! Shows what state my head’s in!

Will not be selling before we buy, as already stated our property will sell in no time and we are very specific about our onward purchase so it could be some time before the right property comes along. All the agents we have consulted so far agreed this was the best way also.

That's fine but be prepared that if you have a property to sell your offer on your dream house may not be accepted. The person who put in the higher offer for ours has lost out on several properties because of this and our lawyer said more sales are falling through these days so sellers are becoming more cautious. I'm not saying you shouldn't do what your doing and your house may sell really quickly but Scotland is becoming more like England in that they(the sellers) want the buyers house sold before they'll entertain your offer.

That’s true, we encountered one seller who initially wouldn’t let us view because we weren’t sold or a cash buyer and that is their prerogative, I understand that. Most agents just check we are ready to sell, got a mortgage in principle and had agent’s valuations done which we are and have.

Completely agree with @Musicaltheatremum I've recently sold in Scotland and purchased in England. All the stress was with the Scottish sale. The Scottish system is not what it was even three years ago when I sold my parents' house. As I said at start of thread, find yourself an experienced solicitor as part of your team as it is a very bumpy ride.

That being said if you are in a sure fire area you have leeway to do things a little differently. I was in a sure fire area and sold fast but don't assume smooth - our removers arrived 15 hours after the missives were concluded. Down to the wire is much more common now. But huge luck. You can do it!

You can instruct the surveyor yourself rather than going through the agent.

Yes I’m aware however if an agent has sway over the surveyor and can get a higher home report value it’s probably better to go via the agent

Ultimately your EA is bound to know all the surveyors for your area, some better than others. If they suggest a couple who they think are good, just choose one of those. The admin people at the chosen surveyor will call you and ask what dates suit. You prepay the amount. Once paid they will come out and do the survey. Afterwards they will send you a link to the survey. If you don’t like what you read or have questions, don’t sign it off immediately, call the surveyor and discuss with them. The problem is if you electronically press, agree or consent then your home report is cast in stone without your questions answered.

I would just add watch the timing of when you go up. The first two weeks of the Scottish school holidays is notoriously quiet even with the FTB market. I’d be tempted to put it up once the schools are back assuming you haven’t found somewhere but get all your photos and marketing materials done. If you wait until September then obviously don’t get the survey done until days before house goes live - not unless you think values will fall because of economic factors. Now that’s another can of worms…

I agree with this. Estate agents can massively influence the valuation in an extremely dodgy way. If agent 3 can get the valuation they claim, it doesn’t mean it’s priced to sell — an overvalued property will put buyers off from even noting interest, leading to the home sitting on the market, getting reduced, etc. You want to avoid that. I’d go with the agent you had a good feeling about.

And whether you should sell first or if it matters — in my experience having recently bought in Glasgow with our house under offer, the vast majority of estate agents we spoke to didn’t care at all, since Glasgow is a seller’s market and demand for properties is so high. That being said, what finally helped us buy a property without going to closing (which we consistently lost out on as we couldn’t offer enough over HR) was the fact our house was sold as had everyone else in our chain.

Thank you everyone your input has been really helpful.